There are over 100 factors to consider. This research paper was done in 2003, I am sure it gets more sophisticate and “non-linear”. The trends of the importance factors at the end are very worthy reading.
I think, what shown in the Amherst video is misleading, and something a joke. Unless all of the AO in the meeting had read the same material, on what base were their voting?
Of the Princeton class of 2021 applicants, 12,435 had a 4.0 grade point average, and 13,850 had scores of 1,400 or higher on the two sections of the SAT.
So 4.0 unweighted GPA is not going to impress anybody (4.82 weighted might). I guess a large percentage of those folks applied to Princeton probably also applied to Brown. Too many applicants look the same on the stats. Must have some “spikes” or some kind of story to get attention … maybe playing Chopin Scherzo No. 1 in B Minor, Op. 20 almost flawlessly like my child to get recommendation from the music department. (not sure that is the reason)
I think they may have tried (too hard) to show various aspects of the process and it came out odd.
Each school can have it’s own particular ways. Obviously, the sort of major donors whose money can have pull (and we’re talking very big bucks,) get flagged to the dean, who does hold a few aces. But the notion just being an actor or recognized name is enough…well, it isn’t.
And not only are there file review notes, the AO can summarize.
I don’t think anyone said anything about actors or recognized names, @lookingforward - it stands to reason that even being the child of an Oscar-winning actor isn’t going to help a lot on its own - but I’m betting Malia Obama didn’t go through a normal committee process…and I think you might know 
On a related topic, as @Faulkner1897 said regarding Stanford’s practice of ensuring that all legacies get at least two reads, one can see the value of that in a system where literally tens of thousands of apps are thrown out after one adcom skims each one for 15 minutes or less. It’s a huge benefit for legacies to be prevented from falling through the cracks that way.
Maybe not on this thread, but many others make claims about recognizable names. But, nah, I don’t think Malia went to committee.
You know, the number of aces the dean holds can be smaller than some think. And even with 2 initial reads, that legacy needs to be qualified.
But what concerns me more is this idea how Amherst was portrayed is how they all do it. It’s not necessarily a lot of busy pros hanging, chatting, getting into great depth.
And don’t forget how institutional needs play. That nth stem violinist from that over subscribed geo area is not going to get lengthy discussion unless he/she is an uber strong contender, in all ways.
@DeepBlue86 : I do agree with you that some candidates have been pre-admitted. You can say they are being presented by school officials, not AO. Nobody would dare to vote “NO” anyway so no need for discussion.
I am sharing a very old article on Wall Street Journal talking about many colleges bend rules to admit rich applicants –
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/Polk_Rich_Applicants.htm
At least for Duke, excluding 18% URM, 15% Carolinas residnets, 12% children of alumni, 8% recruited atheletes, 3%-5% potential donors/development, there were not a lot of space left for the rest of us.
You have to decide if old history (old commentary) is a satisfactory approach to answering today’s questions. That article is so old that Marilee Jones was still dean at MIT. What’s next, the perpetual poster references to Bush, Trump, Kennedy and others the lay public is certain used unfair advantage, 50+ years ago?
And same for 2nd hand info that may be more recent. The media may observe, but that is insufficient and should be seen as such. They may see pieces, that’s all. Their mission is less about absolute truth and more about attention. I put Hernandez in there, with her reputed sky high fees, and Urena, also building his college consulting business.
It’s not easy to cut through the hype, either from adcoms or journalists. But one can try.
“University presidents are under greater pressure than ever to raise money,”
“I suspect many of them have turned to admissions to help that process.”
All I can say is if you can get in a top university on your own, you should be very proud of yourself.
Are you seriously quoting Brodie, who left his role in U administration in 1993? Or comments about wait list?
@hoverhoo
Haven’t watched the video but based on my experience with MD/PhD admissions, committee members often vote based on the reports of others rather than reading the application themselves. That may not apply at all to undergrad because unlike undergrad, the ad com has reports from 6 interviewers all of whom did read the application in full AND talk to the applicant for 30mins.
Also, for medical school application, MCAT and GPA DOES matter !!! See https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/ for details.
So if someone is not a REAL genius, Stanford/JHU/Princeton/Cornell (low GPA) might not be ideal.
Ivy League admissions statistics for class of 2021 …
Ivy League Colleges | Overall Accept. Rate | Regular Decision Accept. Rate | Regular Decision Apps Accepted | Regular Decision Apps Received | Early Decision / Action Accept. Rate | % of Class Filled by Early Apps | Early Decision / Action Apps Rcvd | Early Decision / Action Apps Accepted | Expected Number of Students to Enroll | Total Apps Received | Total Apps Accepted
Brown 8.3% 6.9% 2,027 29,554 21.9% 41.7% 3,170 695 1,665 32,724 2,722
Columbia 5.8% 4.6% 1,534 33,303 15.9% 46.8% 4,086 651 1,390 37,389 2,185
Cornell 12.5% 10.8% 4,511 41,654 25.6% 42.1% 5,384 1,378 3,275 47,038 5,889
Dartmouth 10.4% 8.5% 1,537 18,035 27.8% 47% 1,999 555 1,180 20,034 2,092
Harvard 5.2% 3.4% 1,118 33,033 14.5% n/a 6,473 938 1,670 39,506 2,056
Penn 9.2% 6.8% 2,345 34,266 22.0% 55.4% 6,147 1,354 2,445 40,413 3,699
Princeton 6.1% 4.3% 1,120 26,053 15.4% n/a 5,003 770 1,308 31,056 1,890
Yale 6.9% 5.0% 1,401 27,814 17.1% n/a 5,086 871 1,550 32,900 2,272
Best of lucks to all of you. 頑張れ (Hang in there)
@TheOldTimer SAT and GPA matter for undergrad too…?
@iwannabe_Brown : As indicated on #62, since a large percentage of applicants have perfect or near perfect stats, stats is used only as filters to quickly weed out applicants at early stage. GPA matters only if the applicant has a very high weighted GPA. AOs are trying to make nuance distinction among extraordinarily qualified applicants.
For medical school application, as you can see from AAMC statistics, very few applicants have high college GPA. An applicant with a low GPA from ANY school will have no chance to go to any good medical school. Also, MCAT is much more difficult than SAT. High MCAT scores almost guarantee admissions to some medical schools if the applicant is not too picky.
@TheOldTimer having gone through the process on both sides, you don’t need to educate me. There isn’t a fundamental difference (as your post implies) in the way med schools use MCAT/GPA for admission relative to SAT/GPA for undergrad. There is a clear trend in admissions rate at Brown for GPA and for SAT just like the AAMC data (https://www.brown.edu/admission/undergraduate/explore/admission-facts)
@iwannabe_Brown : I know you knew that long time ago. I just shared some of our thinking process in picking Brown with class of 2022 applicants. 
To complement the Brown admissions data @iwannabe_Brown shared, here is the MCAT/GPA data from AAMC
https://www.aamc.org/download/321508/data/factstablea23.pdf
For those applicants with GPA greater than 3.79 and MCAT scores greater than 517, the acceptance rate to medical school is 89.2%. On the contrary, I have seen numerous people posting their data on CC, who have (near) perfect GPA and SAT scores got rejected almost everywhere they applied (except their state school). I cannot find any link from good GPA/SAT scores to acceptance rate. Those with high weighted GPA seem to have better lucks. Current Penn/ED results thread has examples.
@lookingforward : regarding your question on #70, although the Wall Street Journal article (#67) was published 15 years ago, I can only imagine things getting worse since then. Considering today’s economic and political atmosphere, middle class is being eliminated little by little. I was shocked by what I read when my child was only 3 years old. For ordinary folks, they would never imagine rejected can be promoted to wait-listed or admitted.