Hardest Colleges To Get Into for 2023
- Thread starter deadeyededric
- Start date
Regular schools take GPAs only. Excellent schools look at rigors. Your B+ in AP or dual enrollment classes will look better han A in regular (non-honors or non AP).
Excellent/selective schools actually will do a deep analysis on the schools especially if they are reputable high schools. The colleges know what courses offered at HS and they could see whether the students coast at HS or challenge themselves.
The quality of the high school is a major issue as well. You want to be on either end of the spectrum, a star at a great school or a star at an extremely poor school. Legit had a friend in HS that was told by Stanford that our HS simply didn’t rank high enough to be considered. She ended up at northwestern instead and really liked it but a lot of that stuff matters to the very elite schools.
They bought Berkshire stock in the 70's. A lot of females from east coast use Grinnel as a safety School of they don't get into Smith or Wellesley, etc.
It still is a Cyclone State.
Grinnell pulls from everywhere, more students from Illinois than from Iowa. Lots from Cali. As with every other school in the country not named Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or MIT, Grinnell is a top choice for many and a safety school for many.
My niece is going to Dartmouth.
They asked her to come and play hockey.
They asked her to come and play hockey.
Would schools like ISU, Purdue (for Engineering, computer stuff, etc) and similar take into account rigor?
Or do they JUST look at GPA / standard testing for admission & scholarships?
ISU only look at GPA. I think ISU and Iowa just require students to meet the admission index and as long as they meet the requirement, they are good to go. I might be wrong though.
Purdue might be a little bit more difficult but their admission rate for engineering is 37%. Not horrible but not crazily selective either
This. You make a big deal out of it until you don’t have it. Like the Iowa and their football team this year.
Everyone else can speak to the ISU part but most schools like Purdue rerank things like GPA. Also some schools let you come in as a certain major, others you have to apply for a specific major, and for some high demand you have to apply for entry while already enrolled after your freshman/soph year.
ND does not have a Med school. They do biomedical research and have a partnership with IU Med School in South Bend with various research areas including global health.
They have significant research in several areas and a nice nanofabrication facility.
This is correct. And for the high end ones in this article, it's not only GPA, SAT, & honors curriculum, but also essays, volunteer work and frankly connections. Daughter was a 4.0 student taking all honors classes at a decent to good high school. Was either rejected or wait-listed by all the schools on this list that she applied. Still got into a 'good' school, but not on this tier. She's now top of her class in Med school, so their loss.
I knew that Grinnell was a good private school, I just never realized how selective it actually was based on what you all on here are saying.
I got accepted into all of these schools. Bow down peasants.
Yeah, the other advantage of the AP classes is that it counts toward college. My son started at ISU this year with 39 college credits. So he started 9 hours into his sophomore year. Saving me $25k give or take. ISU uses the RAI to admit, and he was admitted at the end of his junior year so it allowed him to apply for housing early and got his first choice, and some academic scholarship money. He was top 5% at Centennial and didn't study for ACT. He thought he could just retake whatever section he needed to raise it. He got a 25 or something and decided not to waste time or money retaking it as his RAI was around 280. My summary, quality of classes matter for a high school that uses the weighted GPA. If the high school doesn't she may be right.
Here is the RAI calculation:
RAI Formula
| ACT composite (or converted SAT) score x 3 | |
| + | Cumulative GPA x 30 |
| + | Number of years of high school core courses x 5 |
| RAI (Regent Admission Index) |
Applicants who achieve at least a 245 RAI score and who meet the minimum high school course requirements will automatically be offered admission. Applicants who achieve less than a 245 RAI score and who meet the minimum high school course requirements may also be offered admission, but their applications will be reviewed on an individual basis.
This is correct. And for the high end ones in this article, it's not only GPA, SAT, & honors curriculum, but also essays, volunteer work and frankly connections. Daughter was a 4.0 student taking all honors classes at a decent to good high school. Was either rejected or wait-listed by all the schools on this list that she applied. Still got into a 'good' school, but not on this tier. She's now top of her class in Med school, so their loss.
And this the one that I mentioned as "luck" factor - the essays are so subjective. There are no right or wrong.
Same with volunteer work: some were able to do "high profile" volunteering, some helped in the church's kitchen or Feed My starving Children and those can be judged differently.
Extracurricular activities can also be subjective. I was watching a video from one of the ACT/SAT Course prep that there are bias too. E.g for Asian students, doing Math Olympics, Science Olympics activities do not add more value in their applications because of the stereotyping that they are already good at those fields, but doing speech, debate, sports and student leadership would do. And vice versa to non-Asian students.
Tell her to think long and hard about what speciality she wants to go in. Medicine is a mess right now.This is correct. And for the high end ones in this article, it's not only GPA, SAT, & honors curriculum, but also essays, volunteer work and frankly connections. Daughter was a 4.0 student taking all honors classes at a decent to good high school. Was either rejected or wait-listed by all the schools on this list that she applied. Still got into a 'good' school, but not on this tier. She's now top of her class in Med school, so their loss.
Not that I've met a lot of them but the few Notre Dame grads I've met, I've liked.
I could've written almost the exact same paragraph. Except, my daughter is still pre-med but she's at the top of her class and has a terrific MCAT score.This is correct. And for the high end ones in this article, it's not only GPA, SAT, & honors curriculum, but also essays, volunteer work and frankly connections. Daughter was a 4.0 student taking all honors classes at a decent to good high school. Was either rejected or wait-listed by all the schools on this list that she applied. Still got into a 'good' school, but not on this tier. She's now top of her class in Med school, so their loss.
