<p>I have heard so many things about admissions - many say that SATs are the least important, others support it's a big part of your application - some wonder why they did not get in with perfect scores, grades and ecs, while they forget the possibility of their essays being sucky...on the whole, it's a messy and vague process. </p>
<p>If **you **had to rank:
[list=a]
Grades
[<em>]SAT scores / ACT scores
[</em>]Extracurriculars
[<em>]Essays
[</em>]Interview[/list]
how would you?</p>
<p>It depends, of course, on the school, but generally:</p>
<ol>
<li> Class rank/difficulty of high school curriculum (you didn't include this)</li>
<li> SAT scores / ACT scores</li>
<li> Grades (assuming that college does NOT reweight them)</li>
<li> Extracurriculars</li>
<li> Essays/Interview (can definitely make a difference in marginal cases or help distinguish applicants at the most competitive schools)</li>
</ol>
<p>I think at top schools essays count for more. Also, I'm not sure what the real difference is between grades and class rank... I mean, it speaks to the difficulty/competitiveness of your school, but we can put that as a totally different point. Or not. It looks good as is.</p>
<p>^ The difference, I think, is that a given GPA can be difficult to compare from high school to high school because some schools weight grades, some don't, and the weighting systems can differ from school to school. A 4.0 cumulative GPA may place a student in the top 5% at one high school and in the top 20% at another. Class rank is more useful, I think, because it gives adcoms a better idea of how a student performed academically versus all of his/her class peers and it makes it easier to compare students from different high schools. An individual who is ranked first or second in his/her high school class is likely to be a very strong student no matter which high school he/she attended; that's not necessarily true for an individual with a high cumulative gpa because the student may have loaded up on relatively easy courses.</p>
<p>Grades are really irrelevant. Class rank tells all.
here's my rank:
class rank/course selection
SAT/ACT
extra-curriculuar
essays
interview</p>
<p>note that there def are exceptions. At top schools or liberal arts schools, essay count a lot more. For instance, for Chicagoo or Amherst, I'd imagine essays to be second right under class rank</p>
<p>The trend today seems not to rank. Rigor is right and I would say that the more rigor the less ECs (amount, not necessarily importance). I agree with JohnC.</p>
<p>First of all if you ask admissions officers while they do tours, they'll just tell you. But from Yale and Columbia I've heard:</p>
<ol>
<li>Grades (TRANSCRIPT = difficulty of classes + GPA)</li>
<li>SAT Scores</li>
<li><p>ESSAY</p>
<hr></li>
<li><p>Extracurriculars</p></li>
<li><p>Teacher Recommendations</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The first 3 are most important though.</p>
<p>i got my dads old professor who is dean to florida international university and my dads close college buddy who is the current professor of environmental chemistry at Uni of Southern Cali to give me the exact percentages of how these things are ranged...</p>
<p>1/3 grades(including application) 1/3 SAT(huge chunk i know) 1/3 Volunteering/ECs(also others)</p>
<p>in other words once theyve seen u get a certain SAT score thats 1/3 down
rest is up to ur application and grades(grades will be a quick glance with relation to ECs to see time management etc) rest is volunteering and ECs..solid essay/application and confidence in the interview is what they really want cuz hell all these top tier schools know they are getting candidates with great numbered scores...only way to narrow down a pool of qualified people is the other reamining 1/3 which is what i listed earlier.</p>
<p>Huh i noticed that many of you tend to put SATs as second, yet I have heard repeatedly that the SATs are evaluated in a "ok, he falls within a good range, lets see what else he's got" fashion....what do you think?</p>
<p>debate_addict: i've heard the same, but i'm looking at pretty small schools where they can afford to look at a student holistically. at larger schools that have waaaaay too many applications to spend much time on, they have to turn increasingly to SAT/ACT scores as a benchmark for admission.</p>
<p>i agree with truazn8948532</p>
<p>I hear most colleges saying that the course rigor consideration comes first, then the test score consideration.</p>
<p>D and I were at a presentation for a top-tier LAC recently, and when asked this question, he responded "Three words, rigor, rigor, and did I mention rigor?"</p>
<p>If you're talking about the top colleges, it goes something like:</p>
<p>GPA (+ rigor of course load + rank)
ECs
Essays
Scores
Interview</p>
<p>Yes, scores are important, but they just "get you to the door"; ECs + essays get you "through the door." Interviews are becoming increasingly useless.</p>
<p>Grades and SAT scores speaks volumes. Essay's and recs are great, but the proof is in the pudding. If you can't produce the grades and can't get SAT scores up, all the extracurriculars aren't going to help. As a matter of fact, the adcoms may even say that your shouldn't have spent so much time with EC and spent more time studying. This is what we heard from my cousin who hired a college expert to help her with the app process. sounds harsh I know.</p>
<p>From what I've seen: excellent ECs can make up for a weak SAT score, but an extremely high SAT score can't make up for weak ECs. Essays are important in showing who you are and in distinguishing you from other applicants (otherwise, the college wouldn't ask you to write so damned many of them).</p>
<p>I was **indeed **referring to top schools...</p>
<p>I understand, but what my cousin's "expert" said was that the essays can be written with "help" from others so there is really no way to tell if this is truly an original essay or not. Test scores and grades are a true reflection of who you are. Many join clubs and activites and are voted in as presidents of club and organizations simply because of popularity.</p>
<p>I could not disagree more with you, guitars101...</p>
<p>Ecs can show dedication, and colleges are not stupid. A random assortment of extracurriculars, or at least some structure of ecs is obvious - and those who truly are interested in something and have committed themselves in an ec can convey it through the essay (after all, content is unalloyed even if somebody polishes your essay for you)</p>
<p>and also, if you are interested in say becoming a doctor, and have done things related to it (worked at hospital, shadowed a doctor, and so on) it is obvious that your ecs are important to you</p>
<p>yes, I agree. But, I also know that at my school there are MANY who are just playing the game. It's very frustrating! They are savy to the knowledge of sticking with one area of EC's so it looks good for adcoms. For example... I know a girl who really wants to major in political science but her parents want her to be a dr so she is taking all science type of EC's at school then when she gets accepted she will then switch majors. Lots of game playing and manipulating going on now just to get into certain colleges and it's extrememly frustrating when I am playing by the rules.</p>