juillet

What that statement means is that no one should take a perfect 4.0 or a 2400 as a given that they will be admitted to a top school -- extra-curriculars and letters of recommendation are important, as well. However, the chances of these students getting accepted to at least one top school are extremely high. Let's face it -- the higher your GPA and SAT score, the greater the likelihood you will get accepted. The admissions statistics on the top school's pages reveal that, especially Penn's.

But you're right, this forum puts way too much unwarranted emphasis on extracurricular activities. Your grades are much more important than those, so it's unlikely that a top school will reject a perfect 4.0-2400 combination with a few well-placed extra-curriculars. You don't need to do two zillion things in high school to get accepted to top schools.

Siserune, I highly doubt that the majority of Ivy League students are "hooked" students -- the vast majority of Ivy League students are middle-class white and Asian students who are not athletes or legacies. I think your estimation of "unhooked" places is vastly under the mark.

IBfootballer, a 2400 SAT score doesn't show that you can solve difficult math problems or understand the intricacies of literature. The other stuff I agree with, but the math on the SAT only goes up to the 9th grade and the SAT doesn't exactly test you on the classics.

Vine_archer...Yale doesn't give out merit aid, so how did your cousin get into Yale with a full scholarship?

Intead of partying on the weekends and getting high and wasted, asian kids are at home studying/etc. Also, in general, asian parents are extremely strict on homework, like 99% of my asian friends, and therefore it is in fact ridiculously competitive among asian college applicants.

This is a *blatant* stereotype of Asian people -- I know a lot of Asian people who get high and wasted on the weekends and aren't strict on homework. Asian students are just as varied as any other racial category of student.

Monstor344, how many instances of "under-qualified" underrepresented minority students getting in "over much more qualified" overrepresented minority students do you actually know of for a fact? And who judged their qualifications? You?

monstor344

juillet, admittedly I don't personally know of many, but just looking through these boards I can tell that there are quite a few. I've seen 2050 3.6 UW URMs on this forum make top schools while 2300+ 3.85 UW ORMs get rejected from those same schools.

mathboy98

I think the guys with those kinds of scores who get rejected from *ALL* such privates schools tend to be people who don't care about anything but academics. Such people can fare well in an admissions process like the one Caltech holds. My personal belief is, however, that many top schools, given they have such top academic departments, should also accept plenty more purely intellectual students -- those who shine in a few areas or even just one.

I'm pretty sure there are several Ivy Leagues that a good student with exceptional scores can get into after writing a pretty good essay and having at least 1 good extracurricular.

I don't approve if a terrifically high-achieving academic Asian student has to be worried about his/her chances at *any* school with top academic departments, because seriously, whatever people say, there are many high scorers, but relatively few very intellectually vibrant students out there.

Some schools are notorious for doing stuff like this.

mathboy98

Generally a 4.0 can demonstrate academic talent too. Quite a few calculus and physics courses in high schools are so incredibly hard that, say a C in the given AP Physics class would correspond to a 5 on the AP exam. Achievement with hard work put into these classes corresponds both to talent and work ethic. They cannot be separated so easily. Because guess what -- in real life, the people you look up to as intellectual giants had to learn some pretty damn complex stuff that others can't even stomach.

Someone with a 2400 on the SAT definitively made an achievement, and it's true they're usually pretty good test-takers and can think relatively clearly on some issues. This is correlation, not direct correspondence of course. For instance, I find it unlikely that a really dumb person would get a 2400. But if you want to separate really bright from bright, the SAT ain't the measure. You have to look to more complicated reasoning challenges for that.

siserune

Around 40 percent are explicitly hooked. However, many of the rest are admitted not on academics but largely or primarily based on factors like athletic participation, non-academic extracurriculars (student body president, community service), or "tip" factors (females in engineering, geographic diversity, first-generation applicant, or whatever). I think 6000-8000 out of 15000 places is a reasonable guess as to the target size for those seeking admission based almost entirely on ordinary academic credentials: high grades and test scores.

collegebound41

generally this is untrue, because these applicants are very rare.
A 4.0 non asian with an sat score above 2200 is almost a given at any ivy they choose. The 4.0 2400 rejects are usually really smart asian kids who deserve to go to an ivy league school but under activities list like one thing so colleges immediately are like ehh sorry.

^^^Columbia 109, you are misinformed. That happened to a kid at my school, but i heard he didnt have any ECs

cicero_oratore

Boo freeking hoo...

Colleges are not robots like the majority of the asian proletariat. Do some activities, emphasize how you are not a robot on your application, and you should be fine.

schee410

^ I tried that. It doesn't always work.

silverturtle

"A 4.0 non asian with an sat score above 2200 is almost a given at any ivy they choose."

That's wrong.

Northstarmom

"A 4.0 non asian with an sat score above 2200 is almost a given at any ivy they choose."

Not true, and there are lots of people on CC who were disappointed this spring because they believed the above.

Senior0991

mathboy98- You present a very debatable issue: "My personal belief is, however, that many top schools, given they have such top academic departments, should also accept plenty more purely intellectual students -- those who shine in a few areas or even just one."

On the other side, doesn't it make sense for top schools to take slightly less academically qualified applicants in a particular field who have more diverse interests and are very personable. I know the type of people who are very intense and focused on one particular field (science, in my case). I wouldn't want to do a project, take a class, or do research with these people.

Am I generalizing? Yes. There are some really interesting and well-liked people I know who are also very single-minded, but that is not as common as the former personality.

schee410

There are schools for those people who have a specific track in mind, most often technical or engineering schools.

mathboy98

Well, I don't think it's fair to distinguish the "purely intellectual" from the personable -- I know plenty of people who did ECs who're arrogant, and frankly pretty boring, competitive people, and people who didn't do many ECs who're very vibrant, interesting personalities. I know you said you're generalizing, but that's part of the thing -- I don't think the right way to find personable people is by avoiding pure intellectuals. You should interview these candidates. I mean, pure intellectuals do normal things -- they watch movies, TV, read books for fun, etc. Their primary passions are just intellectual in nature.

This is what I completely can't understand. I don't mind if there are large numbers of *both* single-minded and less single-minded students at top schools. Why should there only be large numbers of the latter type? Note: I am not making claims as to what actually happens at top schools, this is just my philosophy. Maybe it's already being followed. But I think it's narrow-minded not to appreciate both crazily single-minded people and individuals of more diverse interests.

By the way, by single-minded, I do not mean "focused only on subject X" -- I just mean people who're hardcore about learning, and don't care to put anything else on their transcripts. That could mean they're hardcore about both physics and Slavic Literature. English and math -- I know someone like this, quite an interesting individual.

Most people do come to college for educational purposes, after all. Sure, some come to do other things...but the point is that there's no reason in my eyes people who're just plain hardcore about learning shouldn't be accepted in very large numbers to top schools.

I heard from a knowledgeable poster, Northstarmom (much earlier), that there are several liberal arts colleges that take mainly such students, but I wish the top bigger schools did too -- after all, some of these schools have some of the most expansive and diverse academic opportunities of amazing quality in the U.S. Just because people like you don't want to even see many of these people's faces, should these people who're poised to take advantage of these opportunities be denied their due shot? It doesn't make sense to me not to. I don't see how it's debatable.

If you want to go to a school with personable people, go there -- people can create schools of personable, pretty smart people anywhere. It doesn't have to be at the site of the world's best academic departments unless these are the most ideally poised students to take advantage of them. Some people hate hearing this, but I've hardly heard a sufficient argument against it.

I don't, however, believe the end-all to discovering intellectual vibrance is the SAT or high school GPA's. But I also think concrete grades and academic activity provide some of the most traditionally solid evidence.

Northstarmom

"But I think it's narrow-minded not to appreciate both crazily single-minded people and individuals of more diverse interests. By the way, by single-minded, I do not mean "focused only on subject X" -- I just mean people who're hardcore about learning, and don't care to put anything else on their transcripts.....I heard from a knowledgeable poster, Northstarmom (much earlier), that there are several liberal arts colleges that take mainly such students, but I wish the top bigger schools did too -- after all, some of these schools have some of the most expansive and diverse academic opportunities of amazing quality in the U.S."

The overwhelming majority of colleges in the country would snap up in an instant the high scoring, high gpa student who has had single minded devotion to some academic area and also has made major accomplisments in that area. This is true, too, of many top 25 colleges.

Even places like HPY will take such students. However, HPY and similar schools don't want to fill their whole student body with such students, because they also want to have students who will be active participants in the hundreds of student-run extracurriculars on such campuses. This includes some student-run ECs that are of professional quality.

mathboy98

^^ Yes, I agree. I think basically HYP should accept large quantities of students who're ideally poised to take advantage of the various opportunities they offer. That includes students who're purely hardcore about learning (of which there aren't exactly a billion, even if there are many students with high test scores and such).