<p>“Believe me, adcoms will see he took easier classes. They are more likely to accept a student with a 3.6 lets say, who took the hardest classes available, than this guy who got a 4.0 taking easy classes.”</p>
<p>That is absolute ********. I wish colleges followed that principle, but in reality they don’t. </p>
<p>And to alrite then… i think if you’re going engineering you will have good to great math scores. therefore, i think the verbal score is actually the most important even though many applicants(like me) wish that 800/800 or great math scores will compensate for low cr scores.</p>
<p>In matters of grave importance, style, not scores, is the vital thing. It’s all about the Personal Essay I think. If you write something brilliant enough, regardless of SAT’s or GPA, they’ll consider taking you.</p>
<p>Again I would like to think that that is the case, but I really don’t think so. Admin rush through the essays. Maybe I’m cynical, but every time they read something from a student with bad scores I would assume they either got a lot of help or paid someone to write them an essay. I know kids that are doing that.</p>
<p>“In matters of grave importance, style, not scores, is the vital thing. It’s all about the Personal Essay I think. If you write something brilliant enough, regardless of SAT’s or GPA, they’ll consider taking you.”</p>
<p>I think they put apps in different piles(High Admit, Admit, Possible, Deny) before reading the essays/subjective stuff so they don’t get too swayed by the essays.</p>
<p>I think the essays are more important than you think. Each school at Cornell wants to know that you’re applying to it for the right reasons, and they want to admit students who are passionate about what field they want to go into. They also to some degree want to admit interesting kids who have depth, and I’m sure that if you come across as a really interesting person in an essay that is really well written and enjoyable, then the essay will help.</p>
<p>There was insert in the paper the other day about college admissions and it ranked the emphasis that about 100 colleges put on each part of the application. Cornell considered the essay just as important as SATs and GPA according to the chart.</p>
<p>Well, I don’t know about Cornell, but there are schools that first pre-filter applications before looking in-depth into the apps. mit is one, uva is another.</p>
<p>I think an essay can definitely help a lot if it’s a really really good one, and it’s a horrible one it will hurt you. However I think most essays are just average and so overall essays don’t have that much bearing on the decision.</p>
<p>Well from those chance treads and the comments people post it seems that there would be about 100 people in the whole world who really <em>have</em> chances to get in university…
Happily none of the people here is admission officer. I hope none of us ever gets to work that 'cause it will be only sad for the future generations.
<em>cross fingers that the admission officers are in good mood when they review my application</em></p>
<p>i havn’t read most of the posts in this thread, so dont get on my back if i repeat something.</p>
<p>but, essays are in fact very important. Cornell could easily admit students who all scored above a 2100 on the SAT. </p>
<p>In ILR at Cornell, each application essay is read by 3 admissions officers. A fourth person is sometimes called in to evaluate a borderline student. ILR puts tremendous emphasis on person/school fit … those who have perfect SATs and GPA but dont prove interest in the school through their essays and ECs will not be admitted.</p>
<p>WOW thats insane!! I have a 3.7 and 800 math on the new SAT!! But the bad news I have 530 and a 630 on my CR and the writing… Im applying for the College of Engineering. Would that keep me out? I have great ecs and such.</p>
<p>I got into Cornell (AAP- Urban and Regional Planning) RD, with a 3.3 (88%) GPA, 1300 SAT (old SAT), 660 on two SAT II’s, and I had a great essay, I am also african-american. so it the criteria definitely varies.</p>
<p>It seems like the top state schools are more formulaic in their approach, while the Ivies and other top private schools apply some sort of gastrointestinal approach (gut feel). For my Yale application, I’m glad. For some of my other apps, I prefer the formulaic approach. I guess we can’t have our cake and eat it too. On balance, the randomness factor bothers me more even though I know the formulaic approach has significant shortcomings. Best of luck!</p>
<p>Right schools lie. For example CMU (Carnegie Mellon) has said that it does nto have a systme for evaluating candidates by using any scales or anything, but an alum who has taught at the school can vouch entirely that they do. I mean did you expect a school full of engineers to not use any forumlas?</p>
But the bad news I have 530 and a 630 on my CR and the writing… Im applying for the College of Engineering. Would that keep me out? I have great ecs and such.</p>