Hey everyone,
I’ve been thinking recently, does having ECs and good essays really matter. Well, according to Magoosh, a 31 on the ACT puts you at the 97th percentile. That means that less than 3% of people who took the ACT got a 31 or higher. Now, according to nces.ed.gov, 3.5 million high school seniors are graduating. So now let us assume that each student graduating took the ACT (which is a generous assumption), that means that 3% of 3.5 million, or 105,000, got a 31 or higher. Alright, now lets assume that each of the top high ranking schools accepted an average of 3000 students. That means that those 105,000 students should be divided into these 3000 student schools. So 105,000 / 3000 = 35. This means that all the students who have an ACT of 31 or higher are distributed to these 35 schools. This number is staggering especially when considering the generous assumptions that we made (all high school seniors took ACT and that 3% of ACT takers got a 31 or higher). Thinking that 3000 students per school is a high estimate? Let’s try 2000. 105,000/2000 = 52.5. Again, 2,000 is an estimate, an obviously too low to be realistic, but just to prove my point, let us consider the top ACT performing schools in the nation on Forbes 100 SAT Score Rankings. According to this website, Georgia Tech, NYU, University of Virginia, Berkeley, Cooper Union, Boston College, Barnard, Lehigh, and University of Illinios at Urbana-Champaign should all be relatively easy to get into since they are the 52+ highest ACT score ranking schools. I guess this suggests that no matter how lousy one is, if they get the right test score, then they are GUARANTEED admission to any of the top 50 schools. I guess ECs and essays only determine which of the 50 one gets into. What do you guys think?
Wow, a lot of assumptions! First of all, yes, it’s no secret at all that ECs are the key to admissions at top schools. As you say, thousands and thousands of people are applying with high SATs and ACTs, so their involvements and accomplishments in high school are going to be what sets them apart from just a number that tens of thousands of other kids have.
Secondly, no need to guess at how many people are taking tests and who is scoring what. According to a recent ACT data set, about 125,400 students got a 31 or above. The rest of your logic does not follow. For one thing, you’re not counting people who took the SATs, but let’s ignore that. If each top school accepts X amount of students, that doesn’t mean every 31+ student is going to end up at one of those places. Your math doesn’t take into account that excellent students will be potentially accepted into many top schools. If Harvard saw a lot of potential in John, chances are the adcoms at other top schools did, too. If Penn didn’t find James worthy of admission, chances are the other schools didn’t, either. It’s not just random luck and numbers like many people on here believe (ex. “apply to 20 top schools, you’re bound to get into at least one!” It doesn’t work that way because admission isn’t random. If one school says this kid with a 32 ACT but mediocre ECs shouldn’t get in, the other schools likely will, too. Every school might be accepting the same batch of high scoring kids with excellent ECs).
To put it in an extreme sense, lets say of the 125,400 kids who had 31+, there are 5,000 of them who are really exceptional. They are the ones with 34+, the Intel finalists, etc. Every top school might be accepting these same 5,000 kids, leaving 120,400 with no acceptances.
To put it another way, no, this is not correct:
Definitely not. Take all the numbers and math and division away, which is all just smoke and mirrors because it doesn’t reflect reality. You have a kid with a 33 ACT. Bad GPA, say 2.4. No real ECs. Bad essay and teacher recs. Why would a top 40 school accept him? He’d go right to the reject pile. So how is he guaranteed admission?
You have just described the college admission system in countries like China and India where admission is based on results of a national test.
Why reinvent the wheel. Just look at the admission stat of the top 40 schools. It is not as simple as you thought. Even ACT 33 at the 99% that would not guarantee you to get into one of the top 30 schools.
not a safe assumption.
This has too many ridiculous assumptions to warrant a reply in my opinion.
@koolguy654 “…does having ECs and good essays really matter”?
Getting to the heart of your question, ECs and essay matter a lot at the very top schools. If you are applying to a top 20 schools, you need to bring the complete package: gpa, test scores, rigor, essays and extra curriculars. A generic good student with a 3.7 gpa and a 32 ACT if very unlikely to be admitted.
The further down the ladder of elite schools, schools tend to increasingly rely on gpa and test scores, with less and less weight given to ECs and essays. Outside of the top 50 -75 schools they tend not matter so much.
In terms of your analysis, there probably are about 3.5 million students applying to college in the fall, but only about 20,000 will be admitted to a top 10 school. That is really where the competition is crazy with single digit acceptance rates. From the perspective of the admissions office perspective, they have to build the best class out of a huge pool of highly qualified candidates. This becomes a process where you really have to have something in your application that gets them to want you.
I think this question has been asked a million times here, and that there is no reason to rehash the conversation. it is what it is. Closing thread.