Grades are not the only factor

March 9, 2012 - PRLog -- Looking past the numbers in college admissions

Getting into college today is more competitive than ever. For many students, achieving a high GPA and a high score on the SATs is important—and for students who struggle with standardized test taking, the pressure to perform well on these tests can feel overwhelming. However, as colleges are receiving more and more applications from students with similarly high grades, high test scores, and impressive resumes, admissions officers are finding themselves looking beyond the numbers. What is each applicant really like, outside of the 4.0 and the 2400?

After all, accepted students should contribute much more to the college campus and legacy than straight As. Every college wants students who are more than just “smart”—the goal is to accept students who are passionate about a variety of subjects and activities, who care about the future of their communities, and who will work hard to make their mark on the campus before graduating (and on the world after graduating). It’s fairly difficult to judgestudents’ potentialsand motivationsby just looking at a GPA.

The university officials at Johnson C. Smith University—a historically black college in Charlotte, North Carolina—began changing the way they judged students’ applications in 2009. In fact, they actually admitted 200 fewer students in 2009 than they did in 2008 because the faculty and administration were focusing on accepting students who were a good overall fit for the university. They wanted to admit students who would work hard to graduate rather than simply accepting a higher quantity of students and not being able to give them the individual attention they’d need to succeed.

So, how do you judge whether a student is a “good fit” for a particular university? Not from grades (so often inflated) or from impersonal standardized test scores, but from interviews, essays, volunteer and work experience—from a comprehensive picture of the student as a whole, rather than a simple snapshot of academic statistics. In keeping with this philosophy, many schools have stopped requiring SAT scores at all, allowing students to opt to provide their scores only if they feel it reflects their academic goals.

Among the schools that have gone “test-optional” in their admissions policies are some extremely well-respected and selective universities such as George Mason University, Bowdoin College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, Sewanee, and Wake Forest University. Now more than ever, it may be less important for students to spend months preparing for the SAT than for them to get out there and start making their mark on the world by volunteering, playing sports, getting involved in community programs, or working in a field about which they feel passionate.

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