<p>Disagree re no bright line standards at most competitive schools for unhooked applicants. The top schools could fill their classes five (and sometimes ten) times over with straight 700 students, and this allows them to say that the SAT is not the determining factor in most cases. This is true because there are so many students in that category from which to chose. But this is not the same as saying that the unhooked candidate with less than all 700s stands a decent chance at admission. </p>
<p>Look at all of the top schools where the median 25% percent SAT is 700 or above. Those are schools where unhooked applicants without straight 700s have little chance. Indeed, even straight 700s are not cutting it for most unhooked applicants at top schools unless the CR or M score is in the mid 700s. Finally, I think 700s across the board make a big difference in determining the most coveted URMs and athletes.</p>
<p>Great that child was accepted at UC and chose safety the child liked better. Chicago is the notable exceptions to the straight 700 rule because they do put lots of emphasis on the essays. I do think, however, that most top schools will choose the 2360 student with good grades (3.5 or so unweighted) who has excelled in a particular area (say math or science) over the 2060 student with top grades (say 3.9 unweighted).</p>
<p>^^^ I would not be so sure.
Many ad coms say that stellar test scores (2360) and not so stellar GPA (3.5) is not desirable. They would rather see stellar GPA (3.9) in difficult classes and OK test scores (2060).</p>
<p>He needs subject tests, so his SAT will be visible. </p>
<p>He took ACT because it was required by his school. Yes, he does have this top score.
But even if 36 would not be there I would still advise him against testing again with 800/730/800. To me the fact that someone does take a test once says something as well.</p>
<p>@post #43 - “They would rather see stellar GPA (3.9) in difficult classes and OK test scores (2060).” – They actually would rather see stellar UW gpa (3.75) in difficult classes and OK test scores (2100).</p>
<p>Neither would I. But it seems like a lot of parents, and probably more students, agonize over this on here. I personally think it would be nuts to retake the SAT with a 2330 -even if that’s your best superscore and you have no ACT score. If you also have a 36 ACT it’s incomprehesible to me. Unless you enjoy taking standardized tests, which some people actually do.</p>
<p>But if you only have the SAT, and the 730 is in Math, for example, and you are trying to get into Caltech or MIT, it is a tougher decision. Especially if you don’t have a lot of other indicators of your math ability. I think it would be a lot easier with a 36 under your belt.</p>
I think it depends on the school. If it’s a school that wants to protect its yield (and we know which ones those are) and they think that the 2360 student will be accepted and matriculate elsewhere, he might be less preferred than the 2100 who would attend the school. On the other hand, if it’s a school that wants to puff up the numbers for USNWR, that 2360 looks good, even with the lower GPA…
Look at the variables when you consider GPA, rigor of classwork, strength of school, number of APs, ECs, sports, essay, level of interest,awards, whether applying for FA plays a role, hooked, unhooked??? Analytically we all try to distill it down to a simple formula when it’s not that simple. My son is low key with the approach of " it’s all submitted and it’s out of my hands unless I get called for interviews" when I’m the one looking at scatterplots on parchment and collegedata.com… April 1 can’t come soon enough…</p>
<p>"He needs subject tests, so his SAT will be visible. "</p>
<p>Depends on the school. Penn insists that if subject tests are submitted, all SAT scores need to be turned in. It is about the only school I have heard of which requires this committment.</p>
<p>Calmon,
It seems you want to argue the strict letter of the article instead of the spirit/usefullness of the article.
In my view, the statements in the article are closer to the truth than are the statements of Adcoms from the very top schools. Adcoms would say that students always have a decent chance if they are “well rounded”. The article says that the chance of admission is very small if students are unhooked. The latter is much closer to the actual reality.</p>
<p>This kind of discussion goes around and around, but it seems to me that the most selective colleges are looking for a complete package that’s impressive. That package has several parts, and different colleges may value different parts differently (thus, perhaps Chicago does care about the essay more than others do). To maximize your chances of admission, you want ALL the parts to be as good as possible. You still may have a great chance if some of the parts are extremely strong, even if some of the others are weaker (i.e., 2400 and 4.0 will probably counterbalance some weakness in ECs). You may get bonus points for hooks such as URM, legacy or athlete, or other specific things such as geographical location, ability to play a particular musical instrument, or interest in an undersubscribed major. You also need not to have anything bad in your package, like negative recs or criminal or disciplinary problems. Put all that together, and it becomes a real challenge to predict how a particular applicant will do. I think it’s possible to construct an imaginary applicant who really would get in anywhere, but there aren’t too many real-life people for whom you can do this.</p>
<p>I don’t understand. Isn’t GPA of 3.9 better than GPA of 3.75? Who mentioned weighted? You do not provide weighted GPA to very competitive schools…</p>
<p>My point it that “very special hook” implies something unattainable. That’s not the case.</p>
<p>I recently had a discussion with a Columbia grad. He was talking about his younger brother’s college prospects, and I asked if the younger brother had high school grades as strong as his. He said that his high school grades weren’t all that hot. I was surprised – I said something along the lines of, “your grades must have been pretty strong to get you into Columbia”. He then told me a story about his admission that involved a video he had posted to YouTube – apparently his admission rep really liked it and he thought that was what had made the difference for him. </p>
<p>I know of quite a few stories of kids getting into top schools despite without being super students or doing anything super amazing. And these are not “hooked” applicants – they are white or Asian kids from middle class backgrounds. </p>
<p>But they did have something – something memorable that they did, something specific that they could talk about on their admissions application that was enough to draw attention to their apps and essentially complete the sale with whoever is reading the app and making the recommendation. </p>
<p>I think another unifying factor of these anecdotes is that the “something” tends to be a quality that was developed without college admissions in mind, or certainly without the goal of trying to “impress” the college. These are kids who have a variety of interests and talents, and draw upon those in putting together a college app.</p>
<p>You can call it a “special hook” if you want, but then there are a whole lot of kids with potential “special” hooks. </p>
<p>I do think that, unfortunately, there are kids who don’t have any such “hook”, often because they have spent 4 years of high school trying to conform to what they believe that colleges will want for them. They overload their schedules with AP courses in subjects that don’t interest them, they pursue all the activities that they think will impress the colleges, and they put a great deal of effort into achieving high test scores. Some of them will get accepted to the colleges they aspire to, others won’t. But one problem for them is that their college apps look the same as from all the other high achievers. It’s pretty hard to nurture and develop the type of qualities that will come off as different or intriguing to an ad com when you are spending all your time trying to excel at what you think the colleges are looking for. While those kids may end up with very impressive credentials, there is also a cookie cutter quality – it’s hard for the ad coms to tell one from the other. </p>
<p>Bottom line: part of college admissions strategy is to present something that busy admissions readers will remember from one day to the next. That “something” really does not need to be amazing – the kid doesn’t have to cure cancer or win a Pulitzer prize.</p>
<p>It’s just a complete crap shoot. I take the Harvard guy who comes to our school every year for the book awards advice: 100% of students who don’t apply to Harvard will not be accepted." Kind of ironic from our school, since I don’t think a student has ever been admitted to Harvard. Thank God my kid could care less! Lol</p>
<p>"I know of quite a few stories of kids getting into top schools despite without being super students or doing anything super amazing. And these are not “hooked” applicants – they are white or Asian kids from middle class backgrounds. "</p>
<p>I know lots of asian kids who get shut out of the top schools with the best of everything. Unless they are faking their way in claiming to be first generation, there is no way an average asian kid is getting in.</p>
<p>Many of what are called “hooks” are unattainable if you do not already have them. Examples include legacy and URM. Some are attainable if your parents do what it takes to obtain them, such as a giant donation, or publishing a book about tiger parenting that makes you a celebrity. Of the usual “hooks”, the one that actually is dependent on your own achievement is the recruited athlete one.</p>