<p>Perfect score on ACT? Not good enough
April 12, 2006</p>
<p>BY DAVE NEWBART Staff Reporter </p>
<p>In college admissions this year, perfect is no longer good enough.</p>
<p>Adam Ammar scored a perfect 36 on the ACT college entrance exam. Only 251 students out of the 2.1 million who took the test – .01 percent – scored so well last year.</p>
<p>Yet Ammar, one of the top two seniors at Whitney Young Magnet High School this year, was rejected or wait-listed by nearly all of his top college choices, including Princeton, Yale, Stanford, MIT and Columbia.</p>
<p>The 18-year-old from Streeterville said he was stunned by the outcome of his search, particularly because his preferred school, Harvard, put him on a wait list.</p>
<p>COMPETITION RAISES ADMISSION BAR
Highly selective colleges and universities, both public and private, have seen a record number of applications this year – and issued a record number of rejections. All but one of the following schools had record-low admit rates. Harvard’s rate was a near record. </p>
<p>SCHOOL APPLICATIONS % ACCEPTED
Harvard 22,753 9.3 %<br>
Stanford 22,332 11%
Brown 18,313 13.8%<br>
Penn 20,479 17.7%
Dartmouth 13,937 15.4%<br>
Northwestern 18,416 28 %
NU Honors Program in Medical Education 600 10 %<br>
U. of Chicago 9,567 38.6%
U. of Illinois College of Business 2,882 39.8% </p>
<p>SOURCE: SUN-TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL RESEARCH </p>
<p>“For the past two years, I really had my heart set on it,” he said. “It really made me devastated.”</p>
<p>Ammar is not alone in his disappointment – top schools say this is the most competitive year ever.</p>
<p>Looking beyond grades, exams</p>
<p>Elite schools like Brown, Stanford, Dartmouth and the University of Pennsylvania say they have rejected more students this year than ever before. </p>
<p>Locally, the same is true at the University of Chicago and Northwestern. The business school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign also turned away a record number of students.</p>
<p>“This is the most selective year ever,” said Keith Todd, director of undergraduate admission at Northwestern, which admitted 28 percent of applicants, down from the 31 percent accepted last year.</p>
<p>University and high school officials said there are several reasons schools are seeing huge numbers of applications, and therefore have had to increase selectivity:</p>
<p>*Demographically, there are simply more students of high school age in the general population. </p>
<p>*The best students, high school counselors said, also are sending out more applications than before.</p>
<p>*And more students are prepping for college, producing applications chock full of top test scores and high grades. That makes a student’s entire application – including extracurricular activities, essays and interviews – more important, admissions officers said.</p>
<p>“In the end, test scores and grades are not the only factor,” Todd said.</p>
<p>That is especially true for Northwestern’s highly selective program that grants admission to both undergraduate and medical school and takes just seven years to complete. Northwestern admitted just 10 percent of the 600 who applied. Another 400 who inquired about it weren’t even allowed to send applications because their credentials weren’t good enough, Todd said.</p>
<p>Ammar was rejected by the program but admitted to Northwestern’s undergraduate college. Todd said a “good number” of students with perfect test scores were turned away by the medical program.</p>
<p>At Penn, 70 percent of students with near-perfect scores on the math and reading portions of the SAT college entrance exam did not get in, school officials said. Nor did 394 of the more than 1,000 valedictorians that sent applications.</p>
<p>At Harvard, 2,700 students who sought admission also had perfect SAT math scores – like Ammar.</p>
<p>Still, the statistics only make it slightly easier for Ammar’s family or teachers to accept the new college admissions landscape.</p>
<p>“I’m baffled why a kid with a 36 would not get into any of his top choices,” said Whitney Young principal Joyce Kenner. Still, she noted that three Whitney Young students were accepted by Harvard.</p>
<p>It is also tough to swallow because Ammar’s older brother, with slightly lower test scores and grades, was accepted two years ago at most of his top choices. He now studies business at Penn.</p>
<p>Educators said top students can’t expect guaranteed admission anywhere. "They need to look at what’s the best fit for them instead of looking at the status of the school,‘’ said Whitney Young counselor Debra Hogan.</p>
<p>Hopkins ‘still pretty good’</p>
<p>For Ammar, who wants to go to medical school, that is a lesson learned. Late last month he was admitted to the neuroscience program at Johns Hopkins University. Although he still hopes to get pulled off Harvard’s wait list, he knows schools tend to accept very few students – if any – from such lists.</p>
<p>“I’m hoping I get in, but I’ve realized now it’s not that big of a loss,” he said. “Johns Hopkins is still pretty good.”</p>