The Key Considerations of College Admissions (acc to NACAC)

Applying to College
1

<p>In an article published today via McClatchey-Tribune Regional News (delivered by Newstex), the National Association of College Admissions Counselors (NACAC) publishes its findings on the most important aspects of the college admissions process. While the linked article below mostly focuses on the declining role of the interview in this process, there is also a lot of data about how colleges weight various parts of the application. Here are the weightings and the article:</p>

<p>Importance Assigned by College Admissions Counselors to Application Items</p>

<p>Considerable Weight , Moderate Weight , Limited or No Weight </p>

<p>75.9% , 17.4% , 6.7% Grades in college prep courses
61.5% , 25.3% , 13.2% Strength of curriculum
60.4% , 27.9% , 11.7% Standardized Test scores (SAT, ACT)
51.2% , 36.4% , 12.5% Grades in all courses
27.9% , 30.6% , 41.5% Essay and/or writing sample
23.1% , 38.6% , 38.3% Class rank
21.2% , 40.7% , 38.0% Counselor recommendation
20.8% , 31.2% , 48.1% Student's demonstrated interest
19.5% , 41.1% , 39.3% Teacher recommendation
10.4% , 23.1% , 66.5% Interview
7.6% , 37.0% , 55.4% Extra-curricular activities
7.6% , 23.5% , 68.8% Subject test scores (AP, IB)
6.3% , 13.4% , 80.4% State graduation exam scores
5.2% , 8.5% , 86.3% SAT II scores
2.9% , 21.5% , 75.5% Work</p>

<p><a href="http://www.nacacnet.org/MemberPortal/News/newsfeed/newsarticle.htm?id=I3252867888%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nacacnet.org/MemberPortal/News/newsfeed/newsarticle.htm?id=I3252867888&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

2

<p>I’m a stats geek so I think this is pretty interesting but I’m not so sure it’s very useful. If we could see this analysis cut by quality of schools it would be much more interesting … I would bet the top 25-50 schools as a group have a different weighting than school 1000-1500 for example. Even within a grouping I’d guess the school’s might vary quite a bit.</p>

3

<p>3togo,
What would be your expectation if they could slice it up by quality of schools? Also, do you think that there are great differences in the approach of college admissions counselors among the top 25-50 colleges? </p>

<p>Many on CC knock the use of standardized test scores as a proxy for student body quality. While it is not the ultimate determinant of student quality, it is clear that college admissions counselors consider it an important data point and even rank it ahead of overall GPA.</p>

4

<p>hawkette:</p>

<p>You are really stretching yourself in point #3. Why would any college counselor care about such courses as PE or Office Aide or Personal Finance (i.e., how to balance your checkbook)?</p>

5

<p>I didn’t really place the “grades in all courses” it in that context. Are high schools really giving out grades in such courses and that these factor into the calculation of one’s GPA? If so, I agree with you, but much more commonly I have seen such courses be excluded from a GPA calculation. I had interpreted the higher weight factor (# 1)as meaning things like AP or honors level classes and then the other factor (# 4) as being the regular track classes for the mainstream subjects.</p>

6

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<p>Sure do, they are called “high school credit” only courses, i.e., count for HS graduation credit, like health and driver’s ed.</p>

7

<p>I’m aware that they are on a transcipt, but I was not aware that they carried a letter grade and impact on the calculation of a GPA. If that is really the case and it is done broadly, then it is a surprise that 51% would assign “considerable weight” to the overall GPA. How do you think the distinctions are made between # 1 and # 4?</p>

8

<p>At my S’s high school these courses have a letter grade, but do not figure into the GPA. Too bad, because he’s getting A+'s in band, health, and PE at the moment!</p>

9

<p>Hawkette: 31% Moderate to considerable weight to AP/IB exam scores.?? Comes out more important than SATII’s?..Given that students are encouraged to self-report, isn’t this odd? Do you think students should send AP score reports given this data?</p>

10

<p>marching band, health and PE are included in our overall HS gpa; the latter two are required for graduation. Personal Finance also earns a grade, as does horticulture, among several other courses that are not college prep. Of course, our HS also caclulates an “academic gpa” akin to the UC gpa.</p>

11

<p>rodney,
I was also very surprised by the low weight given to SAT II scores. I would’ve guessed that they would rank a lot higher than 14th out of 15 factors. As for the AP scores, because they are self-reported, that seems a reasonable reason for the low weight. I mean, who sends in a score of 1 or 2? As for whether students should send their AP scores, it apparently does not matter tremendously. But the performance in the AP course (undoubtedly one of those that they are referring to in #1) is critical and has a lot more power and weight in the application process.</p>

12

<p>Thank you, hawkette</p>

13

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<p>Oh oh, hope my 10th grader doesn’t get wind of this. She’s been complaining all semester that she is at a disadvantage because she took the very hardest classes possible, when almost all of her friends dropped down from honors for some classes–and their grades are going to be better than hers.</p>

<p>Looks like she might be correct.</p>

14

<p>midmo,
I think it really depends on the college that the student is applying to. For the most competitive colleges, the distinction between taking the hardest courses available or not is an important differentiator. My impression is that students who take the less demanding track must have very superior aspects of their record elsewhere (eg, very high SATs, fabulous and differentiated recommendation or essay, some outstanding or personal extracurricular talent, etc.) to compensate. </p>

<p>As adcomms of highly competitive colleges frequently note, the best combination is to get the best grades in the highest track courses…and the only way you can do that is to be in the highest track classes to begin with.</p>

15

<p>This report could very well mesh private and public universities, which have very very different objectives in admitting students. Public universities tend to be more numbers based, while privates tend to be more holistic. This result seems to be a sort of best-fit line that I don’t really believe is a strong indicator of things that either university type prefer.</p>

16

<p>enderkin,
I frequently read comments that say that publics are more numbers driven while privates are more holistic. You may be right, but why do you say this? What data is there to support this thought or is this more your impression gleaned from various sources? I know that some public university defenders aggresively challenge the claim that publics tend to be more numbers-based.</p>

17

<p>My son applied to large publics (Engineering schools at U Mich, UIUC and Purdue) and a variety of privates. While I had no role in the application procedure–never saw anything–he told me the publics either didn’t require teacher recs or wanted fewer, asked for fewer essays, fewer explanations of how free-time was spent, less elaboration of extracurriculars. In general, he definitely had the idea that admission to the three publics was far more cut and dried than the five privates to which he applied. (They were high ranking privates, but no Ivy League.)</p>