<p>A slew of recent threads have caught my eye and piqued my curiosity because they all seem to revolve around the same question: Will divulging less-than-spectacular information actually hurt a college applicant's chances of being accepted? I'm not talking about affirmatively bad things, like failed courses or suspensions or the like, just routine things that aren't quite at the level of the picture painted by the rest of the application, and may not be expressly required by the application form.<br>
Examples: </p>
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<blockquote> <p>AP scores which are lower than a 4.<br> An SAT score that's markedly lower than the applicant's reported ACT score (or vice versa)<br> The lower ACT score(s) out of multiple attempts (ACT, unlike SAT, apparently will send just the scores you designate)<br> A transcript from a Community College reflecting a course with a B or lower grade which isn't reflected on the High School transcript and isn't a key part of the applicant's high school curriculum.</p> </blockquote>
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<p>What I'm curious about is this: If there were two otherwise identical applicants to the same selective school, and one included some of the above-described information in his/her application, would that actually tend to lessen that applicant's chances of acceptance by comparison to the applicant who elected not to disclose the information? </p>
<p>I know that many schools insist that they only consider an applicant's best test scores, for example, but if an applicant had two ACT scores of 29 and one of 33, say, would that applicant look weaker to the adcoms than one which just reported the 33? If an applicant got an A in AP Calculus, and scored well on the SATII Math 2 exam, would it hurt the applicant to also report a 3 on his/her AP exam?</p>
<p>I have no answer to this question, or even if the answer would be the same at different schools, but since it appears to be a recurring theme I thought I'd bring it up.</p>