The aftermath: any idea what Stanford is looking for?

[kliviz]

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@Good Karma

“As for the whole gay thing, I seriously doubt Stanford will give you a bonus for that. If anything, they’d give you a minus: LGBT students are hugely overrepresented at Stanford.”</p>

<p>Hmm…the logical fallacy in this statement is outstanding." Hint: How did they get hugely over-represented?

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<p>Sorry, I guess I should’ve explained myself more. Stanford tries its best to make its students as representative a sample of the population as possible (a smart and accomplished sample, but a sample nonetheless). To do so, they implement admissions mechanisms to make the study body a more representative sample racially, geographically, etc. Thus, if a group is overrepresented at Stanford, I assume they would be more overrepresented were admissions not implementing said mechanisms, and vice-versa. For example, Asians are overrepresented at Stanford, yet everyone believes admissions actively makes it harder for Asians to get in to make them less overrepresented, while Latinos are underrepresented, yet everyone believes admissions actively makes it easier for Latinos to get in to make them less underrepresented. </p>

<p>I assume the same logic could be applied to LGBT students in admissions. However, there is the problem that the application doesn’t ask for LGBT status (indeed, my application never explicitly stated I was gay) and the problem that I’m assuming a lot from this, and as neethus1 said, you know what happens when you assume.</p>

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@&lt;a href="mailto:cgarrett101@aol"&gt;cgarrett101@aol&lt;/a&gt;.

Based on this, I can only conclude that recommendations play a tremendous part in these decisions. Oh, and I have noticed that many of her Stanford classmates, including her, are quite humble about their accomplishments.

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<p>I couldn’t agree more with this. From the little knowledge I have of admissions, it seems Stanford looks at recommendations much more seriously than most colleges. I had no national-level awards to back up my accomplishments from high school and I think my teacher’s assurances of my potential are what swayed the admissions committee. </p>

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@weatherbottle

IMHO, a 2400 at the first try (early junior year) is not much different from a 2200, going by actual experience. As long as you are above the 75th percentile for SAT scores for your school, you have already established yourself as an excellent test-taker. From that point on it comes down to your other achievements.

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<p>Exactly. There is a difference between a 2400 and a 2200, but not much. A Yale admissions officer told me that they’ve never accepted or rejected someone solely because of their SAT score. There’s always either something else right or something else wrong that’s more compelling and integral to the decision. Just like there’s a marginal difference between the prestige of Harvard and Stanford, but that difference is so small that other things are going to play a bigger role in whether to attend one or the other. The same thing goes for SAT scores and whether an elite college accepts you.</p>