It depends on the school. It’s not the same for everyone. For some schools, it’s GPA, Test Scores, Rank, ECs. For other schools, it’s GPA, Test Scores, ECs. For some schools, they don’t even consider test scores.
@dblazer That’s not true. The large majority of schools puts GPA over test scores. I actually don’t know of any school who puts test scores over GPA. GPA is always taken in context of the school.
Luck.
Submitting the application - the single most important thing.
None of those other things are as important.
Every college I visited with my sons said that transcript came first. They care about the courses you’ve taken, and whether it was the most rigorous curriculum available at your school. They will prefer a 3.4 GPA with a lot of AP/IB classes to a 3.8 with little academic rigor. If you are considering the most selective colleges, you have to have both rigor and performance. You would not be a candidate if you have not been taking the highest level classes throughout high school. Class rank does not necessarily matter a great deal, since many schools (including most elite prep schools) do not rank, and high schools calculate rank differently. Test scores matter unless a college is explicitly test-optional. Some ECs matter more than others. High-level sports participation will matter a great deal for recruited athletes, and not so much for other applicants. Interesting, unusual, or elite extracurricular activities will play a critical role in admission at the most selective colleges, because they simply have too many high-stat students that they are looking for applicants who stand out in other ways.
@dblazer I think that SATs help normalize the grades…but if you have a 2400 SAT but a 2.0 GPA that shows you how seriously the student takes school work…and colleges have school work too.
But 4.0 and 1900 vs. 4.0 and 2300? Yes, the SATs will be the factor.
And if you have two 4.0 2300? The essay and EC will be a deciding factor. Here is a very good information:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1586016-a-must-see-for-college-applicants-p1.html
I feel like it obviously changes depending on the university or how ridiculous a kids ECs are but for most average or even most high achieving kids I would say it goes like this:
-Grades/Class Rigor (they go hand in hand because of the whole easy class=good grade, hard class= worse grade phenomenon)
- Test Scores
- GPA
- ECs
- Essays
I’d agree with @anepicindian in that you can’t look at grades alone without rigor and that is first; but I wouldn’t say the standardized test scores are a distant second, they are a close second.
This is from Princeton’s website:
Is different weight given to different parts of the application?
No. We do not have a formula for weighting different parts of the application. While the transcript is the most important part of an application, we consider all of the components of each application and consider each applicant’s particular strengths.
So it says the transcript is the most important part so grades I would say although you have to be strong all around
actually I realized the most important thing is background; legacy, race, gender, big donors etc. This makes a HUGE difference. after that probably comes gpa followed by leaderships, test scores, awards, recs, essays, and ECs in that order.
It’s the wrong question because privates consider different (more) factors than publics, and have the luxury of including aspects that the publics generally cannot.
Also, not all publics and public systems are the same, nor even campuses within the same public system (UC, for example) or campuses with the same private system (The Claremont Consortium).
It’s ridiculous to try to generalize, given this variety. You’d have to specify which category is being discussed.
After that, you then have to add in budget concerns in public schools. Both UC’s, and to a lesser degree, VA, have been affected by state budget limitations, which makes OOS students sometimes more attractive than in-state, even if the in-states have better components. I saw this for several UC campuses this year, and I saw it 2 cycles ago for VA.
Also the CDS tells the “objective” story but the subjective elements can e very persuasive and override (IOW, outweigh) other factors, especially in “even” races – a student with a far more insightful essay than an otherwise very similar student.
Then you have to factor in geographical representation for the elites, since of all categories of schools, they actively seek the widest geographical distribution possible within the standard of excellence expected. A student who is excellent but marginally less so than a student from an already overrepresented state can be favored as long as there is no significant compromise to the quality of the student body.
Within the elites, significant awards are far more important than most students realize. They are part of the previous Academic Index used to assess applicants for Ivies. It’s amazing to see so many non-awarded students applying to Ivies. Strong GPA and strong scores merely keep you in the running; they are absolutely not determinative because far too many students (literally, hundreds) have impressive scores and grades.
Class rank = very important, and every school knows the rankings; it’s just that many don’t publish them or make them available to their families. But they can produce them for colleges in a heartbeat.
Awards, especially on a high level = very important.
Teacher recommendations = critical for elite U’s. What’s in those recs and what’s not in those recs, but mainly the college is looking for independent intellectual curiosity as evident outside of (in addition to) completing assignments, and for depth of intellect in completing assignments. In addition, personal qualities are far more important than many students realize; those qualities (character, generosity, giving two figs about someone other than yourself) are carefully considered by the top colleges.
Rigor of class content & schedule
EC’s are important, but especially as they reflect and require the same kind of character & discipline that the academics do. “Activities” may just be time-consumers, or they may be serious pursuits which include awards for those pursuits and which entail levels of difficulty (performing arts, martial arts, achievement over time in the same sport, debate with awards/ranks, etc.) If your main e.c.'s are high school “clubs,” you will not be viewed as someone with superior promise; I don’t care how many trillions of clubs you claim and how often you’ve been “an officer.”
Essays, like e.c.'s, should validate the intellectual and personal qualities of the student, as evident in the teacher rec and (if held) an interview. If the essay is not in accord with every other element, the application is likely to be discarded as inconsistent or even insincere. If, on the other hand, the non-essay factors are not competitive with other applicants and the essay is the best thing about the student, admission to an elite college is unlikely, at least in the regular round. (That might work in the Early Round for a special category of student such as a URM.) Essays, for elite colleges, really do not leapfrog over the basic qualifications; they can merely help decide close competitions.
OTOH, essays for UC Berkeley and UCLA can do some leapfrogging, depending on the content of the essay and many other factors in Comprehensive Review. In those essays, as long as basic qualifications are there, and many other point categories are also present, an essay can “compensate” but mostly because it actually validates another point category, such as Personal Challenge.
As you can see, the dynamics are complex.
…adding to my post 31 another qualifier.
This year’s institutional priorities at the college will enhance the importance of some elements and reduce the importance of others, including what e.c.'s the college values at present. One less award, or one less level of an award vs. another applicant will not matter if the former is pursuing an e.c. the college prizes at the moment because their star Whatever is graduating, or because the college is trying to build up a particular activity or department.