The Andover applicant pool is extremely competitive, so the school is able to put emphasis on somewhat fringe qualifications as it designs its freshman class. This makes it difficult to describe what we look for, since we basically can find someone who’s extremely qualified academically who also happens to be a great basketball player or oboist or whatever niche demand we’re trying to fill.
If this were a school like Kent or Pomfret, we could implement a policy that any applicant with an SSAT above the 90th percentile will be accepted. At Andover, we can’t do that with any metric. Admitting every student with a score at the 99th percentile would lead to way too many acceptances.
So, what do we look for? Well, race, geographic diversity, legacy, and athletic ability are extremely important to admissions decisions. At least 10% of the student body has parents that went to Andover, maybe as high as 20%, which isn’t true of the applicant pool, so it’s obvious that legacy status is given tremendous weight in the admissions process. Athletes are rated by coaches on a 1-6 scale, and 6-rated athletes are given a serious edge in admissions, especially for niche sports like lacrosse and field hockey. A six rating means immediate varsity starter with potential to be recruited to a DI school, perhaps with a DI offer already in place.
Race and geographic considerations also go a long way. Asian applicants or applicants from NYC with perfect GPAs and SSAT scores at the 99th percentile are extremely common, but that isn’t true for black students or students from Wyoming (or students from poorer neighboring towns like Lawrence), and the school places tremendous value on representing communities beyond NYC or Beijing in the student body. Applicants who have serious accolades from major national or international competitions also receive more serious consideration in the process. Like, if you’re a musician who has performed at Carnegie hall, or you’ve been recognized by congress for something you’ve invented.
Beyond that, it’s basically a lottery system. If you have perfect academics, sterling recommendations, and a handful of good but non-hooked extracurriculars, you’re competing with an enormous body of applicants who you’re basically interchangeable with. Maybe a reader like myself will really love your essay, or your interviewer will emphasize an aspect of your character that makes you seem “kind” or unique and talk you up in their report. But there’s certainly no formula.
Assuming you’re not in the “hooked” classes (athletes, legacy, diversity categories, hooked artist, etc), here’s what would immediately take you out of the running:
- Anything less than amazing references and straight As.
- Any sort of disciplinary record.
- An essay with obvious typos or shallow content. Andover values essays that demonstrate you’re unique/kind/accepting of all identities, we don’t care about how much you like reading or baking.
- Any evidence that you aren’t committed to antiracism and other DEI initiatives
- Alarmingly low SSAT scores or a very low score in a specific topic. SSAT actually isn’t given that much weight, unless you’re way below average in the applicant pool (like, below the 75th percentile or way low in a given category). We are directed to read SSAT scores last as we make our evaluation, as they’re considered strictly supplemental information.