<p>Just wondering...</p>
<p>I'm really interested in Columbia, and lots of people on the CC Columbia sub-forum claim that Columbia is the most holistic. However, I also have occasionally looked at the sub-forums/fora for the other Ivies, and have seen others claiming that Princeton or Yale might be more holistic.</p>
<p>Is there any semi-objective way to determine which school has the most holistic admissions process? If not, can we even reach a subjective consensus?</p>
<p>How can we discover this to any meaningful certainty? What do you do? Have ghost test subjects with differing attributes apply to all eight And see what happens? So much is subjective and even varies year to year. Don't spend energy wondering about this. Leave the wizard behind his curtain alone. LOL</p>
<p>Best of luck to you, nonetheless.</p>
<p>Well, from what I can tell, the average applicant (decent hs, no international ECs, etc) is only assessed holistically after a 2200 SAT and >3.8 GPA. It seems Columbia follows that same pattern, more so than UPenn and Cornell definately. As far as HYP, they receive so many applicants (Columbia not as much but still up there) that there really aren't rules--not so much "holistic" as "crapshoot." Columbia will look at you as the entire person (their average high school GPA is lower than that of neighboring women's college Barnard), but don't expect special treatment for a lackluster school record unless you're recruitable in some aspect (and sports at Columbia...<em>laughter</em>). </p>
<p>I think people tend to confuse the terms holistic with "unlikely admissions unless you're uberhuman." From what I've heard, Columbia does a good job at assessing people's applications in the context of their personality: who are they; were are they going in life? However, I don't think there's any sort of scale for holistic admissions, because the whole point is that it's subjective. The admissions people aren't going to go, "He's smart enough, let him in," and that's why you can't guess which college is most holistic--the one who accepts the lowest SATs/grades/etc. or the one who accepts the most outstanding ECs or the greatest writing? Holistic means just that, everything is considered, and there's no way to gauge who's the most able to look at the "core" of each person. Can you do that?</p>
<p>^great post.</p>
<p>i think the most important thing is for you to create the best application you can. if you learn in the process about yourself, then all the more to you. you'll never be able to guess which is most holistic, because they all ARE subjective, and none of the schools are denying it. we're human and they're human. simple as that. so give them the best "you"....extracurriculars, grades, essays, recs, any extras, and well SATs are just Sats. They're not everything they are hyped up to be, yes they're important, but you won't lose out if you're strong enough in the other areas. You really won't.</p>
<p>"Ignore that man behind the curtain there! Muhahahahahaha"</p>
<p>Sorry, i couldn't resist</p>
<p>Brown is also pretty holistic from what I hear.</p>