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I know that the colleges are vitually swamped with applications. Some schools with thousands for a few hundred spots. With a limited number of adcons. to review all apps. I suspect they have a quick look at GPA and SATs and put them in the reject or take another look box. My question is: do they recal. GPA before this first cut and do they look at the school profile at anytime prior to the final choices?

By Interesteddad (Interesteddad) on Sunday, October 03, 2004 - 12:09 pm: Edit

Surely every college has an initial "culling" process that identifies some automatic "rejects". How that process works probably depends on the type of school -- it would, by necessity, be different at the U of Mich than at Swarthmore.

I think that the smaller elite schools draw from such a consistent base of high schools that they "just know" most of these schools and can fairly easily categorize schools they don't know by looking at the high school profile -- selective prep, ritzy neighborhood public, magnet public, plain ol' public, etc.

By Alongfortheride (Alongfortheride) on Sunday, October 03, 2004 - 01:16 pm: Edit

In attending info sessions with my son, I also heard admissions reps refer to the SAT's and ACT's when that question came up, saying that was what the tests were designed for. I got the impression that if you were applying to a top 50 school (either universities or LAC's), and you had a low SAT, you had better have some other eye-popping element to your application - particularly if you attend a school the adcoms are not familiar with. I agree with Interesteddad, there surely must be an intital culling before the recalculations occur. Otherwise, they would not be able to wade through the apps by April 1st.