Typical priority in "Holistic" Review

[Anonymous]

From the list of basic factors below, what are the most important factors (in arriving at an admissions decision) from the perspective of an AO at a Top 20 public school (excluding test blind schools), and please include your sense of weighting of each factor to equal 100%:

GRADES
A. Unweighted GPA
B. Weighted GPA
C. Coursework Rigor (honors, APs, IB programs, etc.)
D. Emphasis on STEM coursework
E. Trend of Grades (i.e., Junior year grades better / worse than Freshman, Sophomore year grades)
F. Class Rank (if high school ranks its students)

TEST SCORES
G. Standardized Test Scores (ACT, SAT)
H. # of times Standardized Tests were taken
I. AP exams scores

EXTRACURRICULARS
J. ECs related to athletics
K. ECs related to community service
L. ECs related to student government
M. ECs related to another passion (career interest, foreign language, MUN, engineering, etc.)
N. ECs related to employment
O. Awards

WRITING
P. Essays
Q. Letters of Recommendation
R. Writing Sample

OTHER
S. Relative competitiveness of intended Major (i.e., CS or Engineering vs. ?)
T. Presentation of Application (there are so many areas to get tripped up on the Common App, it's hard to believe that most avoid a mistake or two)
U. Application status (applying with or without seeking financial support)
V. Interview
W. Other (Legacy, Athletics, etc.)

[Anonymous]

You left out one factor that is an important consideration for every Top 20 public college: state resident or not.

[Anonymous]

What is this?

[Anonymous]

Unless you are a hooked student, most important criteria by far is weighted gpa/class rank, which school can calculate for itself. Then, test scores if submitted. Extracurriculars only really matter if there are none or are super unique. After that, things like geographic diversity, gender diversity, major, etc . . .

First Gen, pell eligible, athlete puts you on a separate track. Legacy is only a tiebreaker.

[Anonymous]

Oh come on!

[Anonymous]

You people are obsessed. Truly obsessed.

No two colleges use the same formula. To get the best idea of what a particular college does, you look at its common data set. You do that instead of asking weirdos on this website who know nothing to make shit up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unless you are a hooked student, most important criteria by far is weighted gpa/class rank, which school can calculate for itself. Then, test scores if submitted. Extracurriculars only really matter if there are none or are super unique. After that, things like geographic diversity, gender diversity, major, etc . . .

First Gen, pell eligible, athlete puts you on a separate track. Legacy is only a tiebreaker.

+1. The most important factor today is URM and first-generation status.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unless you are a hooked student, most important criteria by far is weighted gpa/class rank, which school can calculate for itself. Then, test scores if submitted. Extracurriculars only really matter if there are none or are super unique. After that, things like geographic diversity, gender diversity, major, etc . . .

First Gen, pell eligible, athlete puts you on a separate track. Legacy is only a tiebreaker.

+1. The most important factor today is URM and first-generation status.

The most important factor is “did daddy give a building” and “can you throw a football.” But those categories don’t apply to very many people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unless you are a hooked student, most important criteria by far is weighted gpa/class rank, which school can calculate for itself. Then, test scores if submitted. Extracurriculars only really matter if there are none or are super unique. After that, things like geographic diversity, gender diversity, major, etc . . .

First Gen, pell eligible, athlete puts you on a separate track. Legacy is only a tiebreaker.

+1. The most important factor today is URM and first-generation status.

What do you mean by URM? There's no box to check yet plenty of minority John Smiths. If they abide by the ruling then that shouldn't be a factor. But I'll give you 'first-gen' as a factor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is this?

Someone with terminal engineer brain is trying to codify holistic admissions which actually works on the whole candidate and how they fit into the ideal class and not fulfilling certain point thresholds weighted by category.

[Anonymous]

You can't codify this and game it. Just put your best foot forward and you'll be fine

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is this?

Someone with terminal engineer brain is trying to codify holistic admissions which actually works on the whole candidate and how they fit into the ideal class and not fulfilling certain point thresholds weighted by category.

Exactly. This type of analysis is completely counter to “holistic” admissions.

[Anonymous]

Transcript is most important. If we’re talking top 20, things like trajectory don’t matter much because almost all the grades need to be As. If there are a couple Bs, yes better in 9th than 11th. Rigor matters and it’s more important than weighted GPA because not all weighted classes are the same. MV is more impressive than AB, unless you’re coming from an underresourced school. Scores are less important but they matter. Better to have 1500+ along with your straight As. If that’s met, then yeah your ECs matter (unless they are SO incredible that they already mattered). But there are all the other considerations like coming from an underrepresented part of the state.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Transcript is most important. If we’re talking top 20, things like trajectory don’t matter much because almost all the grades need to be As. If there are a couple Bs, yes better in 9th than 11th. Rigor matters and it’s more important than weighted GPA because not all weighted classes are the same. MV is more impressive than AB, unless you’re coming from an underresourced school. Scores are less important but they matter. Better to have 1500+ along with your straight As. If that’s met, then yeah your ECs matter (unless they are SO incredible that they already mattered). But there are all the other considerations like coming from an underrepresented part of the state. [/quote

One of the problems with this exercise is that respondents build candidates that are far more rare than they think. It works like this:

60,000 high school seniors with a 4.00 WGPA
Of these, 40,000 high school seniors with academic rigor in their transcript
Of these, 8,000 high school seniors have taken a MV calculus course
Of these, 5,400 high school seniors have an SAT score of 1500 or an ACT score of 34
Of these, 4,200 have solid ECs
And of these, 500 come from an underrepresented part of their state

500 candidates isn't enough to fill 1% of the incoming Class of 2028 at T20 schools.

The drive for holistic review and diverse classes rings hollow when whether or not a student took MV calculus is included in the equation. What does MV calculus matter for humanities majors, by way of example?

[Anonymous]

Major/demographics
Academic (rigor, grades, GPA)
Recommendations
Writing
Extracurriculars

No idea where to put testing anymore.