How I got into a competitive school with a 1410 SAT and weak ECs

Applying to College Admission Stories
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That’s right, I got into a school with an 18% acceptance rate with a 1410 (750 math, 660 english), even worse subject tests (let’s not talk about those) and crammed in senior year ECs. What I learned is WORDING AND PRESENTATION IS KEY. You gotta sell yourself my friends. Shameless advertising.

My GPA was great, my courseload was difficult, but my SAT simply wasn’t cutting it for the competitive schools and I had really inconsistent extracurriculars. I did some scattered volunteer work (mostly during the summer before senior year and october-december), a 3 week long research project (summer before senior year), worked as a teacher’s assistant for a semester (senior year), and had some abandoned hobbies from freshman year. That’s pretty much it. But I took what I had and I expanded that into EIGHT activities. Even if it’s a minor little thing, include it. You did it, you’re getting recognition for it. Now make sure to not only list the activity but describe it. Convince the readers that it’s important and relevant. Use words like “established” and “developed” and “engaged.” Make it sound professional. The more professional it sounds, the less the reader will question its significance. Use up the ENTIRE space. When the readers open up your file, they want to see words galore. If it looks a bit scarce, it automatically looks like something is lacking.

Also, don’t try to “explain” why your application was lacking in an area unless you have to. Don’t turn your application into a charity case. I know that’s what a lot of other people recommend, but it focuses on the weak points of your application. You need to hide the weak areas with good wording and presentation. If you had really bad grades one semester or something else you cannot hide, then you can explain. But if you do a good enough job presenting your extracurriculars, there will be no need to explain why you may think you are lacking in that area. You need to show confidence. If you show confidence in yourself, the admissions people will be confident in you.

Now my math SAT was decent, but my english was a bit sad. I made up for it with GOOD essays and a recommendation from an english teacher who told me in person I’m “brilliant”. The admissions people know you’re only human, and the SAT is just a test. If you make up for your SAT in other areas I’m sure they can look past it. If you demonstrate exceptional abilities elsewhere in the same subject, it justifies to the admissions people why they should look past it.

Also, when writing the essay, admissions people want to see how you’ve “changed for the better.” You should NOT portray yourself in too much of a negative light. They’ll use anything you say about yourself against you to justify why they think you should be rejected. You want to be honest and passionate, but don’t be TOO honest. Don’t just talk about your problems. Again, you need to show confidence and competence. Talk about how you’ve developed into a more intellectual person, or the effects of an experience or hobby on your personal identity. Don’t try to make the admissions people pity you. It seems whiny and annoying.

Good luck future college applicants!! I’m soooo thankful for getting into my dream school! I believed in myself, and if you do too, you will be just fine.

2

It’s great that you got in. But, you don’t know that it had anything to do with how you described your ECs. It isn’t as if you had terrible grades and scores but wrote a winning essay that saved the day. Rather, you did slightly less well than ideal on the English SATs but did quite well on the math.

And about the 18% acceptance rate. The rate differs depending upon other factors. With need aware schools, simply being able to pay full price puts you in a very small group of applicants, for example. It isn’t the case that a great essay makes up for great weaknesses in other aspects of the application. And, AC can see right through some of the strategies you suggest-I doubt that is what got you in.

3

Agree. My takeaway from your post is that you have no earthly idea why you got in. I don’t think a lot of your logic is particularly sound.

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For most colleges with an acceptance rate in the 18% range, 1410 is within the mid 50% range for SATs.

So you have high GPA, an SAT score that is within the mid range for accepted students, and well presented ECs. You actually seem like a pretty typical accepted student to me. Congratulations on being accepted, but the reason you were considered is pretty clear, while the reason that you were chosen over similar candidates is one that, as @intparent wrote, you do not really know, nor does anybody except the admissions officers.

Congratulations again.

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Thank you for your responses! I understand that the admissions process is very unpredictable, but I also know that ECs are extremely important. Mine were far from impressive, but I believe that I presented them in the best light that I possibly could which was most likely a reason why I made it all the way to acceptance. With the competition these days, every little thing counts. I think it is extremely important to consider the presentation of your application and be aware of how you will be perceived in terms of tone and personality. Most of the time admissions officers go off their “gut feeling”, and usually don’t dwell on applications for too long. I think they probably just had a good feeling about me from my application and went with it. @lostaccount @intparent @mwolf

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@angryeggo I am certain you are correct, the Admissions Office had a good feeling about you from your application. I am equally certain there is no possible way to state with certainty what exactly was the reason for that good feeling.

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@angryeggo BU right? Not that hard to figure out looking at your post history. Congrats.

The reason this thread caught my eye was my S19 also had a 1410 SAT (780M, 630V) and got into an OOS school with ~18% acceptance this year (GaTech). He was similar with a very high GPA (3.98u/4.6w) but also heavy on difficult STEM course rigor that helped make up for his lower verbal score. His ECs were pretty good too but except for a NASA research mentorship, they were all non STEM related.