Don’t get disheartened! I never expected to get in with my 1320 SAT score but I think the secret lies in making up for your less than average standardised test in other areas as well. I worked extremely hard on my essays and my high school transcript was pretty good, along with my extracurriculars. The admissions officers are going to examine your application holistically.
Rejected. First one but have some good options. Congrats to everyone who got in or on the WL.
Is there a separate group for those of us that got accepted? And I can’t seem to able to see my financial aid on AXESS or register for admit weekend yet; are the rest of you getting a message that says you need to wait 24 hours for your SUNet ID to work?
My financial aid was right underneath my acceptance letter. It didn’t let me register for admit weekend right away (didn’t check now), but I got my SUNet ID to work @cam1400
@Holistic2 You guessed it. I’m in the midst of a gap year and I reapplied to schools.
Accepted!
ACT: 35
GPA: 4.0
Heavy involvement in SGA since 6th grade
Varsity Water Polo, Football, Wrestling
This is the only application I took more than a day writing supplements for. Really glad it worked out! I was also accepted to Dartmouth, Yale, and UPenn Wharton.
@Davidjcshen what are your track time and can you talk about admissions/track recruitment?
Dear anyone who got in and will decline,
god bless you
Sincerely,
dude sittin on the waitlist
@Cameron7195 =D>
I just started a dedicated results thread, I’d love it if you would post your stats to help future applicants 
Thank you!
After a day of massive self control and trying not to open my decision, I can finally say that the admissions process is as weird as they come.
No SAT 2 and a 33 ACT, yet they somehow figured I should be at Stanford! (even after Harvard thought I wasn’t worthy)
See y’all at Cali!
Congratz!
Accepted! (Is this real life??)
In light of last Friday’s rejection from Stanford, I will amend my previous post of “Go Cardinal” to “Go Cardinal and Gold” since S was admitted to USC and remains a top choice. Fight on!
If there were anybody who wanted to see essays, I posted my short essays that I believed helped me get into Stanford on the decisions thread. I apologize though as it posted awkwardly and there a lot of line breaks but hopefully someone finds it helpful. Good Luck!
@Davidjcshen hey would you be willing to post your times for track and what the recruitment process was like for you?
Accepted (as long as the letter isn’t a glitch)! The college admissions process for top schools is crazy. I was rejected by Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, UPenn, Brown, UChicago; waitlisted at UC Berkeley and Cornell; accepted by OSU, UCLA, Georgetown, Dartmouth, and yours truly, Stanford.
@drelyk, Congrats on getting into Stanford. Couldn’t agree with you more on the statement that college admissions process for top schools is crazy. DD has acceptance from Columbia, Caltech, UChicago, USC, Vandy, WashU, Rice, UCB and local Universities, wait-listed at Penn, Brown and rejected at H/Y/P/S/M… Columbia has been actively recruiting for Science Research (apparently a dozen students this year) for the past 6 weeks. How could one Ivy see so much potential where others reject outright is beyond me. HOLISTIC admissions, I am sure.
Holistic process is a subjective process. No one can precisely define it. Each college therefore interprets it differently and the same college may interpret it differently at different time. Unless the applicant has a special hook, moving and memorable essays, or a profile a college happens to look for, the only thing certain is the unpredictability of the results at the end of this process.
@1NJParent, an excellent article by an ex-UPenn admissions staff: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-harberson-asian-american-admission-rates-20150609-story.html
Though the article focuses primarily on Asian American students being held to a higher standard (wink wink Harvard lawsuit), it does also confirm the subjectivity in the admissions decisions.
[QUOTE=""]
The most heart-wrenching conversations I had were with students who hit all the listed benchmarks and didn't get in. I would tell them about the overall competitiveness of the applicant pool and the record low admit rate we had. But after I hung up the phone, I knew I wasn't being transparent....
[/QUOTE]
To see an admissions committee admit a student for the story and background he or she brings is exactly what America, education and opportunity are all about…
Better yet, schools should also break down their admits’ high school GPAs and test scores by race and ethnicity. Knowing acceptance rates by identifiable characteristics can reveal institutional tendencies, if not outright biases; it can push schools to better justify their practices, and it would give applicants a look at which schools offer them the best opportunities.
Without more transparency, holistic admissions can become an excuse for cultural bias to dictate a process that is supposed to open doors. We are better than that. And our youth will demand that we do something about it.<<