<p>I know that Stanford is a reach school for almost anyone. To those who were admitted, was it a surprise? And are they looking for well rounded applicants or those who have one area of talent/strength?</p>
<p>Correct me if I’m wrong. I believe that stanford is more holistic than the ivies. It has a lower SAT range than HYPCM but a lower acceptance rate than all those schools besides harvard. I think your essays and your app are extremely important.</p>
<p>Stanford has more athletic recruits than some of its peer schools, which may aacount for slightly broader test range. But for academic recruits scores need to be very high anyway. All schools claim to have holistic review, but only after you meet objective measures–see admissions website chart which shows higher admit rate for applicants with high scores and grades. Also, you can take Columbia off the list of admissions peer with Stanford…not many overlaps and Stanford in a different league of school.</p>
<p>Once you get in they invite you over to their campus for an event called admit weekend which in reality is an endurance and survival test. They drop you off in the middle of the forest and you have to survive 3 days on your own. Then if you make it you get initiated into the cult.</p>
<p>Stanford is tough, even for scholar athletes. I recall one student several years ago who was accepted to Dartmouth & Princeton, but denied admission by his first choice–Stanford. This person did very well in athletics (captain), extracurriculars & academics at his Ivy.</p>
<p>I know a very good pitcher, recruited for baseball, who signed a letter of intent to Stanford this fall. He has an SAT score of 2040, and I’m assuming a 4.0 GPA. Also, we live in Canada. It should be noted that he’s a very highly touted pitcher- tall guy that touched 90+ mph and is expected to be in the top 2 Candians drafted by the MLB in 2013.</p>
<p>Athletic recruits at Stanford have to be really good athletically and they compete nationwide in all sports. There is some leeway on academics for great athletes. Ivies mostly compete amongst themselves and their athletes usually get admitted based on an academic index, i.e., not much academic leeway.</p>
<p>At a 6% admission rate, it is pretty darn difficult. If every student in your school applied to Stanford (granted that they were somewhat qualified), 6 out of 100 would be accepted. Stanford has enough 2400 kids applying each year to fill their freshman class twice over. Test scores and GPA aren’t enough; they want interesting, passionate kids.</p>
<p>Aerobug - I agree with most of what you said, but only about 350 kids got a 2400 in 2012, “hardly enough to fill their freshman class twice over.”</p>
<p>Depends on how you calculate it entrepreneur23 - lots more get 2400 with superscores.</p>
<p>M’s Mom - Do you have a source for that?</p>
<p>imagine you have a basket. and you have to find the square root of the net surface area covered by the third thread of every weave of the basket. you have to do this without a calculator or any math whatsoever. It’s that hard.</p>
<p>No source that I could find, entrepreneur23. It just stands to reason that if 350 got it in one sitting, many more got it in two or three sittings. </p>
<p>There were 5 kids with 2400s in my D’s graduating class alone. Admittedly, it’s a competitive admission magnet program but there were lots more with 2350+ who decided not to bother sitting the test twice. I don’t doubt that if they had wanted to take it again, there would have been more with 2400 by superscoring. And this is one magnet program at one high school in a small state. Hard to imagine that our kids are uniquely gifted test takers. Coincidence? Could be, but I’m betting that 2400s with superscores are a lot more common than 2400s in one sitting.</p>
<p>There are also about 500-600 ACT 36 scorers.</p>
<p>500-600 perfect ACT scores in a state or applicant pool?</p>
<p>there were just over 700 36 ACT’s of the 1.5 million test takers in the graduating class of 2012.</p>
<p>Judging by the comments about Stanford admissions that I’ve read on here for years, their decisions are a little quirkier and harder to figure out than those of the Ivies. My impression is that they are looking for certain things in an applicant’s personality which they determine from all those essays. Good luck, OP.</p>
<p>I’ve been chatting with a Stanford freshman and she told me that Stanford really wants to see you as a person. However, even when you’re a lovable and brilliant person, there’s still a chance that you won’t get in. Her advice is to project yourself through the essays. So grades really aren’t everything, since most of the applicants are semi-perfect anyways. </p>
<p>Good luck on your application! I’m applying, too. Let’s hope for the best.</p>
<p>Extremely difficult. I feel for certain reasons that it’s a little easier to get into than someplace like Princeton for example, but it’s by no means a cake walk.</p>
<p>Catalyxmaster, you may feel that it’s easier to get into Stanford than Princeton, but you’re wrong. 6.6% acceptance at Stanford, and 8.5% at Princeton last year. Still, anything in the single digits is extremely competitive, but you might want to check your facts before spouting:)</p>