Objective or subjective admissions

ucbalumnus
Wed, 28 Mar 2012 02:12:04 +0000

TV4caster:

I don’t know all the schools that have automatic admissions for SAT or ACT scores. Alabama is the first one that comes to mind. I just know I have read that others do as well.



Texas public universities have automatic admissions for class rank, or class rank and test scores, for Texas residents taking the college prep curriculum in Texas public high schools. However, automatic admission to the university may not necessarily mean admission to a particular division if the division is more popular (e.g. engineering at Austin).

The Alabama campuses at Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, and Huntsville have automatic merit scholarships based on high school GPA and test scores. Presumably, those merit scholarships come with admission offers.

The California State University system has a GPA and test score formula for minimum freshman admissions eligibility for the system. A student who meets the minimum eligibility standard can count on a non-impacted campus and major as an admissions safety. However, most campuses have at least some impacted majors that have higher standards than the system minimums (and the higher standards may not be known until after the admissions cycle).

But the most highly selective universities have lots of applicants who are near maximum possible in GPA (and/or rank) and test scores, so they look to other criteria to differentiate them. Of course, holistic criteria also serve to make the admissions process more opaque, which can serve the universities’ interests. For example, with an opaque holistic admissions process, they can more easily dodge the question of how big the legacy preferences are, to minimize offending both the donating alumni who would like to see a large legacy preference and everyone else who would perceive a large legacy preference as being (more) unfair to them. They could also play the “Tufts syndrome” acceptance and yield percentage game if they so choose.