Half of Ivy League schools lower their admissions standards

[ucbalumnus]

@RichInPitt

@HPuck35

Back to the original thought of this thread. SAT and ACT scores just seem to me to pale in importance to all the other things that go into admissions decisions

The data from admissions officers disagree:

https://www.nacacnet.org/globalassets/documents/publications/research/2018_soca/soca2019_all.pdf

Factors considered of Considerable Importance:

Grades - 74%
Strength of Curriculum - 62%
Standardized Test Scores - 46%

Essay - 23%
Recommendations - 15%
EC - 6%

Even adding Considerable and Moderate importance, the top three are each at 82-90%, Essays are at 56%, Recommendations at 55% and nothing else is over 50%.

Here is what colleges said that they used in admissions a year or few ago, based on their common data set section C7 entries:

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/2131779-what-colleges-use-in-admissions-according-to-cds-listings.html

Includes charts for all, public, private non-profit, private for-profit, USNWR top 25 national universities, and USNWR top 26 LACs.

As you can see, colleges generally saw grades, rigor, and test scores as being the most important factors, but the most selective colleges also increased the importance of other criteria, especially recommendations, essay, talent, and character/personal.