8/9 very important or important factors

speedsolver
Wed, 20 Jun 2012 23:10:35 +0000

Congrats on getting a job! To answer your question, not really. Are you going to be a junior or senior next year? Just curious. The amount of time you have the job will reflect how committed you seem to the admissions people.

No offense to college board, but don’t really worry about ALL of those 9 factors. Really.

What I’m going to say here is my opinion. I hope some others on the forum will also chime in (either agreeing or disagreeing, this is a good topic to talk about).

Academic GPA + Rigor of secondary school record
Yep, this is important. This reflects your performance in school. Some schools have higher “standards” than others and it’s difficult to get a 4.0 whereas other schools have 50 people with 4.0s (unweighted) and a ton of valedictorians.

An IB diploma or almost all AP courses, or UW in the HS (or similar - running start) will definitely give you an edge above all non-honors courses. Having strong grades with a rigorous schedule will really show the admissions officers that you are interested in the topics and/or are ready for college. For some people like me, you have to pick and choose which IB/AP/Honors courses to take because of either school graduation requirements, having 6 periods instead of 7 or 8, or other factors, taking as many advanced courses in a concentration (APUSH/AP EURO versus AP BIO/AP CALC/AP PHYS etc) can also show departments such as International Relations or an engineering department your commitment and interest in the area.

UW will look at a combination of these. Are you a non-honors, non-advanced classes student with a 3.8 (UW)? Or did you take 10 AP classes and as many honors courses as you could, and got a 3.75 (UW)?

Application Essay
Really the key to UW admissions. They look at a holistic approach and while you may have strong grades and extra curriculars, your essays portray who you are and really let the admissions officers know something about you.

Extra Curricular Activities + Volunteer work + Work Experience + Talent
Honestly, I think these 4 fit into one category. What do you do outside of studying? Maybe your home situation requires you to work 50 hours a week and 3 different jobs. I doubt you have time for nationals level robotics or orchestra.

Let’s say you don’t work. UW wants to see that you find something you’re passionate about; they want to see at least something that you’ve been doing for 3-4 (or more!) years and stuck to it. Assume you have a club, you volunteered somewhere, you worked at Starbucks, and you can play the drums. Let’s also assume that you only did each of these for a year or less. Probably not a great thing to put on your application; it shows lack of commitment to the different activities even though you DID do each of them. Of course, this is assuming you quit on your own accord instead of other reasons, like moving states, getting laid off (not fired, just laid off), or breaking your wrist and not being able to perform in the band.

EDIT: Also, UW (+colleges in general) wants to see consistency and leadership if applicable. Never went to state but captain of the team? Leadership points++. Part of basketball JVC team for 4 years and was captain? Leadership points yay. Founded the horse lovers club at school and you guys don’t do anything but eat pizza and talk about horses every Monday after school? Still good.

Standardized Test Scores
These are important, but not a complete make or break for your application. UW wants to see that you know, you’re there, but it won’t kill you not to have a 2100. Again, the application is looked at holistically. Maybe you’re not the best at vocab and math but you have a talent in something or you’re one of the top high school entrepreneurs. Everything will (hopefully) balance out. I know people with 2300s getting rejected because frankly, they don’t actually HAVE extra curricular activities and/or totally messed up the essay. UW won’t be shy to waitlist or reject those people.

First Gen College Student + State Residency
I consider these two the “Other” group. You have the least amount of control of this. Parents born in Russia? You grew up there? Welp, not even US citizenship. One of your parents managed to get into college? Whoops, not first generation college student. Don’t worry about these. If you have a strong overall application, UW will love you. You could be in state and first generation and if UW doesn’t think you’re fit for the school, those two factors won’t save you.

For people on the waitlist - people who are on the edge getting into UW, would this play a role? Possibly. Should you worry about this? No. At this point in life, you can’t do anything about it unless you actually move to Seattle solely for state residency… in which case, I’d advise that you look at other options in case UW isn’t actually the school for you.