<p>For anyone who has been accepted into the Ivy League or stanford, in what order of importance are grades, ec's, etc?</p>
<p>Basically, what most important, what's less important on this list?</p>
<p>List:
SAT score >2300</p>
<h1>of ap courses taken</h1>
<p>Grades in ap courses taken
Extra curriculars
Awards
Class rank
GPA
Teacher recommendations
College essays
SAT II scores</p>
<p>You can check individual colleges’ Common Data Sets for this information. Here is the CDS for Stanford: [Stanford</a> University: Common Data Set 2012-2013](<a href=“Stanford Common Data Set | University Communications”>Stanford Common Data Set | University Communications)</p>
<p>My personal opinion (which probably does not amount to much):</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Transcript (rigor of courses taken, how many of these courses taken in context to others in your class and how many are offered to you, grades, GPA, rank, interest in humanities/science and does it match intended major? EC’s?)</p></li>
<li><p>College Essays</p></li>
<li><p>SAT Scores (should be at least 2250 for Ivy’s, but lower doesn’t count you out completely)</p></li>
<li><p>Teacher Recommendations</p></li>
<li><p>EC’s</p></li>
<li><p>Awards</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Essentially, though, a ranking of admmissions factors doesn’t amount to much. For top schools, you get past the first round by having a good academic record and the second round by having unique essays, recommendations, and/or EC’s. Few people get into top schools with either only grades and numbers or only EC’s and personal qualities. You need a good combination of both.</p>
<p>Grades
Course Rigor
Recommendations
Essays
Test Scores
ECs</p>
<p>OP, Philovitist has it right. But you know, this info is pretty prominently discussed in each schools’ own websites. And +2300 is not the norm for admitted students nor a guarantee of admission either.</p>
<p>Every adcom presentation that I have seen has stated some variation on the idea that the primary concern for each application is whether it demonstrates a student’s ability to succeed academically at the university.</p>
<p>That is admittedly a broad statement that likely includes a majority of applicants (including many who are rejected), but it is an important starting point.</p>
<p>My impression is that the next factor considered is two-fold: will the applicant benefit from the unique opportunities on campus (academic as well as outside the classroom) and will the campus benefit from the unique characteristics of the student.</p>
<p>This second factor includes considerable subjective evaluation. They are looking for something on your application that will stand out. They want to know what you will bring to the university to make it better and how you will be a better person after spending four years there. This is also a question of how the applicant fits in the campus culture.</p>
<p>I know Duke rejected 500 applicants with perfect test scores and 2,000 valedictorians this year. I’m sure they all had half a dozen or more AP classes, glorious recommendation letters, well-crafted essays. There are simply too many highly qualified applicants for a limited number of students.</p>