<p>You guys said that you need 10-12 data points to get into top colleges. If i have less than 10, does it mean i have no chance to get into those most selective universities? </p>
<p>Another question: do academic samples count as "data points"?</p>
<p>This isn't carved in stone. The application will be viewed as a whole by selective schools, I think -- no one there counting up "data points" or the like. </p>
<p>My daughter got into three very selective places with her only quantitative information being the ACT (before the writing test was added) and grades from two college courses. I suppose you could say this was 10 data points, if you consider each ACT subscore as a point. But this seems like quite a stretch.</p>
<p>If you can add some good qualitative items into the mix, such as essays, recommendations, course descriptions, work product, or the like, this can help shore up an application short on numbers. </p>
<p>A word about academic samples -- I don't know how these are viewed by colleges or whether they are really viewed at all. My daughter decided to send in an outside-evaluated short research paper and a translation as well. But these had nice comments written on them by a professional in her chosen field. I included them more for the comments. I did not expect admission personnel to look at the samples and evaluate them personally. They are busy people, and not experts in different fields.</p>
<p>I would be interested in hearing what others have been told or done with respect to samples. One school we dealt with wanted a short writing sample from all applicants, whether or not they were homeschooled; another school specifically told me not to send samples because they don't have the time or expertise to look at them. (My daughter got into the latter school -- either they just disregarded the samples, they were swayed by the professional's written comments, or the person who talked to me was merely giving me her personal opinion, not that of everyone in admissions ...)</p>
<p>I'm the one who came up with the "data points" idea. This isn't some rule that colleges came up with. It's just a number I came up with based on the experiences of homeschoolers I know who have been admitted to selective colleges (MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Caltech, Dartmouth, Yale). </p>
<p>The idea of "data points" is that they are numerical values that let an ad com spend the same 5 minutes or so looking at a homeschoolers app as at a traditionally schooled applicant's and have some idea of whether or not they are competitive. If the app is composed primarily of academic samples, someone in the admissions office has to have the willingness and resources to evaulate them, and it's going to take a lot more than 5 minutes. Some colleges will do that, some won't. Contact the schools you are interested in and ask.</p>