Tiffany Lu 2010-02-25

In today’s competitive world of college admissions, there are six key admission factors that families must prepare for, listed in order of importance as follows:

1. GPA AND STRENGTH OF CURRICULUM
2. STANDARDIZED TEST SCORES (SAT/ACT, SAT 2s, APs)
3. Personal statement (college essay)
4. Extracurricular activities
5. Recommendations
6. Interview (if offered)

Items 1 and 2 on the list, GPA and standardized test scores, are the two most important factors in the college admissions process. However, every year, stories of the student with the perfect GPA or SAT score who did not gain entry into his expected school abound. Most people find these instances surprising; however, such a reaction reveals a lack of understanding about the spirit of college admissions. College admissions are not about “numbers” alone. As the New York Times puts it, “Valedictorians (are) a dime a dozen.”

Families must understand that GPA and standardized test scores represent a minimum requirement. Students must clear this baseline hurdle in order to qualify for a particular school. (The bar is set higher or lower depending on the caliber of the school, and most schools will not specify—or claim not to have—a “cut-off score.”) Once a student has met that particular qualification, he or she is in the running for admissions at a particular school. At that point, factors 3-6 come into play. In other words, numbers alone do not get students into a top-tier school. Rather, they put a student in the running. Once there, the student then joins the pool of applicants, all of whom are academically qualified for the college in question. From this group, the college cherry-picks those students that it feels are a best fit for their particular institution.

Now in this column, we would like to give the reader some insight into how colleges evaluate “numbers,” or the academic data associated with a particular applicant.

Colleges rarely look at the GPA as a mere number. Rather, they “read” a student’s transcript to see what kind of academic choices a student has made and what these choices tell us about a student’s character. A desirable candidate demonstrates intellectual curiosity by taking the most rigorous courses available to him. An ideal candidate thrives in these challenging courses and maintains a high GPA despite the difficulty of his coursework. The student who habitually chooses to take a “regular” class when he has AP options probably does not demonstrate the ability or kind of motivation necessary to flourish in a competitive college environment. Therefore, the selection of courses is as important as performance in these courses.

The academic arena is not a place to cut corners. Remember, even if a high GPA alone cannot guarantee a student admission into a private college, a low GPA can pretty much guarantee that a student will not get in. In future columns, we will discuss other factors that come into play. However, if the GPA and test scores are not there, the other factors are basically a moot point. After all, however much they like athletes, musicians, leaders, and volunteers, colleges are academic institutions, and academic institutions first and foremost desire good students.

Column writers Gus Hsu (MBA, USC) and Tiffany Lu (BA, Stanford University) worked in collaboration with FLEX Director of College Counseling, Lauren Baird (former senior admissions advisor, Stanford University and instructor of English, Stanford University)