College Admissions: Four Components
The Four Things That Get You Into the College of Your Choice.
There are four key components to college admissions: your classes and grades, your standardized test scores, your extracurricular activities, and your college essays.
For more competitive colleges (hereafter referred to as the MCCs) in the country, components one and two are essentially givens: you have to have them in order to even be in the running. Admissions for these schools thus hinges on your essays and your extracurricular activities.
Here's a brief overview of how each component impinges on your chances for admission at the MCCs (the most competitive colleges) and how to excel in each component.
Component One: Your Classes and Grades.
MCCs will expect you to have taken the most challenging courses offered by your school and to have gotten high grades in those classes. This doesn't mean you need to take 5 AP classes a year--but it also means that you should usually try to take an AP course when it's available instead of the regular course.
By high marks, we mean almost straight "A"s. You can get an occasional B or even C and still get admission to the most competitive schools--but the vast majority of your grades must be "A"s for the MCCs. Taking primarily less challenging courses at your school will severely hurt your chances for admission to an MCC even if you have straight "A"s in all of them. The occasional lower grade and easier course is fine, but if you consistently take easier courses (perhaps in order to always get an "A"), you'll seriously hinder your chances at admission at the MCCs.
You may find yourself with a trade-off at some point between taking an easier course and getting a higher grade. We'd recommend not worrying too much in these circumstances about college admissions, but rather pick the option that fits best with your full schedule and your goal. If you're particularly worried about BC calculus and you've got two other AP courses, AB Calculus is probably a good bet. If your schedule in general isn't too challenging (no other AP courses say) and you really love math, then you probably would want to challenge yourself with BC calculus even though you expect it to be a bit rough.
To summarize, neither your grades in themselves nor the difficulty of your coursework in itself will affect your college admissions chances--rather the two of them in conjunction will be the first thing that admissions officers will consider. Consistently low grades or less challenging coursework will likely nix your chances for admission to MCCs.
The best path for course/grade optimization is the "middle path"--try to take as challenging courses as you can but not when your grade in the course(s) will be a "C" or lower. Don't take extremely challenging courses and end up with a "C" average; but also don't take extremely easy courses and end up with an easy "A" average.
Component Two: Your Standardized Test Scores.
Your SAT or ACT scores for the MCCs are much like your classes and grades: a hurdle every candidate must clear. For the top MCCs, say the 10 or so most competitive colleges in the country, we recommend our students get a score of 700 or higher on each section of the SAT I and on each SAT Subject test that they take. 700 is a hurdle--once you're over it, you're over it and it doesn't matter by how much you clear it. In other words, getting 750 on all your subject tests or even 800 is not going to improve your admissions chances for the MCCs very much (beyond having 700). Once you've cleared the hurdle, your activities and essays become the deciding factor. So there's no need to kill yourself for a perfect 2400.
Most MCCs require 2 SAT Subject Tests. We recommend taking as many SAT Subject tests as you can (even more than 2) in which you're confident you'll score 700 or better. Taking say 5 different Subject Tests and getting over 700 on each one is impressive. We don't recommend, though, that anyone take more than 2 SAT Subject Tests on any single test date--taking 3 on a single day is a rather taxing we've found.
The ACT is a great option for students who don't like taking standardized tests as many colleges will accept the ACT test in lieu of the SAT I and SAT Subject Tests. For students who are having trouble with the SAT tests, we recommend trying the ACT test as well (even though it's very similar to the SAT) since you've got nothing to lose.
For MCCs other than the top ten, you don't have to get 700+ on each section of the SAT I and each Subject Test. Check what the average test scores are for the colleges you're interested in and try your best to be a bit higher than the average scores--and if you're a bit lower than average, don't worry, just make sure your essays and activities are really good.
Component Three: Extracurricular Activities.
Go deep, not wide. Don't join ten or fifteen clubs (well, you're young, explore, but don't list all ten of them on your college application), try rather to have two or three activities in high school in which you're deeply involved. If there isn't any group or activity at your school that you're interested in, join some activity outside of your school, be active in other ways, or start your own group or club.
Be creative and follow your heart. There are many ways to be productive (or at least what a college admissions officer will perceive as productive) while pursuing those things you love. Whatever you do, though, be dedicated and committed. If you're interested in poetry, start a poetry recitation club or a collaborative surrealist poetry-writing group. If you love cinema, start a cinema blog but be sure to write about films other than the weekly box office hits--you have to try to really get to know cinema which is more than Tom Cruise and Indiana Jones.
Here are two examples of exceptional students we've worked with who were admitted to MCCs. One young girl authored a paper which was published in a medical journal and was also a committed dancer. One of our young fellows was a dedicated poet, a drummer in a band, and started a club to provide new services to students while raising money for non-profit organizations. One key thing to notice is that they had only a few activities and for each activity they clearly demonstrated a serious committment and achievement.
You need to come off in your college application as a productive, serious person...not someone who sits around watching sitcoms and playing Xbox all day. Make sure when you write your activities that you come off that way; if you've participated in many activities or changed your activities in high school, that's fine but try to present the best two, three, four or five activities you've participated in such that you come off as a serious, hard-working and active person (which you are...we hope).
Component Four: Your College Application Essays.
For MCCs, if you're okay but not really strong in components one, two and three, superb essays may be the trick to gain admission in some of those colleges. If you're really strong in components one through three, but write poor essays or send in an essay with spelling or grammatical errors, you can very likely find yourself getting a rejection.
First thing to keep in mind, then, is make your essays have no spelling or grammatical mistakes. Secondly, make sure they're coherent, decently written (even if dull or uninspired) essays. You need to show at a minimum that you can write an essay that has an introduction, a conclusion, and body paragraphs that each express some point.
That's a minimum. Ideally, you should aim to have a unique, well-written essay that expresses some aspect of who are and does it well. To aim for that, do read our essay writing process that we've developed over our history and that we follow with our students. It outlines how we work with students to get not just adequate essays, but inspired writing from them. We also discuss what not to write about there.
A Few, Parting Words.
When you get these four components together, you're golden. There's no other secret really to college admissions. Good luck. Study hard. Challenge yourself. Be prepared, be active, and be creative. Do remember, which college you go to doesn't determine who you are or what you do in life so don't get stressed, just keep a good conscience and do your best.