<p>I'm not sure if the 'title' makes sense, but from the following list, which one would colleges consider most important, 2nd most importan, etc. Please list in # order.
~SAT Score
~GPA
~Volunteer/ Work Experience
~Extracurricular Activities
~Leadership Positions
~Sport/ Music (if you play an instument)-i guess this would fall under the ECs
~Essay
~Recommendations
~Prestigious Awards/ NMSQT Qualifier (if you are one)
Thank You!</p>
<p>I think elite schools would have a different prioritization that say, well, non-elites:</p>
<p>Elites: SAT, Prestigious awards, essay, GPA, everything else
Non-elites: GPA, SAT, everything else</p>
<p>JMHO of course.</p>
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<p>Elite schools all say that academics are the most important part of any application, so I would put transcript at the top of the list (instead of numerical GPA).</p>
<p>@Newhope: Not true that IV leagues consider SAT the most. A friend of mine was just at a Brown infosess and said that the adcom herslef mad eit clear. Brown is placing almost no weight on the SAT now because of all the studies done recently which have rendered it practically useless. </p>
<p>They are looking more at your GPA in core academic areas and your extraccuricular activies. They want a good student who isn’t all about school and work.</p>
<p>You can check the common data set for each school you are interested in and it will list the factors they consider, ranked in importance from very important, important, considered,to not considered. Just google the name of the school and common data set and it should come up.</p>
<p>or use a handy little tool called Collegeboard.com…</p>
<p>Collegeboard will not be the most updated, but it will have the same info from previous years.</p>
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</p>
<p>Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha! </p>
<p>OK, I’ve stopped laughing, adcom say the darnedest things. Let’s all watch to see if their average goes down this year. Somehow I’m betting they will get another very high SAT average class while placing “no weight” on it.</p>
<p>This really varies widely by school. Harvard’s Common Data Set lists every factor, academic and non-academic, as “considered”—i.e., neither “important” nor “very important.” Yale lists all academic factors as “very important,” along with ECs, talent/ability, and character. Princeton is similar to Yale but it drops ECs back a notch to “important.” Brown, on the other hand, lists only “rigor of secondary school record”, “talent/ability,” and “character” as “very important”; other academic factors (GPA, class rank, standardized test scores, essays, recommendations) along with ECs are back a notch, at “important.”</p>
<p>I know some people are skeptical that adcoms actually adhere to the standards and priorities set out in the Common Data Set. But colleges seem to take some care in filling these out, and absent specific evidence to the contrary I’d be inclined to give some weight to what the colleges say about their own admissions criteria. A common mistake on CC is to assume that all colleges (or all “elite colleges”) are alike and weight these various factors the same. They don’t. Another common mistake on CC is to assume that SAT scores count for a lot more than they actually do. Not that they’re unimportant, but I’ve yet to see a school say that SAT scores count for more than rigor of HS curriculum and grades, and many say standardized test scores count for less.</p>
<p>"Quote:Brown is placing almost no weight on the SAT now </p>
<p>Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha! </p>
<p>OK, I’ve stopped laughing, adcom say the darnedest things. Let’s all watch to see if their average goes down this year. Somehow I’m betting they will get another very high SAT average class while placing “no weight” on it."</p>
<p>Couldnt agree more. Why does it still require it then? Why not make it optional? Did you really think that the adcom would tell you that SAT was the most important thing on the application??? Of course they are going to try to belittle each aspect on its own and claim that the holistic approach is used. If a school wants SAT even from transfer students (and Brown indeed does), it places a serious weight on it or at least it is an important part of the application for them. </p>
<p>P.S. IVIES want students who are not all about school and work ??? Hmmm, yeah tell me about it . . . . Its nice to be well rounded and all, but scholastic qualities are given a major priority, unless you are an athlete or super special in some other way (whats called a “hook”).</p>
<p>What is this “Common Data Set?” Can you please explain this, and tell me where I can find it?
Thanks</p>
<p>WishyWashy - I happen to agree with you. But since the OP specified “from this list …”</p>
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<p>The Common Data Set is an annually updated set of standardized data on enrollment and admissions produced by each school on a form developed collaboratively by the schools, the College Board, and several publishers including US News. The idea is to provide comparable data across institutions. This provides much of the data used by the College Board’s college search and comparison tools, and by publications like US News. </p>
<p>[Common</a> Data Set Initiative](<a href=“http://www.commondataset.org/]Common”>http://www.commondataset.org/)</p>
<p>Most (but not all) colleges publish their Common Data Set online. Sometimes it’s available by a link from the school’s admissions web page, sometimes it’s buried in some more obscure location like the 'Office of Institutional Research." For example, you can find Brown’s here:</p>
<p>[Office</a> of Institutional Research at Brown University](<a href=“Office of Institutional Research | Brown University”>Office of Institutional Research | Brown University)</p>
<p>You can usually find it by doing a Google search using the name of the college and Common Data Set as search terms; or go to the individual school’s website and use its “search” function to search for Common Data Set.</p>
<p>Thank you! And one more question; what does OP stand for?</p>
<p>~SAT Score(2)
~GPA(1)
~Volunteer/ Work Experience
~Extracurricular Activities(4)
~Leadership Positions(5)
~Essay(3)
~Recommendations(6)
~Prestigious Awards/ NMSQT Qualifier (if you are one)(7)</p>
<p>Answers in parenthesis. Also even though I put SAT scores as (2), it sort of depends. There are many factors that make up an application. Test scores are important, but its not something to kill yourself over.</p>
<p>Does anyone know for top 25 colleges (privates and publics), are essays or ECs more important?</p>
<p>OP stands for “Original Poster” … the person who started the thread.</p>
<p>SkyHigh - There are few absolutes, but …
your ECs would have to be pretty awesome to overcome a poor essay.</p>