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[quote=Anonymous]Folks, there's so much information out there now about how college admissions works.  Start with the special section in the NY Times, and if you are really interested, there are a number of books written by former college admissions officers.

All the following are now true in the current landscape:

1.  Colleges are seeing a relative scarcity of male applicants, and consequently it's somewhat harder for female applicants;

2.  Colleges live and die by their US News and World Report rankings.  One major stat that they can easily control is the acceptance rate.  They seek high volumes of applications and use the Wait Lists more than ever before as a way to depress their acceptance rate in a way that still gives them to a student if that student remains interested.  If a school can tell (don't underestimate the computing power available -- in algorithms they trust) that a strong applicant is unlikely to accept an offer of admission (in other words, if they think they are an applicant's "safety school") they are quite likely to WL an applicant with objective numbers above the average for that school.  If that applicant is sincerely interested (and there are ways to demonstrate that) then the school might offer them a place off the WL, which does not count against the acceptance rate.

3.  Colleges are not "punishing" a student with high scores that don't match up with the grades and recommendations.  They are using decades upon decades of experience to project such a student as a much higher risk than a student with good grades/good scores (all-rounder) or great grades/lower scores (hard worker with grit).  They are not bulls -- they are not drawn to red flags.

4.  Colleges carefully read and put a lot of stock into teacher recommendations.  The student who is a standout in one area and has a passionate teacher writing on their behalf may well do much better than someone with a higher GPA who doesn't have the stellar class and committed faculty advocate who demonstrates real excitement about their intellectual potential.  So GPA alone  has some limits as a predictor, even apart from the important issue of course selection.

5.  Colleges have different levels of resources in their admissions offices.  Some of the more selective private universities have more personnel and are more familiar with individual private schools than public universities with smaller offices that must depend more on the numbers.

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