SATs are not as important as you think.

akiddoc
Sat, 19 May 2012 04:14:43 +0000

Stanford grad here with friend on the Stanford admissions committee. Students like Wanderlust93 do get in. But…he or she is not typical. No one should count on admission with a sub-1900.

Transcript counts much more than SAT. And doing something spectacular counts MUCH more than SAT.

Stanford is looking for someone who goes to Haiti, then does something which was not set up for them in advance. Someone who sees a problem and acts upon it. They are not looking for someone who goes to Haiti, helps build a few houses or ladles food, then goes home.

If you don’t understand the difference, you don’t understand what Stanford wants.

As for the idea that Wanderlust will struggle in classes due to the low SAT’s, I doubt it. Good grades in HS are far more predictive than SAT scores. 3.87 UW is just fine. Some people aren’t very good at filling in the bubbles.