Top Six Things to Know About College Admission
Will having the highest test scores and the most AP courses make you a top applicant?
Wondering how college admissions work these days? You may think that colleges admit the “best” or the “top” students out of the pool of applicants. This is incorrect. Colleges admit students they believe will be strong contributors to the class in a given year and will enrich the campus community. And that doesn’t always mean the students with the highest GPA, the most AP courses, or the highest test scores.
Here are 6 things to keep in mind when approaching the college admissions process:
- College admission is not fair.
- Colleges don’t necessarily admit the “top” students from their applicant pool.
- Colleges have “institutional priorities” – goals they strive to achieve as they build their campus community. They don’t tell college counselors (or families) what they are. See Georgia Tech Admissions Director Rick Clark’s description of institutional priorities here.
- 60%+ of college applicants are applying with a 4.0 GPA these days. 30 years ago, that number was about 35%. This is grade inflation, and it means colleges want to consider more than just applicants’ grades. Character, involvement, and engagement with the community have become increasingly more important in the process.
- And yet, grades are THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR in the college admission process. Very closely following grades is the rigor of the courses students take.
- “It depends” is the overarching guiding motto in the college admissions landscape.
Another major factor to realize is that there are simply not enough seats in the freshman classes of the best-known colleges you hear about in the media. For example, there are 19,000 seats in the freshman classes of ALL EIGHT Ivy League colleges, and there are 35,000+ high schools in the U.S. There are just not enough seats for everyone who is qualified. This is true for the University of California system as well – not enough seats!
While it makes sense to think that colleges just pluck the “top” students from the applicant list and admit them, this is not actually how they make admission decisions. So, a straight-A student who has worked incredibly hard, taken all the hardest classes and done some really cool activities at a leadership level? That student who you know and believe deserves to be rewarded for their hard work? They will have an amazing college experience! Your job is to find the college environment that fits them best, rather than thinking about where they’re admitted as a reward for their high school performance.
If you haven’t heard the term “institutional priorities,” you can get a solid understanding of this invisible force from the proverbial horse’s mouth through this article by Rick Clark, Director of Admission at Georgia Tech. His explanation of what Institutional Priorities mean and how they truly drive college admission decisions is a pretty big part of what families need to know.
Now, keep institutional priorities in mind as you watch this video from Columbia University, which is a really basic overview of the components Columbia requires in their application. Columbia will absolutely give each applicant the same consideration. Still, in the end, they’re looking for certain types of students as they build their class – this might mean geographic or ethnic diversity, or other factors, including special talents or academic interest. And in the end, ALL of Columbia’s admitted students are academically top-notch. Take a look at the fine print under “Academic Statistics” on the first page describing the “profile” of their admitted Class of 2029 (high school Class of 2025).
You’ll see that students who submitted test scores were in the top 99.5th percentile among test takers, and 94% of their students were in the top 10% of their high school graduating class. Recognizing that students apply to a larger number of colleges than ever before, and stripping away the emotion you may feel connected to the college admission process, the “omg, will I get in somewhere good?” part, you will have a more focused search in finding a great fit for your student and a place where they will thrive and find success.
