<p>I heard that SAT doesn’t really play a huge role in admissions, though…</p>
<p>@nolagirl: SAT scores definitely play a role in admissions. Standardized test scores are listed as one of the most important criteria for admission.
[College</a> Search - Yale University - Admission](<a href=“College Search - BigFuture | College Board”>College Search - BigFuture | College Board)</p>
<p>^^ Are you serious? Standardized tests are widely considered the second most important criteria for admissions, only behind your transcript/GPA.</p>
<p>That’s clearly not true for the top unis though. It gets you in the door along with thousands of others but will never get you a place.</p>
<p>How is it clearly not true? Transcript/GPA and standardized tests are just as important at top unis as they are at “not-top unis”. The only difference is that a large amount of the applicants are very stellar in both aspects. If your weaknesses are in either transcript/GPA and/or standardized testing, you’re a lot worse off than if your weaknesses are in essays/ECs (bar significant hooks obviously).</p>
<p>Because virtually every applicant has very high SAT, SAT IIs and GPA. It’s probably the least distinguishing factor of the entire applicant pool. It’s the ‘other stuff’ that gets you in, SATs and GPA just make you aren’t dismissed straight off. </p>
<p>It’s like if you were picking a football team. Obviously the most important things are that everyone has two legs, two arms and a functioning lung (preferably two), but they’re pretty much taken as a given. It’s the speed, throwing, catching (I don’t know anything about american football, but I’m guessing those are important, but if not substitute with more things more appropriate to the analogy) that get you in. </p>
<p>Of course, though, if you haven’t got those legs, arms and lung(s), then you’ve no chance, but they aren’t the distinguishing factor.</p>
<p>That’s right, Mr.M. There’s a distinction that seems to get blurred between the importance of test scores versus how effectively test scores distinguish applicants from one another.</p>
<p>Are SAT/ACT scores highly important? Most definitely.</p>
<p>Are SAT/ACT scores a distinguishing factor? Nope. Well, at least not in a good way. If your standardized test scores distinguish you from the field, that does not bode well for your chances of admission.</p>
<p>A number of universities – mainly publics, but some large privates, too – essentially use some algorithm of test scores and GPA (and sometimes other qualities, like location or URM status) – to do their admissions, or 90% of it. The elite colleges, certainly including Yale, aren’t like that at all. Yale could easily admit a class where everyone had SATs over 2300 and GPAs around 4.0. Or where everyone but half the football and hockey players had that. But it doesn’t. For practical purposes it probably screens out most applicants with SATs much below 2100, and/or lowish GPAs (adjusted for their high-school norms), except for special factors like sports stardom. But above that kind of fairly low level, it’s not at all clear that SATs, especially, are very important at all. Many applicants with 2200 SATs are admitted, and many with 2300 or even 2400 are rejected. Having a good GPA (for your school) in the most challenging courses available is still a must, but again many people with somewhat lower GPAs are accepted over classmates with slightly higher GPAs. When admissions gets down to the nitty-gritty, 100-point differences in SATs and .1 differences in GPAs are completely irrelevant.</p>
<p>How do they gauge a person’s character from their essays or recs? I’m curious. Wouldn’t people pick people who like them to write recommendations? So, wouldn’t most recs sound the same?</p>
<p>I’m sure most recommendations sound the same . . . and most of the students described in them don’t get into Yale.</p>
<p>At least for Recommendations for Yale and similar schools, there’s those very few kids that can’t name a teacher that likes them, or will write a good letter. Then there’s the very few kids that can be named as some of the best kids a teacher ever had. Other than one of those extremes, I’d bet its one of those things that just gets you further in the running - like high SATs, good GPA, etc.</p>
<p>Through an essay, an applicant can let the admissions committee know who they are–their passions, their weaknesses, and their goals. A person’s character can come across through how they write their essay… really casual, or mature-sounding, etcetera.</p>
<p>^An essay is also a really good sample of how well the applicants can write. Sure some help may have come from an adult, but students still need to show that they can write an effective piece about themselves.</p>
<p>Yeah teacher recs seem pretty irrelevant, since most of them are probably going to sound pretty much the same</p>
<p>So, then, if most applicants have similar SAT scores (will SAT II scores that are in the mid 700 range tank me?), GPAs, and teacher recs…does that mean the essay is the largest distinguishing factor?</p>
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<p>You forgot about ECs</p>
<p>Right…but how do you distinguish ECs? What’s more important? Being president of the Arnold Schwarzenegger Appreciation Club? Or volunteering VERY intermittently? </p>
<p>Also, most candidates do the same kinds of ECs…</p>
<p>They want students to participate in the ECs they love and enjoy. An applicant wants to show their dedication toward a certain subject. </p>
<p>For example, I love to write. I write fiction, and I wrote a (unpublished and not even close to great) novel. If I conveyed that I love to write, admission officers would rather see me going out of my way to pursue my passion, rather than become president of any miscellaneous club.</p>
<p>
The objective factors are generally believed to be weighted most heavily, but the subjective factors are what distinguish similar applicants. </p>
<p>But I will state this once again to clear up a common misconception on CC, bar any significant hooks in ECs/circumstances/background, someone with weaknesses in GPA/Transcript/Standardized Testing is significantly worse off than someone with weaknesses in ECs/Essays/Teacher Recs.</p>
<p>Regarding the SAT score usage discussion from the previous page, the truth of the matter is that standardized test scores are highly influential in admissions decisions. A test score is never viewed as a number or set of numbers that are ideally attained, as if its some type of checklist commodity. From the institutions that do release admissions data by score ranges, the percentages are highly skewed in favor of higher-scoring applicants in ways that cannot be entirely suggestive of a more adeptly demonstrated merit in other aspects of the application.</p>