if you were admission officer, which one would you pick?

Colleges & Universities Stanford University
1

<p>picture urself as admission officer at stanford
student 1:
1500 in 1 try SAT I (British Student)
GPA 4.0/5.0
ECs: Excellent
Essay: Good
Recommendations: Good
Financial Aid Required </p>

<p>student 2:
1400 SAT I in 3 tries (Canadian Student)
GPA 4.0/5.0
ECs: Excellent
Essay: Good
Recommendations: Excellent
No Financial Aid Required</p>

<p>student 3:
1460 SAT I in 2 tries (Austrailian Student)
GPA: 4.9/5.0
ECs: Excellent
Essay: Excellent
Recommendations: Good
Financial Aid Required</p>

<p>which one would you pick and why? think from stanford point of view</p>

2

<p>this is easy. stanford is needblind, so student 3.</p>

3

<p>Yes. #3 here. Doesn’t mean that that’s what Stanford would do, just my opinion.</p>

4

<p>it’s not need blind for Internationals!</p>

5

<p>why? which one are you?</p>

6

<p>Yes, I believe all would be rejected. #1 just isn’t good enough, #2 has the best chance since he/she doesn’t need financial aid, but it’s still a way-far-away-I-can’t-even-see-it reach, #3 is best applicant, but needing fin. aid hurts, and just being an international isn’t good.</p>

7

<p>true - i forgot about that… hm yeah, still 3 but still doubtful.</p>

8

<p>The question is which one will stanford pick. If I have to pick one, i’ll go with number 2.
However, I think they have a much stronger international pool than that, and in reality they wouldn’t pick any of them.</p>

9

<p>are u sure about the international pool being much stronger? I am an international… I don’t need financial aid though</p>

10

<p>Well, it’s really impossible to say without knowing what “good” and “excellent” really mean.</p>

11

<p>again true… i think you should write out their essays and recs for each. lol</p>

12

<p>but the problem with that, what we consider good might not be considered good by an adcom, and an essay we think sucks might go down as the greatest college essay the adcoms have ever written, same goes for recs. It’s hard for people who have never been/aren’t adcoms to know what exactly they’re looking for in subjective features though we migh think we know</p>

13

<p>okay, sorry about the confusions, hopefully this’ll help:
good means checking off boxes in either good or excellent or sometimes, top 1% this year and even 1 or 2 (one of the best ever seen in my career)
excellent means alot of (one of the best ever seen in my career) and few top 1% and very few excellent</p>

<p>and student 1 and 2 are ranked top 5 in 300+ students even though the GPA isn’t shown, and the essay (good~7/10 and excellent~8.5/10 or higher)
hopefully one of these will help</p>

14

<p>Needing financial aid doesn’t hurt. They say on the app, “This in no way affects admission.”</p>

15

<p>But these are international applicants, so financial aid actually does affect the decision process.</p>

16

<p>That’s true for U.S. citizens, but for international students, financial aid is a factor in admission decisions.</p>

17

<p>it might not be fair, but international status isn’t helpful (unless Tony Blair is your dad or something like that). Financial aid is a huge thing, which is why those inties you can pay it have a much higher chance of getting in. I still stand by all 3 would get rejected.</p>

18

<p>why do you think int’l pool is strong?</p>

<p>many factors can affect the int’l pool…</p>

<ol>
<li>counsellor/teachers are not familiar with the reference system.</li>
<li>student is not familiar (less familiar) with the SAT exams.</li>
<li>student does not study the SAT at all because he/she is usually top of his/her school/district and believes all exams are easy for him/her.</li>
<li>the country’s educational system does not prepare the student for the SAT II exams.</li>
</ol>

19

<p>why are we discussing this? if this is a hypothetical question-i think its pointless to talk about it. If not, why don’t you tell us more so we can judge it more accuratly.</p>