Admissions and Academics?

Applying to College
1

<p>I’ve noticed while looking at a scatter chart on Naviance (for the U of Minnesota TC) The admissions range. Most of the admissions fall under the, >3.5 GPA and >28 ACT category, but there are some noticeable admissions in the lower areas… From 3.3 GPA & 24 ACT to 2.4 GPA & 18 ACT, a small, but statistically significant amount of students are admitted. Usually you could explain such admissions because of secondary factors (other than GPA and ACT) such as a good essay, many extracurriculars, community service, etc., but that wouldn’t make sense after understanding who exactly is admitted. From articles I’ve read, they concluded that U of M’s acceptance rate is based solely on academic scores. How does this make sense? If this is true, how have students with low academics get admitted to an academically competitive college? </p>

<p>I just found it confusing and was wondering what people who were more experienced with this stuff think. Thanks.</p>

2

<p>Not sure which U of M are you talking about, but that is a common phenomenon. There are always some athletes recruited with weaker scores. There are also other kind of hooks such as legacy, URM, etc that may lead to a few “outstanding” students admitted.</p>

3

<p>The Twin Cities campus specifically</p>

4

<p>So you are referring to UMinn. You know there are multiple states start with “M” and each one has their U of M and more than one campus, plus there are also U of Miami, etc. Now I see you are looking at the Naviance data for UM-TC. Nevertheless, you can find these outliners in almost every school.</p>

5

<p>U Minn has football and basketball, therefore…</p>

6

<p>…music school, art school, etc sometimes make allowances for kids with exceptional talent. Similar to athletes.</p>