Also please do not get me wrong – i am not saying a good academic record should determine admissions. In fact admissions are holistic and that is the way it should be – those who dont do well academically but have ECs or interest or passion or circumstances that explain the context in which their application is to be viewed also get admitted at the T20 colleges, and deservingly so.
I answered based on SAT/GPA and not ECs as that was what OP asked.
When I said 25% I was referring to Top 20 not T10,
Not really any more, when so many applicants are applying test optional, and many highly rejective schools are accepting plenty of TO students.
Again, you are forgetting to account for the proportion of test optional students admitted (and enrolled).
Yes my numbers were based on research I did when my daughter applied two years ago. SO the data available was pre-covid time. I used calculators available on the internet to get these numbers. Maybe the 25% should be taken with that grain of salt – maybe today it is 15%-20% considering TO, rather than 25%. Thanks for pointing out.
I think misperceptions about the importance of EC’s relative to grades/test scores are the stories of students who are accepted with “amazing” EC’s but lower grades and test scores. Here we can look at the dispersion of matriculating students in the Common Data Sets. Let’s use Harvard vs MIT:
| Harvard | MIT | |
|---|---|---|
| SAT M | ||
| 25-75% | 750/780 | 780/800 |
| % below 700 | 6.48% | 0% |
| SAT EBRW | ||
| 25-75% | 730/780 | 730/780 |
| % below 700 | 11.63% | 10.60% |
| Class Rank | ||
| % below top 10% | 6.90% | 0% |
| GPA | ||
| % below 4.0 | 27.09% | NA |
| % below 3.75 | 6.27% | NA |
You could argue that MIT has higher academic requirements, especially in Math than Harvard, but some of the Harvard data is clouded with hooks such as legacy (or a stronger one for athletes) that MIT does not have. But that does not mean that a perfect GPA and tests scores, absent other accomplishments and recommendations, will mean you have a good chance at MIT. There are way more applicants with 4.0/1500+ than there are spots.
In reality, even for Harvard, the unhooked who get in with much lower than median qualifications is a rare exception, and we only notice it because it is publicized.
Here are what I I had reserached 2 years ago when my daughter applied.
These were the estimated acceptance rates for 1580 SAT by some well known websites’ calculators:
Princeton University |11%|
Yale University |14%|
MIT |16%|
Duke University |24%|
Univ Pennsylvania |19%|
Cornell University |25%|
Brown University |18%|
Rice|26%|
JHU|24%|
CMU|35%|
Vandy|17%|
Williams College|29%|
Swarthmore College |21%|
Bowdoin |26%|
Wesleyan |40%|
In the past, the “schools on the move” (new president who seems focused on rankings) were a reliable way for a kid with great stats and average everything else to get into a highly ranked school (if that was the goal). So Vanderbilt, GW, Northeastern, Emory,… the colleges which wanted to jump up. Now with test optional I’d say that strategy no longer works in quite the same way.
So T20 is hard- but if what you are describing is a kid who is serious about academics, wants an academically rigorous college experience, and isn’t going to have an application filled with Carnegie Hall appearances and cancer-curing lab work… I’d focus on the following:
Brandeis
Holy Cross
Middlebury
Bowdoin
McGill
U Toronto
Case (needs to show interest though)
RPI (if the focus of the school works)
Rochester
Vanderbilt (still, but the academics need to be exceptional)
Conn College
Skidmore
Vassar
Hamilton
Oberlin
Other than “getting in to a T20” (however that’s defined) what are the criteria? Maybe help us with that and we can get you a more refined list…
Many online chance calculators are pure garbage…obviously they are missing incredibly important pieces of a given student’s application, including course rigor, number of core courses, LoRs, ECs, essays, race, and FGLI status. At colleges that admit holistically, these factors are critical in admissions decisions…and they will be important for OP as well.
The admissions landscape has changed significantly in the past two years. Test optional and test blind policies have made admissions at super selective colleges much more unpredictable for high stat students.
Return the focus to the OP’s question please. If users want to general expectations put on kids, accuracy of chancing, or anything else not addressing the OP, feel free to start a new thread. Non-compliant posts are subject to removal without notice or comment.
Answer to the title question is generally all of them. Without top-end academic credentials, a typical applicant has very little chance.
But then the ECs, essays, hooks, etc. become very important to sort all of the applicants with top-end academic credentials into admit and reject. Most of the most selective colleges have far too many applicants with top-end academic credentials to use that as the only means of determining admission.
The other thing to note is that “top-end academic credentials” often has to be determined subjectively, due to the usual measures (GPA and SAT/ACT scores) having relatively low ceilings or instability at the top end. Hence, Caltech, which probably has a stronger emphasis on academics than most (due to the minimum level of rigor in courses there, they need to ensure that all students can handle that), looks well beyond the usual academic credentials, and does not even consider SAT/ACT scores to be of use for its purposes (test blind).
Scific, your comment and data regarding 1580 SAT acceptance percentages are very helpful, thank you.
I know this information is not exact, it obviously does not take into account gpa/ECs/LOR etc., and it is from a couple years ago.
But when compared to overall acceptance rates from a couple years ago for each of these colleges/universities, it does paint a picture of a few schools which may favor high stat applicants more so than their peer institutions.
Carnegie Mellon, WashU are the only ones that don’t seem to care about ECs much.
As a rule, any public university puts more emphasis on GPA. So, depending on the list and the field, that would be Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, UT Austin, U Washington, UVA, GTech, UIUC, etc.
For example, my nephew had a top GPA, but his ECs were school band and one summer internship at a lab. He was accepted to UCLA (where he is enrolled), and was waitlisted at Berkeley. Testing was optional (it is now test-blind), and his SAT was also very good.
Of course, if a person is of the belief that any public school is just for the plebs, and therefore only private colleges are worthy of the title “T-20”, then there are no colleges of this sort. There is no highly popular private college to which a student will be accepted with mediocre ECS, no matter what their GPA and test scores happen to be. The exception would be for a kid from a low income family, but then there is an expectation of ECs that either include paid employment or physical help at home.
They all care. Our Valedictorian did not get into Cornell, CalTech, WPI, MIT because while he had a 4.5 weighted GPA and a 1585 SAT and like 8 AP classes and awards… he had no real activities or sports or volunteer or jobs to list. He was devastated. I’m not saying it to be mean. I just know even the Ivy League care more about a well rounded student than just grades. Does it mean you won’t get in? No. It just usually means A LOT of kids get awesome grades. So all things being equal, those things tip the scale. Especially with financial aide.
Are you saying ECs tip the scale for financial aid? Could you please give a reference for this comment.
And the Ivies and many competitive schools in the T 20 give only need based aid which is based on financials and has absolutely nothing to do with an applicant’s ECs.
I do agree that ECs show that a student isn’t all about academics…but has other interests as well. And that is something many colleges consider. Not all…but many.
Are we assuming all ECs are non-academic? Some ECs can be more indicative of a student’s academic potential than grades and test scores.
You can find the answer to this question for any university you’re interested in by checking the common data set on their website, section C7.
Public universities for sure. I have seen kids recently admitted to UChicago and Vandy with great grades/scores and very average ECs. And Rice and NYU, just outside your range
Those are all private colleges, while at public universities ECs are far less important.
There are a large number of very good public universities which barely, or do not, consider ECs at all.
I already wrote how my nephew was accepted to UCLA with weak ECs but top GPA and test scores.
UT Austin has automatic admissions for the top 6% of the graduating class at any Texas school.
At Purdue, GPA, Rigor, and Test Scores are “Very Important”, while ECs are “Important”.
At UIUC, GPA and Rigor are “Very Important”, while ECs are “Important”.
At U Washington, GPA, Rigor, and Essay are “Very Important”, while ECs are “important”
At Rutgers, GPA, Rigor and test scores are “Very Important”, while ECs are “important”.
At UMN, GPA, Rank, and Rigor are “very Important”, while ECs are “Considered”
At Pitt, GPA, Rigor, and Test Scores are “very Important”, while ECs are “Considered”
At UMD, GPA, Rigor, and Test Scores are “Very Important”, while ECs are “Considered”
There are, in fact, many public universities at which ECs are only “Considered”, while academics and testing are “Very Important”. Only at very few Publics are ECs “Very Important”.
Are these “as good” as T-20s? Depends on who you ask, for which type of kid, and for what major.