<p>I've just finished reading an interesting article in a local magazine about a girl with the following stats who was rejected from Stanford:</p>
<p>GPA: 4.4
SAT: perfect 2400
ECs: varsity water polo, performed in school plays, (probably other things)</p>
<p>This girl obviously has the bandwidth to succeed, so why would Stanford reject her? I'm also aware that Stanford could fill its entire freshman class every year with HS valedictorians, and they don't, so, back to my question-- what does it really take?</p>
<p>There cuold be an infinite number of reasons why she did not get into Stanford (and most of them would have little to do with her). There is a certain level of randomness in admissions to schools with 10% adm rate. I am sure she got into some other great school.
To answer your question, it takes excellent scores, excellent grades, great ECs, passion for something, some significant level of achievement in your chosen field of interest, and some luck.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what you’re asking. They don’t have room at Stanford (or any other elite school) for all the people who are “qualified” or who would make good additions to the campus. At one point, they have to make judgment calls. </p>
<p>Have you ever interviewed for a position, you found 10 great people, all of whom could do the job, but you only still had 1 position at the end of the day? That’s all that is. I don’t know why there is “surprise” over this.</p>
<p>It’s interesting that in the time I’ve known kids at our HS (6 years or so), I don’t know of a single Stanford admit. Harvard, MIT, etc. but no Stanford.</p>
<p>I guess what is surprising to the people here who now have kids in college, is that when we were applying (granted- many years ago) those perfect kids DID always get into Stanford. Not so anymore. There is a lot of good competition and a lot more applicants now!</p>
<p>Look at the results threads on the Stanford forum for the past 2 years.</p>
<p>You’ll see that most kids admitted had high stats, but not perfect stats. </p>
<p>For the class entering in 2009…15016 women applied, and 1166 were admitted. 830 enrolled.</p>
<p>How many High Schools are there in California that have girl’s water polo teams? Some of the higher profile schools would have 4+ girls with the academic qualifications to apply to Stanford. So, I would imagine there were at least 100 (probably more) female water polo players from California with high stats who applied to Stanford. They won’t admit all 100, because they don’t want nearly 10% of the females in their entering class to be water polo players from California. </p>
<p>So…some will be admitted as recruits to actually play on their waterpolo team. Some will be admitted because of something else they’ve done. And most will be rejected – because they don’t add anything unique to the class.</p>
<p>Then, there will be a few waterpolo players from other states. But…unless they’re recruited for waterpolo, only a few of them are likely to be admitted. They offer a little more diversity than the California water polo players…but…not much.</p>
<p>I realize this is a very simplistic illustration…but…when what you offer to the school is offered by lots of other candidates…you need to have something else that stands out. It may be just an outstanding essay or recommendation. It may be an over-the-top dedication to an EC or academic interest demonstrated by that essay or rec - or local/state/national awards.</p>
<p>As with all of the elite schools…the admission dept is trying to construct a diverse class.</p>
<p>Strong on all the attributes already stated, then factor in ‘randomness’: it could be as simple as take all those qualified and put them in a pile, then use a lottery. Even if its not that way, that is the best you can do to make sense of it or predict the outcome.</p>
<p>Frankly, it would not make sense for any university to fill their university with ‘perfect students’. Perfect GPA and test scores can reflect something that is not desirable (i.e. actual perfectionism, which brings with it a host of problems along with it, usually anxiety, fear, inflexibility, tendencies toward OCD, and misplaced preoccupations). That is not to suggest all such ‘perfect score’ people are perfectionists, but a university filling it’s classes with such students would likely end up with a huge problem on it’s hands.</p>
<p>Maybe they had to fill some legacy spots that trumped her. Maybe they had certain feeder schools they owed spots to given long term relationships. It happens more than we’d all like to believe. URMs and the list goes on…athletes, oboe players and the like. Another possibility…?</p>
<p>Life Lesson: It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Possibly? As I get older, I keep having to learn that lesson over and over again. Not always what cha know that opens doors. (But it sure helps)</p>
<p>We had a friend who’s S was not admitted to Stanford a few years back and the S was quite devastated. His father told him that although he attended an elite private school and had top grades, tests scores and EC’s that Stanford is building a class. The S wanted engineering and his father said they can’t take all top students who want engineering as they need English majors, Econ majors, etc. The S survived and attended another great private school where he went on to develop his own company while in college and he sold the company for $1 million before he even finished college!</p>
<p>From our school what it takes to get in is to be a first class athlete and also an underrepresented minority or a legacy with decent but not perfect grades and scores. (Weighted GPA 96 to 97 SAT 1350-1400 out of 1600.) Only 3 have been accepted in the last 6 years out of the 31 who have applied and they all had hooks. We have a lot more acceptances to Harvard, Yale, Princeton and MIT, but lots more apply too. I know several kids who applied to both Harvard and Stanford and only got into Harvard from our school. We have no feeder type relation with Stanford while I think the east coast schools are much more familiar with us. Stanford also has a pretty substantial portion of the class from California.</p>
<p>Great answers, thanks everyone. “Building a class” makes perfect sense, and how wonderful for the admissions staff to have such outstanding raw material with which to do it.</p>
<p>The three students from my daughter’s high school class of 2010 who were admitted to Stanford for the class of 2014, all had double hooks, i.e., double legacy + minority or top ranked athlete + minority. Several highly qualified students were rejected. These are kids with high SAT scores and a very rigorous academic background (they all came from an academically advanced magnet program).</p>
<p>Once a student passes a certain academic threshold, i.e. over 2200 SAT, over 4.0 in rigorous classes, then it becomes partly a function of chance. That is why even the best students need to apply to multiple schools.</p>
<p>On a related note, it was interesting to see that the students who were accepted to Yale had lower SAT scores than the ones who were rejected. Which just shows that SAT scores are not the most important factor.</p>
<p>Our HS valedictorian was admitted ED, but every other student I know of this year (including my son who had great stats) was rejected. It’s funny when we did the tour I really felt that this was not a good fit for my son so I think everything worked out for him fine.</p>
<p>The Stanford admissions officer who read the applications for the students in our area, said they look for truly nice people to fill the class. The niceness quality probably shows through in teacher recs, elected leadership positions, the self-description in the roommate essay, or through service-oriented EC’s. Stanford students seem to think they are different from their Ivy peers insofar as they may have accomplished amazing things but are unassuming about it. That’s not to say that all Ivy students are pretentious, but perhaps they simply carry themselves with more of an air of confidence, eg. the confidence that comes from a life of affluence and possibility.</p>
<p>Stanford considers itself different from the Ivies and another part of that difference is a greater commitment to economic diversity: first generation college students, minorities, and other students who don’t come from old money and the hallowed halls of prep schools. Don’t get me wrong, those kids are most definitely admitted too, but maybe in lesser numbers.</p>
<p>Ironically my perception is that Stanford (although generally all elites are similar in admissions and it is all a lottery in the end) gives more preference to athletes and entrepeneur types vs. more intense academic focus of some of the other ivies.</p>