<p>Marysidney,</p>
<p>We don’t really know what counts or how things are weighted. Those that do know aren’t talking. I suspect admissions folks sign non-disclosure agreements these days. </p>
<p>We DO know from multiple sources that the statements by adcoms are at best only part of the story, at worst actually misleading, such as the value of legacy at certain elites. </p>
<p>To paraphrase a former leader. There are known unknowns. </p>
<p>My suggestion: Let’s stop trying to game the admissions process. Let our kids be themselves. Sometimes not getting your dream school (or athletic conference), disappointing though it may be, can turn out well. For example, a few years back, my daughter was turned down by her dream, Yale, as well as 5 other elites. (this for a kid from a school where 13 classmates went to Harvard and another twenty or so to other ivies or Stanford). She went to Chicago, which at the time, took 1/2 of its applicants and had a yield in the low 20s. Fast forward. She just last week passed her PhD defense at Oxford, having gone there on a well known international scholarship. </p>
<p>These things have a habit of working out.</p>
<p>I didn’t read the whole post, sorry. Just wanted to add my $.02 
Yeah, this confuses me a lot to. One of my friends received a 2360 SAT score, did lots and lots of AP classes, and was turned down from Columbia, He was sort of a stereotypical mathlete, and did no clubs other then Math Club. My other friend had okay grades, a 2200 or so SAT, and maybe a couple of AP’s. However, he was on the executive board of a lot of clubs. He was accepted into Columbia. </p>
<p>My analysis is that maybe colleges have a cut-off score for grades and AP classes, and since there ore SO MANY applicants, they use the EC’s as the determining factor since there really is nothing else to differentiate the numbers and scores. Of course, If you have a 2300 SAT, 18 AP’s and valedictorian or salutatorian status, you probably won’t have a hard time, with or without EC’s. But the college admission process is really confusing, yeah. </p>
<p>I read about a Chinese male who started his own non-profit organization, near-perfect SAT score, about 10 AP’S, varsity captain of tennis team, and so on. He was rejected from all Ivies except Cornell. I’m guessing that there are also so many factors that cannot be changed with work, like our ethnicities. Everyone on that guy’s thread came up with the diagnosis that he was a Chinese male; and there are so many of them trying for the Ivies. It isn’t fair at all, when you see white girls with mediocre scores but previous family members that had attended the college before, get in. Trying for college is essentially rolling the dice. </p>
<p>My father, who loves analyzing college stats for fun, told me that only about 50% of qualified people get into Harvard. So that means even though there were about 2000 freshman accepted this year, there were about 4000 who had basically the same scores, AP’s, and EC’S. The admission people are literally closing their eyes and randomly picking out 50% of the people, because there are just too many qualified students.</p>