•     Brown

With so much variation in the educational opportunities among secondary schools, from state to state and country to country, we cannot possibly or fairly apply a uniform standard for achievement. Rather, we attempt to treat each applicant individually and educate ourselves about the variety of experiences that students bring with them. All applications to Brown are read and rated, at the very least, twice. Every application is rated by each reader for potential academic performance at Brown and for non-academic impact on the Brown community.

Brown first-years will have usually completed 12 years of primary and secondary schooling. You should also plan to sit for national external examinations, such as the GCE A-levels, German Abitur, French Baccalauréat, and submit the predicted scores for those examinations as part of your credentials for admission to Brown. Students who have completed 13 years of schooling, and who have completed their external examinations with exceptional results may be eligible for some advanced standing or credit at Brown.

Since English is the language of instruction at Brown, it is essential that you demonstrate competence in the language. You must be able to understand rapid, idiomatic American English as spoken in the classroom, have the ability to express thoughts quickly and clearly in both spoken and written English, and read the language with ease.

 Columbia
As selective as admission to Columbia may be, we still employ a holistic admission process in which every single application is given a thorough review, and there is positively no minimum grade point average, class rank or SAT/ACT score one must obtain in order to secure admission at Columbia.

Most successful Columbia applicants have done extraordinary academic work over the last four years of their schooling and we welcome applications from students who can demonstrate they are up to the challenge of a Columbia education (regardless of their GPA, class rank or test scores). In addition to academic credentials, the Admission Committee will also evaluate an applicant’s extracurricular impact, summer experiences, responsibilities and interests (both academic and personal), as well as a personal statement essay, short answer responses and letters of evaluation.

We look at a variety of factors to help us inform our decision on a candidate including:

1.     The student's curriculum and grades - we hope to see that a student is challenging herself or himself with a rigorous course load
2.     The context of a particular candidate, including family circumstances, secondary school, community, interests and access to resources
3.     The quality of a student's involvement in activities beyond the classroom
4.     The character and personality of a candidate, and the impact she or he will make on our diverse, residential campus
5.     The candidate's fit for the distinctive Columbia experience, which includes the Core Curriculum; a both traditionally collegiate and unmistakably urban campus life; and an Ivy League school where curious thinkers come to grow
6.     Recommendations - which provide evidence of intellectual curiosity and promise, classroom and school and community participation, and overall potential for the candidate to make an impact at Columbia, in the classroom and beyond

We do not rely on standardized testing and grades alone and instead look at all parts of every application to help inform our judgment. We read personal statements to try to understand each candidate and what motivates him or her. We read teacher recommendations carefully to understand a candidate's contributions in the classroom and what that candidate might offer his or her Columbia classmates.

•     Cornell

Can you demonstrate that you’ve taken full advantage of opportunities that have come your way? That you care about your community? That you have special talents in, say, music, writing, science, politics, athletics, theater?

There’s no magical formula of grade-point average and standardized test scores that guarantees you will (or won’t) get into Cornell. Cornell’s admissions personnel review your academic transcript; they’re interested in the strength of your curriculum; they note your test scores. It’s all important.

What they’re looking for beyond the numbers is intellectual potential, strength of character, and love of learning. They want to know about your ability, achievements, motivation, leadership, diligence, and integrity; your sense of fairness and compassion. All of this and more can be revealed in your essays and recommendations, and is reflected in your extracurricular activities, hobbies, after-school and summer jobs, and volunteer work.

•     Dartmouth

We review each part of the application with the goal of understanding how the applicant will add to the life of the College in and out of the classroom. Each piece of the application contributes to our understanding of the intellectual qualities, academic achievements, personal accomplishments and individual perspectives that an applicant might contribute as a student at Dartmouth.

Through the Common Application, the Admissions Committee learns about a student's accomplishments directly from the student and from teachers and school officials. Dartmouth's supplemental Peer Evaluation provides us with a view of the student from the perspective of a friend, relative or classmate, while the optional Alumni Interview evaluation comes from an alumna or alumnus who may have only recently met the applicant. Over the course of reading an application, we'll add to our understanding of an applicant from a variety of viewpoints.

•     Princeton

We evaluate each candidate individually and we make decisions based on a holistic review of the application. Our goal is to understand how applicants have excelled within their particular schools and communities. We understand that you face a unique set of challenges and opportunities, and we expect to see how you have taken advantage of those specific circumstances.

We look for students with intellectual curiosity, who have pursued and achieved academic excellence. We also look for students with strong personal and extracurricular accomplishments. We look for students who make a difference in their schools and communities, so tell us about your leadership activities, interests, special skills and other extracurricular involvements. Most Princeton students were academic standouts in high school. Most of them also invested their energy and talents in significant ways outside the classroom. We want to know what you care about, what commitments you have made and what you’ve done to act on those commitments.

Instead of worrying about meeting a specific set of criteria, try to create an application that will help us see your achievements — inside the classroom and out — in their true context, so we can understand your potential to take advantage of the resources at Princeton and the kind of contribution you would make to the Princeton community. Show us what kind of student you are. Show us that you have taken advantage of what your high school has to offer, how you have achieved and contributed in your own particular context.

•     Harvard

There is no formula for gaining admission to Harvard. Academic accomplishment in high school is important, but the Admissions Committee also considers many other criteria, such as community involvement, leadership and distinction in extracurricular activities, and work experience. We rely on teachers, counselors, headmasters and alumni/ae to share information with us about an applicant's strength of character, his or her ability to overcome adversity and other personal qualities - all of which play a part in the Admissions Committee's decisions.

•     Penn

Penn seeks students who will avail themselves of the rich academic, cultural and social opportunities of the academic community. As a major research and teaching institution with an emphasis on undergraduate education, Penn seeks students who will avail themselves of the rich academic, cultural and social opportunities of the academic community. As an institution, Penn prides itself on its enormous diversity -- not only in the great wealth of our undergraduate and graduate programs, but in the wide variety of students and talents that such programs attract. The student who flourishes in the Penn community possesses a history of strong academic excellence, a healthy degree of motivation, and a well-developed interest and involvement in his or her environment.

•     Yale

Yale is above all an academic institution, and thus academic strength is our first consideration in evaluating any candidate. The single most important document in the application is the high school transcript, which tells us a great deal about a student's academic motivation and performance over time. We look for students who have consistently taken a broad range of challenging courses in high school and done well in them. There are no score cutoffs for standardized tests: the median scores for admitted students on the verbal and mathematical portions of the SAT generally fall in the low-to-mid 700s, and the ACT composites in the low 30s, but successful candidates present a wide range of test results. While there is no hard and fast rule, it is safe to say that performance in school is relatively more important than testing. A very strong performance in a demanding college preparatory program may compensate for modest standardized test scores, but it is unlikely that high standardized test scores will persuade the admissions committee to disregard an undistinguished secondary-school record.
High school teachers can provide extremely helpful information in their evaluations. Not only do they discuss your performance in their particular class or classes, but they also often write about such things as your motivation, intellectual curiosity, energy, relationships with classmates, and impact on the classroom environment. Obviously it is important that you solicit recommendations from teachers who know you well.
Just as teacher recommendations are meant to give the admissions committee a glimpse of what you are like in the classroom, the counselor recommendation can provide us with a picture of your place in your high school class and in the larger school community. Your counselor can help us assess the degree of difficulty of your program, tell us what a particular leadership position means at your school, provide information on your background, and, in general, provide the sort of textured comments about you that would help your application come to life.
The Yale application tries to get at the personal side of the applicant through the use of two essays whose scope is broad enough to accommodate most writers. We encourage you to take the writing of the essays seriously and to write openly and honestly about activities, interests, or experiences that have been meaningful to you. What is most important is that you write in your own voice. If an essay doesn't sound like the person who writes it, it cannot serve him or her very well as a personal statement. As with every document in the application, we read essays very carefully and try to get a full sense of the human being behind them.
In the end, everything in an application matters. The good news is that so many little things figure in an admissions decision that it is fruitless to worry too much about any one of them.