Out of State Students...

doubleplay
Sat, 05 Jan 2008 13:10:29 +0000

The admissions “formula” is a well kept secret.
Our GC once showed us the worksheet used by admissions at a large university to the north of us. She said it was similar to what UF does.

The worksheet was basically a rubric- there was a range of points for GPA (for example, 20 points for 4.0+, 18 points for 3.75-4.0, 16 for 3.5-3.75, etc.), a range of points for SAT scores, a range of points for academic rigor (5+ APs gets you 10 points; 3-4 APs gets you 5 points, and so on); ECs (10 points for impressive, 5 points for good, etc), and the essay was scored (10 points for knock-your-socks-off, 7 for above average, 5 for average, and so on). There were some points added for legacy and URM and your letters of recommendation were graded as well. The points were added up and the highest points won.

Although the bulk of the points were for GPA and SAT, the differences in points awarded for different ranges were relatively small (IOW, a 50 point difference on the SAT might have amounted to a few extra points, and there was no difference at all between, say, a 1300 and a 1350). It was obvious that someone with no ECs, marginal letters of rec, a slipshod essay, and not legacy or URM was going to have to have a phenomenal GPA/SAT to make up for all those points he lost.

Don’t quote me on the examples, I can’t remember the exact numbers so I just made them up as an illustration.