<p>Every time I look at top-tier college applicant rates, I always see that there's a very small group of accepted applicants who have lower than the average test score or was not in the top 10% of their class. What made these few students so lucky as to get accepted? One of my guesses is that they overcame some barriers but other than that I can't think of any. I would say academic research or something, but that would mean they have to have at least some decent grades in their research area, right?</p>
<p>What do you all think?</p>
<p>I have a decent GPA but a mediocre SAT I. Decent-ish ACT score. (but science and CR were a lot lower than to my likings :/)</p>
<p>It’s all holistic! SAT itself doesn’t play a deciding factor, so maybe that’s why?
And generally speaking, high SAT (remember, in general, not always) usually correlate to academic excellence. But again, it’s outrageous to apply that to everybody because we all have our own stories to tell, right? </p>
<p>I’m not letting my mediocre SAT I hinder my chance to apply to Stanford. Worst case possible, I get rejected from Stanford, cry for a few seconds, and hope for acceptances from other schools.
:)</p>
<p>True, indeed! That’s the same case for me. Haha, but I read this book a while back, something along the lines of “Hacking Harvard”, a fiction book of 3 brilliant students conning Harvard into letting a failing drug addict into their system. </p>
<p>But here’s what I’ve seen on other threads: some who get rejected by Stanford get accepted into Ivy League. Now, I’m not really into Ivy League and Stanford is way up there for me, but why not? I could play the chances and who know, I just might get accepted.</p>
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A hook. If you’re a heavily recruited athlete, URM, developmental admit etc., you may just be that lucky student. Otherwise, it would be quixotic to assume that you have a chance because your credentials are similar to the lowest 1% of accepted students.</p>