<p>in particular the teacher recommendations in relation to essays and ECs</p>
<p>my guess: </p>
<p>grades > SAT > ECs > essays > recs > interview</p>
<p>(also this is particularly for yale)</p>
<p>I would think
GPA > ECs > SAT > essays > recs > interview.</p>
<p>Essays> sat > grades > ecs > rec</p>
<p>grades > ECs > essays > SATs > recs > interview</p>
<p>assuming your SATs and grades are competitive for Yale to start with</p>
<p>You guys are way, way underestimating the value of recommendations.</p>
<p>Grades and test scores are important to qualify applicants for a harder look, but that probably excludes only about 25% of applicants. When they start taking the remaining 75% down to the 7% or so they will accept, differences between grades and test scores are much, much less important, maybe not even tiebreakers. Of course, in many cases people with great grades and test scores have great everything else, too.</p>
<p>What distinguishes people when it matters are the things that are unique to them. That’s their essays, what their teachers and schools say about them, the way they spend their time, and things they have accomplished. I don’t think there’s a fixed order of preference of those factors, but successful candidates need to be superlative in at least a couple of them.</p>
<p>I don’t think you can arrange SAT’s, grades, recommendations, etc. on a continuum showing relative significance. The truth is that without excellent grades and SAT’s, you don’t really have a shot at all. However, getting excellent SAT’s and grades in high school is not enough, and at most high schools, the top 10% of the graduating class is not going to be admitted to an ISI (Insanely Selective Institution). The differentiating factors are recommendations, EC’s and essays. I think essays are the least important of those three but I don’t have data to back it up, just my gut feeling and very limited experience reading applications a long time ago. </p>
<p>Without sufficiently high grades and test scores, you are very unlikely to be able to procure a persuasive recommendation from a credible source, so the situation of having a strong recommendation and a weak academic record is, to say the least, unlikely. That leaves EC’s - can they ever be more meaningful than the rest of the package? Sure – but those EC’s also don’t come easily. I think having amazing EC’s does give HYP applicants a clear edge, but having them available to deploy during your application year is not going to happen suddenly. Either you’ve been a recruitable athlete, or a conservatory-level musician, or a professional actor, for a while before your senior year in high school, or not - it’s not something you can plan to make happen at the last minute. Of those categories of exceptional EC’s, the one I know the most about is music. The great musicians I’ve known who were admitted to Yale also had excellent test scores and grades. Legitimately fabulous musicians without HYP-quality grades and scores that I have known have applied to conservatories. More ‘normal’ EC’s are not going to doom a great application. There are kids accepted to Yale (and other ISI’s) who have only typical, average-ambitious-high-school-kid EC’s, or even less. I doubt that there are kids accepted who don’t have at least one stellar, credible recommendation. I think having merely adequate recommendations would be a much greater shortcoming to an applicant’s chances than having merely adequate EC’s.</p>
<p>IMHO, here’s how it stacks up. GPA/SAT are your first measure. If weak here, it definitely removes most chances for further serious consideration. That being said, the other three (recs, essay, ECs) are what readers are poring over to see if anything makes the applicant stand out. The stand out evidence can come from some, all, or none of these three. My belief is if this “stand out” nugget is here, then, combined with strong GPA/SAT, then you’re on the good road to a possible accept.</p>
<p>Interviews only are useful in that they corroborate recs/essay/EC info and are the smallest portion of the file. Sometimes they raise red flags, sometimes they provide the extra-nudge evidence that readers are wanting.</p>
<p>Yale states explicitly that the transcript is the most important part of the application.</p>
<p>search yale on the college board site and it will tell you what they consider “most important” “important” etc.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.yale.edu/oir/cds.pdf[/url]”>http://www.yale.edu/oir/cds.pdf</a></p>
<p>thanks for sharing that link fogfog, very interesting! I’d check out page 7 if I were you sourlemon.</p>
<p>Thanks for the link, fog…but almost all of the factors that ive listed are considered “most important,” so that doesnt really help me.</p>
<p>^ Other than that, no one can tell you much, except maybe an admissions officer who feels inclined to divulge secrets of the Yale admissions process.</p>
<p>[What</a> Yale Looks For | Yale College Admissions](<a href=“http://admissions.yale.edu/what-yale-looks-for]What”>What Yale Looks For | Yale College Undergraduate Admissions)</p>
<p>i still stand by my belief that SATs are somewhat overrated. it seems like most yale-competitive students (who tend to be academically curious, intelligent and highly diligent) can do decently well in SATs. perhaps that’s why you see SAT high scorers who are rejected because they have lackluster grades/ECs/essays but others who get in with relatively mediocre SATs (say, 2200).</p>
<p>Sure Yale (and every other college) states that the transcript is the most important part of your application. Doesn’t mean it’s true 100% of the time. Nothing ever is. Everyone should know this as a fact of reality.</p>
<p>Yale will feel that SAT’s are more important than grades if a student goes to a subpar high school (like mine where the average SAT is a low 1400/2400) Even if the student has straight A+'s, it won’t mean squat if you compare them to an applicant who went to a harder high school but got A-'s and A’s. But if the former student has the higher SAT score (in terms of a big discrepancy between the former student and the latter student), then the aforementioned student will receive the advantage before adcoms proceed to look at the entire app holistically.</p>
<p>SAT is only there to show how well you can prepare for an exam; nothing else. It does not show how “intelligent” you are, the proof is that you can substantially improve your score by stuffing your brain up with previous exams. I’m sure everybody working at the admissions knows that. They say that their evaluation is “holistic”, so they should consider everything with equal weight, or even better, not weight anything. </p>
<p>That said, what do they really do? I have no idea. But I tend to believe that since the work is done by human beings, the “factors” the OP speaks of play a smaller role than we would like to think.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well, since you put it this way, it seems to me that your idea of getting a 2400 is relatively easy (did you get a 2400? odds are that you did not). If that’s the case, why do only 3xx people get that score? Your explanation of your idea of a “worthless test” is not consistent with the actual statistics.</p>
<p>^294 for the HS class of 2008.</p>
<p>^3-- something for class of 2010</p>
<p>SAT is an important differentiation.</p>
<p>Year 2010 Total SAT Testers: 1,547,990</p>
<p>2400 382
2390 219
2380 294
2370 362
2360 467
2350 607
2340 739
2330 791
2320 873
2310 1072
2300 1119
2290 1117
2280 1396
2270 1404
2260 1606
2250 1601
2240 1767
2230 1901
2220 2094
2210 2109
2200 2420</p>
<p>Year 2009 1,530,128</p>
<p>2400 297
2390 184
2380 309
2370 326
2360 364
2350 516
2340 525
2330 747
2320 683
2310 1005
2300 949
2290 1128
2280 1123
2270 1244
2260 1423
2250 1480
2240 1766
2230 1765
2220 1894
2210 2162
2200 2282</p>
<p>Year 2008 1,518,746</p>
<p>2400 294
2390 125
2380 262
2370 334
2360 382
2350 484
2340 572
2330 664
2320 753
2310 895
2300 918
2290 994
2280 1112
2270 1270
2260 1352
2250 1560
2240 1629
2230 1744
2220 1814
2210 2102
2200 2188</p>
<p>Year 2007 1,491,749</p>
<p>2400 269
2390 242
2380 216
2370 333
2360 367
2350 422
2340 581
2330 576
2320 699
2310 817
2300 931
2290 944
2280 1066
2270 1211
2260 1291
2250 1446
2240 1498
2230 1686
2220 1891
2210 2034
2200 2163</p>