Which Applicant, As An Admit Officer, Would You Accept?

Halogen
Sun, 06 Apr 2014 08:10:59 +0000

I divided the information into categories that might possibly show consequential differences between the candidates:

SAT Math II:
760 (only 71st percentile, but easily ignored if the candidate scored 5 on AP calculus)
vs.
800

SAT Chemistry:
710 (only 59th percentile, for a SciOly competitor and science blogger?)
vs.
800

AP:
Art History, Comp Sci, Studio Art
vs.
Physics C

EC: publishing
Blog of science
vs.
Editor-in-chief of school newspaper, Senior Editor of tech blog/website, Photography website of his

EC: forensics
Model UN Co-President
vs.
LD Debate Co-Captain

EC: clubs
Student Association President and Founder, Outside charity group President and Founder, Service club member - must have 100+ hours each year, Executive Board of admissions group for school, Outside gifted group member - must have 3.8+ GPA each year
vs.
Student Council in 9th Grade

EC: athletic
Varsity Track & Field, JV Tennis
vs.
Fencing, Tennis once a month for one hour

EC: academic competition
Science Olympiad
vs.
nothing

EC: tutoring
Peer tutor
vs.
nothing



The difference between AP classes is a wash, so I will look at ECs.

I would want to glance at applicant 1’s science blog and applicant 2’s tech blog and photography website to see what these websites say about their communication skills, the effort they seem to put in, and how specific they try to get. (e.g. a tech blog could just have a bunch of trivial how-tos, or it could address difficult questions about the relative merits of different software frameworks.)

I would want to compare applicant 1’s success in model UN to applicant 2’s success in LD. It could be that applicant 1 is a superstar and applicant 2 just goes to a few tournaments and never does better than 3-3, or vice versa. That difference would matter quite a lot.

I am skeptical about applicant 1’s performance in Science Olympiad, due to the SAT Chemistry score. Verified success in SciOly could “make up” for that score, but without verified success, I assume that the student is a mediocre competitor.

Overall, they are extremely close. Knowing nothing else (but assuming poor SciOly performance), I guess I would narrow it down to:

bunch of clubs, varsity sports, tutoring
vs.
higher SAT IIs, editor of school news paper, photography website

I am partial to people who are good at photography and editing, so applicant 2, I guess? It also looks like applicant 1 might have spread him/herself too thin over so many clubs and activities.

But that could easily tilted if one applicant is much stronger than the other in “publishing” or forensics.

And that could obviously be tilted by essays and recommendations.