Reply to If every kid is doing the same damn EC

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "If every kid is doing the same damn EC"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]How did yours stand out?
Grade inflation, mid range test scores, no test scores. Don't most seniors seem the "same?"[/quote]

Students do not do the same ECs: a subset have deep and meaningful ECs to them and they are able to convey why they care and their impact in the app. However that alone is not what makes them stand out, for the vast majority of successful admits: it is the rigor and grades and LOR that are among the best in the high school class. Now that TO is old policy, scores are also used. Midrange scores are fine, using pre-TO college ranges on CDS, and do not hinder an application.

AO's have no trouble seeing past grade inflation, and they care much more about rigor anyway. It is the big unknown on DCUM when people post stats and wonder why their kid with a 4.0uw and 1500 did not get in to any T25s but friends who also took 8 APs did.  It makes people think it must be ECs. AO's look at the transcript first and put the courses selected by your student in the context of what is offered by your high school. They assess, some with a detailed rating system, the rigor of your student's schedule in each core area, based on the options taken by other students at the school. For the elite schools they want to see the student has challenged themself at the highest level in every core area. After they look at rigor they look at performance--grades --compared to others who took the same rigor. The AO knows the high school in detail and has data on current and prior years GPA cutoffs for different tiers of the class. 
3.9-4.0uw, 1450+ SAT could easily be barely above the middle of the class in some high schools, and in many DMV top public and privates, there are dozens who have these stats. The AOs admit one of these students over others with the same stats due to differences in rigor and even LOR more than differences in ECs. 
Read Jeff Selingo's book and DeanJ's many blogs and vlogs on how the decisions are made. EC's are almost never among the top 3 deciding factors. 
[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics