NYTimes -Relative impt. of these factors

Colleges & Universities A-Z University of Pennsylvania
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<p>Someone forwarded me an article from Sunday’s Times which has a chart for the most competitive schools in the country. They surveyed those schools for the importance of factors like interview, ECs, Recs, Essay, Talent/Ability, Legacy and Minority Status. A Ranking of 1 was Very Impt, 2 - Impt 3 - Considered and 4 - Not considered.</p>

<p>It was taken for granted that at all the schools academic record and SAT or ACT testing was a 1, or very important in ranking. After that, schools differed a LOT as to how they ranked certain things. The surprising thing, according to the article was the very high importance of the essay and the teacher recs, compared to ECs and Talent/Ability.</p>

<p>Anyway, for Penn it was:
Interview 3, ECs 2, Recs 1, Essays 1, Talent/Ability 3, Legacy 3, Minority Status 3. </p>

<p>Very interesting!</p>

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<p>This seems to be a pretty logical choice on Penn's part.</p>

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<p>I meant to include some for comparison - here's Brown, for example: </p>

<p>Interview 3, EC 2, Recs 2. Essay 2, Talent/Ability 1, Legacy 3 and Minority Status 3.</p>

<p>Cornell is 3, 1, 1, 1, 1, 3, and 3.</p>

<p>Dartmouth is 3, 1, 1, 1, 2, 3 and 3.</p>

<p>Duke is 3, 1, 1, 1, 1, 3, and 3</p>

<p>Harvard is 2, 1, 2, 1, 1, 3, and 3.</p>

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<p>Columbia - 3, 2, 1, 1, 2, 3, 3</p>

<p>Georgetown - 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 3, 3</p>

<p>Northwestern - 3, 2, 2, 1, 2, 3, 3</p>

<p>Princeton - 3, 1, 1, 1, 1, 3, 3 </p>

<p>Stanford - 4, 2, 1, 1, 2, 3, 3 </p>

<p>Yale - 3, 1, 1, 1, 1, 3, 3</p>

<p>Most of the top tier places are listed, so if anyone is curious about any other specific schools, let me know.</p>

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<p>can you post the link to the article?</p>

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<p>Try this and click on Admissions Sine Qua Non:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/pages/education/edlife/index.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/pages/education/edlife/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Looks like it won't link to the whole article, but you get the important stuff.</p>

<p>Also a VERY interesting article on facebook/myspace.</p>

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<p>what about testing and gpa?</p>

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<p>wow... how valid is this?? I kno its the nytimes, but still... some details of it are VERY surprising... I cant believe that the essay seems to be more important to many colleges than ECs... this might actually make me reconsider my EA/ED choice</p>

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<p>this was from last year....different websites say different things...</p>

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<p>hm... thats would I was afraid of... does anyone kno whether nytimes got their information from the adcoms, or just kinda assumed everything?? i cant access that article...</p>

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<p>are you talking about the info for penn or the other schools?</p>

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<p>I'm talking about the article... I cant access that...
or do u mean: "does anyone kno whether nytimes got their information from the adcoms, or just kinda assumed everything?"</p>

<p>if u were talking about that, then I was referring to penn</p>

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<p>These numerical rankings seem to match the "admissions factors" rankings on Princetonreview.com almost exactly. Very Important = 1, Important = 2, Considered = 3, Not Considered = 4.</p>

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<p>well... its still very surprising that almost all the top colleges seem to love the essay... and ECs r not that important for some of them, which is weird as well..</p>

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<p>This should be it:
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/01/08/education/edlife/data.1.graphic.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/01/08/education/edlife/data.1.graphic.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>i saw that a while ago and just as the yale spokeswoman said "there is no magic formula." So there is no way of knowing if all that data is valid. What if one adcom felt one way while another one felt a different way? That would make a big difference.</p>

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<p>I wonder if it differs among Penn schools (e.g. Wharton v. CAS).</p>