<p>
</p>
<p>
But one interview should?</p>
<ol>
<li>SAT</li>
<li>Recs
T3. Rigor
T3. ECs</li>
<li>GPA</li>
<li>Class Rank</li>
</ol>
<p>
</p>
<p>exactly why its my #1</p>
<p>Point well taken, although I believe in an interview your true colors come out. In my opinion it’s very hard to fake your personality, so in essence the interviewer is going to get a good idea of who you are as a person. He/she is going to find out your goals, knowledge about the school, reasons for wanting to attend, what you plan on getting involved in and so on. Most importantly the way you conduct yourself is going to come out, not only attire wise but also the way you speak. More or less I feel as if this is the best way to see if you’re a well rounded individual. By no means would this serve as the be all be end factor though, if your application was compelling in other areas you would still gain admission.</p>
<p>Rsxwheeeeee, I completely disagree that it shows natural intelligence. What about your rich prep school kids that have had private tutoring since they were seven in order to get a near perfect score on the exam. Another example, what about the valedictorian who has severe testing anxiety and flops the exam. The test only shows who is a good test taker, not who’s smarter. That’s a fact.</p>
<p>^In reality, when you take finals and exams in college, you have to get over your testing anxiety to do well. How can you be the Val if you get anxious every time you see a test in front of you? Rich, prep school school kids can master Math and Writing but what are the chances of them scoring an 800 in Reading? I know a lot of people who have studied the SAT since the 7th grade and guess what…? They got a 2100+ and even 2200+ but their Reading scores are nowhere near perfect. Please, don’t bring money into this. What will you do with those who scored 2300+ and didn’t go to some private tutoring session for years? I have friends who are geniuses–no, really, their IQs are very high–and got 2200+ and 2300+ with ease. </p>
<p>Let me ask you, how are you going to measure some aptitude then? Is the Val going to freak out when he/she has to take the IQ test? Oh, please. The Val has 3 times to get over her nerves and show colleges her potential.</p>
<p>I got a 2350 and didn’t even know how the SAT worked until two months before the test. Didn’t get a tutor or anything, think they are useless.</p>
<ol>
<li>Grades (including rigor and rank) 45%</li>
<li>SATs 25%</li>
<li> ECs, Essays, Recs 10% each</li>
</ol>
<h1>1 Factor: AP Test scores and how many they took. I’d rather have a student who got all 5s and straight B+/A- than one who got straight As but got 3s and 4s. I think this would assemble the most qualified (based on merit) class. AP scores in the students prospective discipline would be factored slightly more than AP scores not int he prospective discipline (slightly is a key-word here. I don’t want a prospective engineering student who got all 5s on math and science but never took AP English/history to get in but switch majors to say creative writing, but I want to give students the freedom to switch majors)</h1>
<p>You may be saying “wait! What about students who did there best at schools that weren’t good enough to prepare them well enough for the AP curriculum.” I think this would be well addressed with my affirmative action, which would admit a loose quota of low income students. If this also didn’t establish an ethnically diverse class, I would also implement racial quotas, but income would be a factor (I don’t think a rich black kid should have any advantage whatsoever over a rich white kid). </p>
<h1>2 Factor: If my school becomes presitigous enough where more than enough students get mostly 5s on many AP Tests, I would factor in ECs and/or tests in their prospective discipline (examples = writing contests, AMC, SAT IIs, etc.). This is where I would find the truly passionate student, as well as in category #3. If a student loads up on clubs and research but isn’t truly passionate about the subject, that would become apparent in #3.</h1>
<h1>3 Factor: Other. This includes personal essays and essay for prospective discipline, supplemental info (like a math proof), ECs not in their discipline, and teacher recs (no counselor recs, because many times they don’t really know the student and some may be paid off of how many students they get into top schools).</h1>
<h1>4 Factor: ACT/SAT. I think these are valuable to a degree. I’d only look at them after I decided to accept a student. If the prospective student couldn’t muster a 1800 on the SAT, I’d have second thoughts on accepting that student. But, I definitely would be fine with rejecting students with 2400s. Getting a good score on one test (with many flaws) should not give a student entitlement to get put in the right pile.</h1>
<p>What’s missing?<br>
Grades. However, unless I got to accept students in the summer, I guess I’d have to look at senior year grades. So basically I wouldn’t look at grades from the first three years of high school. I would do this for a few reasons: Many students ace freshman year because they were well prepared for the transition and knew how important grades were, others struggle. A student in their freshman and generally sophomore year is vastly different than the student that would enter my college after senior year (so basically, I want my admitees to be qualified when they enter and not have a sense of entitlement due to something a few years ago). Sophomore year grades (generally no APs) would be eliminated due to consistency. Junior year grades would be covered by the AP Tests. Also, a problem I have with grades is that they are heavily based on effort, even if it is not needed (I know truly brilliant people who get Cs but easily ace the AP Tests- I generally would want these people). And a suck-up whom the teacher likes will generally get a better grade other things being equal. All I ask is for first semester senior grades, so that is when my students would have to prove they are capable with at least straight Bs (at even the hardest graded high schools, no one with lower than a B generally gets a 5 on the AP Test).</p>
<p>This makes me want to establish my own university!</p>
<p>I’m assuming this is for a top school.</p>
<ol>
<li>SAT – It’s the only truly objective measurement there is. Plus, I think it does a very good job of showing natural intelligence (instead of how much you suck up to teachers)</li>
<li>Interview – this is where we really get to know you as a person. I want to have an interesting campus and this is how I can find interesting people. However, I would strongly encourage interviewees to use <em>evidence</em>: talk about your extracurricular, talk about your grades, talk about the obstacles you have overcome—whatever helps you to convince me I <em>need</em> to have you on my campus. I would have highly trained and paid interviewers to conduct the interview, none of this alumni nonsense.</li>
<li>Teacher Recommendations – How are you in the classroom? I want students who will <em>add</em> something to the classroom, not just cram for tests and keep their nose in the books.</li>
<li>Essays – This is where I get to see how you think. I wouldn’t ask for an essay about you. I don’t care about you: I care about how you think. I’d provide UofChicago-esque prompts, or ask you to write about an important issue to you. It’s not what you write about that matters, its how you write it.</li>
</ol>
<p>Noticeably absent from this list are grades or extracurriculars. I don’t care about those; they’re not objective. You can’t control that your chemistry teacher hates your father you shouldn’t be grubbing around for the best activities.</p>
<p>However, the interview process would be costly so I’d have to eliminate applications. So I’d cut everyone with under a 3.5 GPA or under a 2250 SAT. I’d also cut everyone who isn’t highly recommended by both teachers and their school.</p>
<p>What about rank?</p>
<p>I think GPA means more because rank heavily depends on the other students at the school, but I could see a good argument for rank being made as well.</p>
<p>I don’t think grade inflation is a big enough problem for rank to be necessary. Students who don’t work hard enough to be able to succeed later on in college aren’t going to have a high GPA at any school, but really hard working students can actually be punished for going to challenging schools if rank is used too heavily.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/680699-what-point-trying-life.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/680699-what-point-trying-life.html</a></p>
<p>Rejected from Texas, would have been in the top 10% at most schools. Basically there’s no way to determine whether a school is competitive or inflates grades.</p>
<p>Is natural intelligence any indicator of college success?</p>
<ol>
<li>Personality</li>
<li>Teacher Rec. </li>
<li>GPA</li>
<li>SAT</li>
<li>Major Extra Curr</li>
<li>Minor Extra Curr</li>
</ol>
<p>kameronsmith- I definitely agree with the interviews, especially the non-alumni part, as I thought those were a waste of both mine ane their time. And at some schools, interviews are used mainly to see if a student cares enough about the school to show up, which I don’t think should be the point of an interview. </p>
<p>LogicWarrior- Class rank is also not important IMO. First, they deal with all grades, which I already have a problem with. Second, the same student at a genius school will have a lower class rank than at a crap inner-city school, as you mentioned. If you really want to consider grades + class rank, you have to factor in the competitiveness of the high school and the grading scale of the high school, which I think would be way too hard to accurately project.</p>
<p>Many schools don’t rank.</p>
<p>Ranks are done in an inconsistent manner (weighted? unweighted?).</p>
<p>We can’t use it.</p>
<p>Senior0991: True. I don’t think whether the student wants to come should be in consideration at all.</p>
<p>I’m running a top school. I’ll have plenty of students come. I don’t need to worry about that.</p>
<p>Chances are the students applying to my school are also applying to other top schools. That’s smart: I might not let them in. In fact, smart students don’t decide on a particular college until they have their options in front of them. Why should I punish a student for being smart?</p>
<p>It’s not my job to decide if they’re interested in my college. If they applied, they obviously are. Case closed.</p>
<p>^One potential flaw in your interest reasoning is that there are cases where students will apply to schools simply because their parents make them apply. I personally think that this is a small enough number not to really be a problem. And even if they do get admitted over more interested students, they just won’t accept their offer, but I will still fill their slot (so, IOW, I don’t really care about yield). I can’t stand how some schools care enough about their yield to not admit very, very qualified applicants who don’t demonstrate interest or use their waitlists to judge interest and such. I think the few percentage points a school gains in yield because of this are largely countered by a vast decrease in credibility.</p>
<p>Senior0991: True, but I think that’s a small enough number that its irrelevant.</p>
<p>Plus, if they’re good enough to be admitted at my institution then they’re probably good enough to be admitted at their top choice.</p>
<p>I hate yield management too—nobody really cares about it. The only number that really matters is % accepted.</p>
<p>I would split it up into two different sections:
I) Academics: 65%:
1.) Rank (some schools are VERY hard, so seeing where you lie in a class is better than actual GPA)
2.) SATs (a good way to show a students academic potential. Generally, a student with a 2.7 GPA but a 2350 SAT [rare I know, but possible] did not study for the SATs…)
3.) Rigor of Courseload (Number of APs, IB, etc)
4.) GPA W (shows where the student lies with his/her hard work)
5.) GPA UW (shows they’re true GPA, and what grades they actually got)
6.) SAT IIs and APs (demonstrates mastery of given material. for me AP Chem + a 1 on the exam = no validation for course).
7.) Academic Awards (obviously not like HUUUUGE awards, but like National Merit, etc)</p>
<p>II) Non-Academic: 35%:
1.)Essays
2.) Leadership positions in Clubs/Sports
3.) Recs
4.) Club and Sport Involvement
5.) Volunteer Work
6.) Personality</p>
<p>bballman: Ranks are easily gamed. Plus, how do you resolve the discrepancy between weighted GPAs, unweighted GPAs, and unranked?</p>
<p>You can’t look purely at # of APs, since some schools don’t offer many.</p>
<p>Not all schools weight GPA.</p>
<p>As someone noted Essays only is slightly flawed, if only because admitting on only one factor is inherently flawed. I would change my criteria to: Essay, Interview, Teacher Recommendations</p>
<p>GPA, SATs and ECs still don’t come in to the picture.</p>
<p>I would base my college’s admission based on the least controversial factor on CC. And by this I mean that my college would have equal amounts of all races. ;-)</p>