<p>Which universities tend to look past grades or, more precisely, put an emphasis on essays? I am not asking for schools that accept average students but for schools that might look past a (relatively) below-average transcript if a certain candidate’s essays really impress their admissions officers (given that the candidate’s application is above average in test scores and ECs).</p>
<p>Obviously, this is about me; however, I do not presume to predict the quality of my college essays. I simply want to know which good universities/liberal arts colleges take a more holistic approach to the selection process because I wish to narrow the pool of my reaches to two or three.</p>
<p>I already know that the University of Chicago and Amherst, if I recall correctly, claim to do this. Are there any others?</p>
<p>Everything I’ve seen in terms of students who were admitted (this year) at Stanford makes me think they give a lot of weight to essays.</p>
<p>They have a unique style of prompting for essays (three short essays in addition to the CommonApp one) and based on the kids I’ve seen get in and not get in, I would think its a big emphasis for them. It looks to me like they want to admit gifted students that they like, as opposed to one student who has a few more awards and leadership positions than another.</p>
<p>Unless the essay tells a life story the makes the candidate a phenomenal diversity admit, essays matter once you have the stats. It’s a myth that a great essay can override stats. There was a post here by an adcom who had written a candidate a note to say he loved her essay. The candidate was rejected, stats too low.</p>
<p>Most top-tier colleges review the applications they receive hollistically, in that they consider your essays, ECs, etc. Good grades and test scores alone are no longer enough to get you into a top college. However, as redroses said, it is difficult for a good essay to override low or mediocre stats.</p>
<p>Look for the Common Data Sets of the schools in which you are interested (you can usually just Google them). Section C states what importance is placed on the admission criteria.</p>
<p>This is helpful for comparing to what relative extent a school weights each criterion, but it is not a good indicator of whether a school weights a specific factor more than another school does.</p>
<p>I’d say U Chicago, Stanford, and MIT have been known for emphasizing the “subjective” factors a little more than other top schools. Of course, you still need to have the grades and scores to get in.</p>
<p>I realize that no top school would admit someone on the basis of an eye-catching essay and nothing else. I was curious about schools that might, hypothetically and depending on the alignment of the planets on that particular day, consider a student with sub-par grades if they really liked his or her essay(s).</p>
<p>I was surprised to see Stanford in this thread. I’d read somewhere that Stanford treated edgy and abstract essays unfavorably, and assumed that the Stanford adcoms didn’t put a lot of stock in the essay component of the application. Now I see how the two are not necessarily related.</p>
<p>I’ll maybe look into Stanford and the University of Chicago as my reaches; as for MIT, I don’t think I’d be a good fit for them at all, which would inevitably become obvious to the adcoms.</p>
<p>Wherever I end up applying, I won’t be too hopeful of getting in. If any of you are curious about my academic profile, my SAT I score is 2370 (though I will retake it simply because I did not prepare sufficiently the first time around and I feel I can do even better with just a little more work; it’s a matter of personal pride rather than academic ambition) and I expect SAT IIs in the 780-800 range. My ECs are also good and, more importantly, showcase my genuine interests and passions. However, my GPA is around 3.4, which automatically nullifies my chances at any of those schools.</p>
<p>Anyway. Again, thanks to everyone who replied!</p>
<p>^ Your SAT score does not need to be retaken; the difference between 2370 and 2400 is almost negligible. Your GPA, however, is indeed quite low.</p>