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How Admissions Officers Evaluate Your Application
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The first thing colleges look at is the high school transcript. A strong college-preparatory program includes a mix of subjects:
English: four years
Math: three or four years
Foreign language: two or three years
Science: three or four years (two laboratory sciences)
Social Studies: three or four years
Colleges examine your academic record very closely. In general, this is what an Admission Officer usually will look for in your application:
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An upward trend in grades
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Junior-year
grades are important, and the time when improvement will be noticed. A
student who did not perform well in the freshman year of high school may be given the benefit of the doubt if his/her grades went up in the sophomore, junior, and senior years.
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The academic quality of your high school
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Admission committees will look at the availability of honors and AP courses, Chaminade’s overall academic strength, and the past success of the
Chaminade students at their college or university.
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Your GPA and/or class rank
As the dean of admission at Wesleyan University says, “You’re better off getting an A in calculus than writing the perfect essay on the application.” Again, the high school transcript is the most important component in the admission application evaluation.
SATI/ACT/SATII scores
Standardized test scores are the only nationwide measuring tool for collegebound students. However, the tests are usually not the most important element of your application. In fact, some schools no longer require test scores as an admission requirement. Although the University of California system requires the SATI/ACT and three SATII Subject exams currently, they will no longer require the SATI for the entering class of 2004.
Required high school course work for a specialized major
If you are applying to an engineering or nursing program, you may have different requirements, such as extra math or science courses. It is important to find out early from schools that you may apply to if they require extra coursework in your area of interest.
Extracurricular Activities
Unless you have a special talent, extracurricular activities are simply a way of showing a student’s ability to balance their personal interests and academics. Extracurricular activity is usually judged based on the length of involvement and leadership positions held. Involvement in three five activities during a high school career is ample. Admission committees respect students who hold down part time jobs during high school, since this is a reality for most current college students.
Personal Essay and Short Answers
A well written, interesting personal essay can be the difference between making it to committee and ultimately being admitted to ending up in the deny pile. When a student is not an obvious admit or deny, yet have something positive and compelling in the application, they often end up in committee where a group of Admission Officers decide the fate of the application.
Recommendations
Many colleges require recommendations because the admission committee has never met the applicant. Teacher and counselor recommendations shed light on the student’s academic ability and integrity, along with any personal attributes that seem outstanding.
Recommendations, similar to the personal essay, have potential to help a student seem more compelling and worth reading a third time in committee. Or, a poor recommendation may be cause for concern and help the file head down the road to denial.
Interviews
Many private colleges and universities offer interviews in an attempt to personalize the application process. Taking time to interview with a college Admission Officer or alumni representative can score a student points in the application evaluation. Although an interview will rarely make or break an admission decision, it does send an immediate message of genuine interest to the admission committee.
An Academically Solid Senior Year
An admission committee expects those who have been offered admission to maintain a GPA consistent with the one evaluated in the admission process. In other words, low grades can jeopardize an original offer of admission. Any admission committee has the right to revoke an offer of admission, if in their eyes a student has an unsatisfactory senior year.
The University of California system and the California State University systems have academic indexes that they use to evaluate admission applications. However, private colleges and universities do not usually employ such an objective evaluation process. This can often make it difficult for a student to understand how competitive they might be for certain private college. Remember, whether a college or university indexes students or not in the admission evaluation process, the most effective way to understand how a particular college evaluates applications is to talk with someone in their admission office. They cannot disclose their in-house “secrets”, but they can give you an idea of what their school values the most in an applicant.
Use the How to Figure Your UC GPA worksheet to figure out the GPA that UC Admission Officers will be using in their evaluation process.
To
Figure Out Your UC Grade Point Average
Guidelines:
1
All grades are rounded to the nearest whole grade (An “A-“ has the
same point value as an “A”)
2
Students are given one extra point for selected
Honors and AP Classes (list available in the Guidance Office or online at
www.ucop.edu/pathways/infoctr/)
3
Only UC approved courses, referred to as the A-G requirements, are used
to determine the UC GPA (list available in the Guidance Office); PE, Religion,
and some art courses are not accepted.
4
Only grades received from 10th and 11th grade are
used to determine the UC GPA; summer school grades in approved courses beginning
the summer after the 10th
grade school year can be considered.
UC
GPA Points
A=
4
B=3
C=2
D=1
F= 0
Bonus
Point For Each Approved Honors or AP
Classes= 1(Example: A=5, B=4, C=3)
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10th
Grade Approved Course
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Semester 1
Grade
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GPA Points
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Semester 2
Grade
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GPA Points
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Total
GPA points for the year_______ divided by the number of semester grades for the
year________ = ________(10th
Grade UC GPA)
Example:
36 GPA
points divided by 12 (6 classes x 2 semesters) = 3.0 UC GPA
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11th
Grade Approved Course
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Semester 1
Grade
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Semester 2
Grade
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GPA Points
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GPA Points
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Total
GPA points for the year_______ divided by the number of semester grades
for
the year________ = ________(11th Grade UC GPA)
Overall
UC GPA:
10th grade and 11th grade UC GPA’s added together and
divided by 2
________+________=________divided
by 2=________(Overall UC GPA)
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