People who went to college at least 10 years ago: what was your profile and where did you get in?
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Anonymous
| 1990 big three grad. 1450 SAT, at best a 3.2 GPA, solidly in the botttom third of the class, recruited athlete, admitted TuFts and Bowdoin.....wouldn’t even be considered for admission nowadays. |
Anonymous
| 1993 grad from a very small public in rural MD, top 10% of my class, 3.8 GPA, 1260 SAT, no sports - extra curriculars were National Honor Society and SGA. Accepted early decision at St Mary’s. |
Anonymous
| Large public high school in Wisconsin. I graduated in ‘87. I know my GPA was unweighted of 4.0, and I was valedictorian. I think I got somewhere around 32 on the ACT. I only applied to Cornell and UW-Madison- got into both, spent a year at Cornell and then transferred to UW-Madison. |
Anonymous
| Mid '90s TJ grad here. I don't remember my GPA but it was not good. It did improve from abysmal my freshman year to ok by my junior/senior years. TJ didn't do class rank but I'd guess I was in the bottom 25 percent of the class, maybe even the bottom 10 percent. 1550 SAT (800 verbal, 750 math). I was admitted to U.Va., JMU, and Tech, and waitlisted at William & Mary. |
Anonymous
Did you read tge "at least 10 yrs ago" part of the question |
Anonymous
Uh, that’s not how this thread is going at all. Most people are saying they did decently but would not hav gotten in by today’s standards. |
Anonymous
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Graduated high school in 1993 from a public high school in Orange County, CA. I'm a white female with one parent who was a doctor and the other had a high school education only.
GPA: I think it was around a 3.4, weighted (I took 4 AP classes total.) My grades were high in language arts/social sciences, but low (Bs or Cs) in math and Science. SAT score : 650 math, 630 verbal Extra curriculars: mostly music related--marching band, symphonic band, orchestra, etc. Volunteer work: Fairly minimal, I volunteered once a week during one summer at a community health clinic. I was accepted at: University of California Davis University of California Santa Barbara University of California Riverside University of Georgia University of Alabama (invited to their honors program) I was rejected at: Notre Dame (my dream school) University of Virginia William and Mary |
Anonymous
I find this thread very interesting in that it's clear that stats that would have meant admission "back in the day" would not fly today. Why is that? Are there just more kids and more competition? Or is it among the UMC, students are being pushed to do more and it's an arms race? Like I was a high achiever in HS in the mid-90s, but I didn't start thinking much about college until sophomore year, unlike kids now who seem to be gunning for Ivy from elementary on. FWIW, DH teaches at a university and he tells me that he doesn't find the kids any smarter or more impressive than we were (despite their higher stats), so is it all a race to nowhere? |
Anonymous
I think a big thing is that kids are now applying to sooo many schools. I applied to 5 in 1987 and people thought that was a lot. Now, 5 would almost be on the low side assuming no EA/ED. |
Anonymous
I think there are a bunch of things going on, but primarily the following: 1. There is *much* more competition from international students than ever before. In the 80s, 90s, and even early 2000s, places like China and India were not nearly as wealthy (relatively speaking) as they are now. Yes, they sent students to the US for college, but not nearly in the numbers they are doing now. So kids today have to compete against high-achieving kids from two countries that together have some 2.6 billion people. 2. There has been an arms race among universities to drive down their acceptance rates. This has been happening for a long time, but it acts as a factor compounding #1. Lower acceptance rate = a perception that the school is more prestigious. Generally this isn't true, but it's what people believe and drives that all-important USNWR ranking. So schools encourage applications from kids who won't ever be accepted. They do things like UChicago did a few years ago and start accepting the Common App (a move which single-handedly moved UChicago up in the USNWR rankings by dropping the acceptance rate from somewhere around 25% to 7%). 3. As kids see low acceptance rates, they figure they need to apply to more schools because getting an acceptance from a given selective school is less certain. More applications drive down acceptance rates further, which in turn lead to even more applications the next year. It's a vicious cycle. 4. There are many fewer trade school options for kids who don't want to go to college, or can't handle the academics. As we all know, it used to be that kids could choose a non-college track in high school. A lot of that was dismantled because of the notion that everyone should go to college. I personally think it's pointless to ask a kid to spend tons of money on a 4-year degree when he/she might be happier and more successful learning a trade. There are so many implications to this trend, but one, of course, is an increase in applications to 4-year colleges. To me, the above drives most of what we're seeing today. If the Common App instituted a limit on the number of applications a kid could put in, we threw out stupid USNWR, and we reopened trade schools across the country, a lot of this would be corrected in due time. Unfortunately, none of that seems to be happening. |
Anonymous
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I only got a 1220 on my SAT (700 verbal, 520 math - I suck at math). I nevertheless got into University of Chicago (where I graduated from), UNC Chapel Hill OOS, University of Miami, Tulane, University of Rochester, and Mount Holyoke.
Graduated in 2003 with a 3.97 GPA. So I could obviously do the work once there. I just had trouble on the math portion of the SAT. |
Anonymous
^ To add to this, I most likely wouldn't get into any of those schools now with a 520 math score. But how short sighted is that since I graduated with high honors? I had a 4.0 GPA for 3 years straight including my senior year when I overloaded and took 5 history courses in one semester because I was crazy. I could obviously do the work at a high level. |
Anonymous
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I got into Penn in the mid-90s as a legacy.
99th percentile SATs. It was 1430 on an old scoring system. They changed it a year or so later and while it was still on a 1600 scale 1430 would not have been 99th percentile. 4 AP classes: I scored 4 on three tests and 5 on one test. Private, day school that didnt rank or calculate GPA However, freshman year I had a ton of B-s and Cs I was definitely one of those people who got way better as I grew up. Today I would not be considered with my freshman year grades, even as a legacy. |
Anonymous
| '80s grad - MIT reject with multiple Ivy acceptances - top grades and SATs (1500+) from a crappy public high school and multiple freshman-level classes at a local college. It helped a lot that Asian-Americans were treated as diversity candidates then and I used the college professors for recs, rather than my high school teachers. MIT rejection was a godsend because I ended up being a humanities student. |
Anonymous
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1999 HS grad
White, female, no legacy. 1520 SAT Straight As with one B+ at the end because I didn't want to speak at graduation, so I threw a couple tests so as to finish 3rd instead of 1st. But when I applied to college I was ranked #1. I took every AP my school had to offer except English. No athletics. Lots of volunteer work, lots of club presidencies, dance, and violin, also held a part time job throughout high school. I applied and was admitted ED to Dartmouth, where I attended. I also was over-confident like others and didn't prepare any additional applications. Luckily it worked out. Had I not been admitted I intended to apply to Bates, Bowdoin, Swarthmore, and Wash U in St. Louis. |