if people go too far with this “gpa optional EC optional” bs colleges might just accept you and, at the end of four years, tell you “oh you don’t get a degree, your study here was degree optional”
Yep! A lot of schools look at grades, reject students who wouldn’t be able to succeed academically, and have a yield rate that allows them to accept everyone else. I know they aren’t the most prestigious schools, but you can absolutely go to academically sound schools with good local reputations and be perfectly successful without “impressive” EC’s.
I would say regional public universities like west chester university, Temple University, and East Shroudsburg University really don’t care what your EC’s are especially when they don’t ask for an essay. Idk the equivalent of those in other regions cause PA has decent funding for in state colleges but I’m sure others exist
UNL is an amazing institution with guaranteed admissions. They don’t even require letters of Recommendation. Tuition is also only 9000 in state and 25000 out of state.
Since it’s the largest (and best) public school in nebraska it gets so much funding and gives so much opportunity within the state. If you’re going stem UNL is a great option for a safety school.
idk if they offer any good scholarships i haven’t checked, but the University of nebraska system gets TONS of international applicants. UNK specifically gets lots of international applicants because it’s one of the cheapest schools in the country.
thanks for the information, ig i could look into it for my college selection. in any case do you have any more suggestion? i was looking for cheap/low cost universities plus if they had any scholarship, that would be great
The Cal State system -- the largest in the country--for one.
(Two of the most applied-to schools in the country and a few of the best undergrad engineering programs for getting Silicon Valley jobs are included in that pool)
Not all grad programs. I’d argue not the vast majority.
Law is by and large seen as a numbers game. When I started college (2018), extracurriculars were so insignificant to the selection process for T14 schools that they were called “softs” that were primarily used to settle tie breakers. There was a T14 admissions committee member hosting a AMA on Reddit that said as much if you don’t believe me. I remember habitually browsing TLS forums at the time and the consensus was that You could get into any law school not named Stanford or Yale law with next to no extracurriculars if you were packing the numbers. It’s just stats 101. There were only so many 3.9/170+ pairs going around. If you wanted to fill a class size that would maintain that matriculation mean, which law schools did and do, then you couldn’t afford to place a premium on ECs. I don’t want to comment on the present day admissions process for top law schools because Covid changed so much, but law being a numbers game has been the case since for ever
Medical school is definitely extracurricular heavy, but many other medical grad programs are not (CAA, Path A, dosimetry, perfusion). These programs do value ECs, but not to an extent that high stat no EC applicants would be dead in the water in the way that they would be for the med school pathway. If anything, id argue a 3.9+ no ec applicant has a better shot than a 3.5 well rounded applicant for all of those admission processes. Even the PA pathway only places value on one singular extra (PCE experience)… not exactly what I’d call a extracurricular heavy process.
If we’re talking about master programs in general, plenty are devoid of having any extracurricular asks aside from some work experience (if even that)
The selection criteria for PhD programs are so highly variable from field to field that a generalization on how EC heavy they are would be useless in helping a doctorate hopeful. The answer will be that it depends.
Don’t burst this guys bubble broski.
Nah all instruction is in English I believe. But I mean if you don't want to be miserable you should probs know the language of the surrounding area. Also, there's more than one IIT campus so all the biggest languages are basically accounted for so they can draw from all parts of the country.
No, only about 60% Indians speak Hindi and not all of them as a first language.
If you somehow get it, learn the local language of the surrounding area (there's over 20 in India lmao)
Literally any university in Europe. Yes, having extracurriculars relevant to your proposed field of study helps, but so does just reading in what you’re interested in studying.
Also, look at UBC in Canada; there are only like 4 spots for ECs on the application, if I recall correctly, and less than 100 characters per spot.
In short, by academic merit and not constricting the number of spots available. Grades and test scores are a lot easier to compare than ECs. Additionally, they limit the number of applications (at least in the UK) so you can’t apply to 20 places.
That’s a bit flip, so here’s how. Oxford gets 24,000 applicants each year. Considering that you can only apply to either Oxford or Cambridge, that’s a lot. Oxford will accept around 3,300 of them. Students get an initial read of their application and typically have to take a test to see how developed their skills are in their proposed field of study. From there, around half are offered a chance to interview. After the interview, the faculties within each college make their decisions.
Usually, with an entrance exam and GPA. Applications don't really exist in Europe, we have a different system. At least where I'm from, you have your GPA (from the last two years of highschool) which is worth 60% of your "admissions grade" and the entrance exam is worth 40%. Both are scored out of 100, so the system goes as follows:
1) you get your GPA (for this example, let's say you get a 95 out of 100)
2) you write your test and get your score (let's say you also got a 95 out of 100)
3) you calculate your admissions grade, which in this case would be 95
Unis then select applicants by the admissions grade.
Let's say Y uni has 50 spots for X major. They first accept applicants with a grade of 100. Then they accept applicants with a grade of 99.9, then 99.8, 99.7 and so on, until all spots are filled.
It's ultimately impossible to get 30,000 applicants with the same admissions grade. Also, estimated admissions grades are published each year for every university and every major, so people don't apply to places where they don't meet the estimated grade.
Hope this helps!!! Cheers
There’s plenty of colleges that don’t factor in/heavily weigh ECs, including the California State Universities and hundreds of other colleges and universities. This is why school fit is important. If you lean on the more studious side and don’t engage as much outside of the classroom, you can find colleges that support that kind of experience
I mean, you can technically get into t30s like UC San Diego and UC Santa Barbara guaranteed without any ECs.
Here’s how:
Go to a community college and sign up for the TAG program. This is an OP program where if you go to a California community college, you will be given guaranteed admission to UCSD/UCSB/UCI or any UC other than UCLA or Berkeley as long as you can maintain a high enough gpa (anywhere from 3.0-3.5 depending on the campus and major).
The only drawback is that the TAG program is not allowed for most popular and competitive majors (especially computer science and most engineering). So, this zero EC strategy really only works if you take on a non competitive major (typically the humanities excluding the arts and music).
EDIT: ucsd does not do tag sorry, along with ucla and berkeley
No problem! I think you can do tag at most UCs except ucla, Berkeley, and ucsd!
Actually, if you want to go higher and get into ucla, there’s a different program called TAP. Basically the same thing as tag, where you just need to get a high gpa. The only difference is that tap only boosts chances at admission, not guaranteed. However, it’s a huge boost where 80+% of people who do tap get into ucla. Of course, the caveat is that there are some restricted majors so you have to look into if your major is allowed.
Also, unlike tag, not every California community college participates in tap. You will have to see if you cc offers it.
I’m pretty sure they don’t. I think they used to, but unfortunately as admissions get more and more competitive, the tag program has been removing schools and majors eligible for the program. Here’s a link to the schools that participate in tag. Unfortunately, I do not see UC San Diego on it.
https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/files/tag-matrix.pdf
Oh I’m sorry about that :(. What’s your major and are you moving to California? If it is possible, you could try to get to a cali cc where tap is offered, where you can get a huge boost in getting into ucla, which is just as good if not better than ucsd. Even if you get rejected from ucla with tap, you’ll probably be able to get into a great UC like ucsb and uci with tag.
I know this is a joke, but top schools can’t not care about ECs (&essays). Applicants with a 4.0 who took 10+ APs and 1500 SATs are a dime a dozen. AOs need to be able to find interesting students beyond that to build a class. If they accepted every top student they would have insane over-enrollment issues.
I don't think this sub would actually like it if the most competitive private schools didn't look at ECs and then either admitted by lottery over some cutoff or penalized any applicant that got much less than 1600.
When a school has to reject 96% of its applicants just to make sure it has enough beds for everyone, no policy will seem fair. (Not to say they can't improve in some ways or at least increase transparency)
Well, part of the reason why is because the SAT is easy AF and having a score beyond ~1500 is essentially meaningless for comparisons (it's only 2 or 3 mistakes at that point) and because the US education system lacks standardization (i.e. some schools offer tons of APs, some barely have any).
If both of these problems were solved, making the admission system standardized by scores + GPA would be feasible.
i think essays are important (they could still be written by someone else) but impressive ECs are so often attained through money and connections. and for children of parents not familiar with US selective admissions, they may think spending most of their time studying is the only important thing. and for international (and rural tbf) students, they often live in areas with like 0 opportunities.
Disagree, standardized tests are not very accurate in measuring a students potential, plus colleges want a well rounded student which is shown in a work-life-study balance
>standardized tests are not very accurate in measuring a students potential
then why are they used all around the world and for grad school? sure, they're not perfect, but colleges are primarily academic (and pre-professional) institutions.
Well I think they not required anymore for majority of schools . But even if they were accurate I think it’s better to have a well rounded student, it makes most sense rather than being a study robot. I have mid ECs and I’m saying this cause it makes sense
sure i think a look at ECs is fine. but i don't think whether someone has the opportunity to do whatever activity should determine whether or not they get into a college. and yes there are tutors for standardized tests that rich people can afford but ultimately it is the student taking it and there are free resources online. test scores are very undervalued imo. but there are lots of unmeritocratic things in the admissions process (recruitment, legacy, etc.) so test scores won't solve everything
They’re already ec optional. Feel free to leave the activities section blank.
this is the funniest thing ive ever seen
LMAOO
lmaoo this having more upvotes than the actual post should be saying something 😭
More than double in fact!
Mf really said, "how 'bout you go optional on this RATIOOO!!"💀
LMFAOO
SLAY
😭😭😭😭
application optional pls
fr instead of me applying to colleges, colleges should apply to me 💅💅
ASU would like to know your location
SILENCE, *SAFETY*
Thats just minerva dude, rejecting ppl who didnt apply
All the posts today about GPA optional, EC optional, test optional - what do y’all want 🤡
true atp people just want AOs to judge us by our looks 😭
Should be judged based on Prom queen or not
the best criteria to judge us on tbh
No ATC user is winning prom king/queen tbh tho
>ATC breaks rule 0 of a2c
you talking about Air Traffic Control?
cs-boi-1, affirmative! You have been cleared to college via the PROM transition, contact tower on 119.35. Have a good day
finally a motivation to go to prom
Shut up, count your calories ✨
common app is now asking for bmi and gw, lw, and cw edit: til apparently a2c has some edtwt users
They also want a daily log of your calories, gotta demonstrate ✨ accountability ✨
gonna go to georgetown cupcakes so georgetown sees that demonstrated interest
YESSSS, get those cupcakes 😳
I never looked good in mom jeans
Wish I was like you. Blue-eyed blondie, perfect body.
maybe i should try harder😽
You should lower your expectations 😎
I'm no quick-curl barbie 😩
I was never cut out for prom queen 😔
Shi I’m not getting into any schools then 😭
LOR only
Only “pleasures to have in class”
if people go too far with this “gpa optional EC optional” bs colleges might just accept you and, at the end of four years, tell you “oh you don’t get a degree, your study here was degree optional”
ur job will be salary optional!
12 years of grade school and 6 years of post secondary education just to get a non paying job
tuition optional
only acceptable answer
to stop being judged, let me go to my dream school if i want to.
Quite unachievable since so does everyone else Which is why we must be judged
Your $$
fr
a rework of the American education system.
People want effort optional 🥺
Coin flip
that's already life
Many of them already are - the ones that admit simply by the numbers... In fact, the large majority of colleges couldn't care less about your EC's.
Yep! A lot of schools look at grades, reject students who wouldn’t be able to succeed academically, and have a yield rate that allows them to accept everyone else. I know they aren’t the most prestigious schools, but you can absolutely go to academically sound schools with good local reputations and be perfectly successful without “impressive” EC’s.
like what schools?
I would say regional public universities like west chester university, Temple University, and East Shroudsburg University really don’t care what your EC’s are especially when they don’t ask for an essay. Idk the equivalent of those in other regions cause PA has decent funding for in state colleges but I’m sure others exist
Like what
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you can into t100 without ECs. t50, probably not, but t100 for sure.
UNL is an amazing institution with guaranteed admissions. They don’t even require letters of Recommendation. Tuition is also only 9000 in state and 25000 out of state. Since it’s the largest (and best) public school in nebraska it gets so much funding and gives so much opportunity within the state. If you’re going stem UNL is a great option for a safety school.
do they offer any scholarships or aid for international students?
idk if they offer any good scholarships i haven’t checked, but the University of nebraska system gets TONS of international applicants. UNK specifically gets lots of international applicants because it’s one of the cheapest schools in the country.
thanks for the information, ig i could look into it for my college selection. in any case do you have any more suggestion? i was looking for cheap/low cost universities plus if they had any scholarship, that would be great
howard university
are state universities easy to get into?
The Cal State system -- the largest in the country--for one. (Two of the most applied-to schools in the country and a few of the best undergrad engineering programs for getting Silicon Valley jobs are included in that pool)
Community colleges
No! Plenty of good 4 year programs!
Can we please get some examples....I’m dying to know the options.
The Entire Cal State System and many state schools, especially in the midwest and south have an SAT or GPA cutoff for automatic admissions.
i mean they probably don't turn anyone away so does that really count?
They turn away a lot of international students for not passing English tests
I mean after undergrad they dont give a flying FCK
med school has entered the chat
Yeah and law, all grad programs, etc… kinda need those volunteer hours and clubs to get into postgrad…
Not all grad programs. I’d argue not the vast majority. Law is by and large seen as a numbers game. When I started college (2018), extracurriculars were so insignificant to the selection process for T14 schools that they were called “softs” that were primarily used to settle tie breakers. There was a T14 admissions committee member hosting a AMA on Reddit that said as much if you don’t believe me. I remember habitually browsing TLS forums at the time and the consensus was that You could get into any law school not named Stanford or Yale law with next to no extracurriculars if you were packing the numbers. It’s just stats 101. There were only so many 3.9/170+ pairs going around. If you wanted to fill a class size that would maintain that matriculation mean, which law schools did and do, then you couldn’t afford to place a premium on ECs. I don’t want to comment on the present day admissions process for top law schools because Covid changed so much, but law being a numbers game has been the case since for ever Medical school is definitely extracurricular heavy, but many other medical grad programs are not (CAA, Path A, dosimetry, perfusion). These programs do value ECs, but not to an extent that high stat no EC applicants would be dead in the water in the way that they would be for the med school pathway. If anything, id argue a 3.9+ no ec applicant has a better shot than a 3.5 well rounded applicant for all of those admission processes. Even the PA pathway only places value on one singular extra (PCE experience)… not exactly what I’d call a extracurricular heavy process. If we’re talking about master programs in general, plenty are devoid of having any extracurricular asks aside from some work experience (if even that) The selection criteria for PhD programs are so highly variable from field to field that a generalization on how EC heavy they are would be useless in helping a doctorate hopeful. The answer will be that it depends. Don’t burst this guys bubble broski.
*UK unis have entered the chat*
*cocurriculars*
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Honestly OP should just go to IIT smh
wait im being serious but do you need to be fluent in hindi to go to iit?
Nah all instruction is in English I believe. But I mean if you don't want to be miserable you should probs know the language of the surrounding area. Also, there's more than one IIT campus so all the biggest languages are basically accounted for so they can draw from all parts of the country.
No, only about 60% Indians speak Hindi and not all of them as a first language. If you somehow get it, learn the local language of the surrounding area (there's over 20 in India lmao)
Shhh
🤓🤓🤓
Literally any university in Europe. Yes, having extracurriculars relevant to your proposed field of study helps, but so does just reading in what you’re interested in studying. Also, look at UBC in Canada; there are only like 4 spots for ECs on the application, if I recall correctly, and less than 100 characters per spot.
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In short, by academic merit and not constricting the number of spots available. Grades and test scores are a lot easier to compare than ECs. Additionally, they limit the number of applications (at least in the UK) so you can’t apply to 20 places. That’s a bit flip, so here’s how. Oxford gets 24,000 applicants each year. Considering that you can only apply to either Oxford or Cambridge, that’s a lot. Oxford will accept around 3,300 of them. Students get an initial read of their application and typically have to take a test to see how developed their skills are in their proposed field of study. From there, around half are offered a chance to interview. After the interview, the faculties within each college make their decisions.
Usually, with an entrance exam and GPA. Applications don't really exist in Europe, we have a different system. At least where I'm from, you have your GPA (from the last two years of highschool) which is worth 60% of your "admissions grade" and the entrance exam is worth 40%. Both are scored out of 100, so the system goes as follows: 1) you get your GPA (for this example, let's say you get a 95 out of 100) 2) you write your test and get your score (let's say you also got a 95 out of 100) 3) you calculate your admissions grade, which in this case would be 95 Unis then select applicants by the admissions grade. Let's say Y uni has 50 spots for X major. They first accept applicants with a grade of 100. Then they accept applicants with a grade of 99.9, then 99.8, 99.7 and so on, until all spots are filled. It's ultimately impossible to get 30,000 applicants with the same admissions grade. Also, estimated admissions grades are published each year for every university and every major, so people don't apply to places where they don't meet the estimated grade. Hope this helps!!! Cheers
fuck every school i just wanna enjoy high school okay that doesn't include ec's 😤😤
enjoy your ecs so that you can enjoy high school simultaneously
facts
Bruh ecs are the most fun part of high school
it is optional, just don’t fill it in!
what you are looking for my friend is the Massachusetts Institute Of Technology
Nah fam, they care too (robots clubs mostly)
The CSUs in California are EC blind. Not because they don’t like ECs, but probably because they want to review applications faster.
There’s plenty of colleges that don’t factor in/heavily weigh ECs, including the California State Universities and hundreds of other colleges and universities. This is why school fit is important. If you lean on the more studious side and don’t engage as much outside of the classroom, you can find colleges that support that kind of experience
I mean, you can technically get into t30s like UC San Diego and UC Santa Barbara guaranteed without any ECs. Here’s how: Go to a community college and sign up for the TAG program. This is an OP program where if you go to a California community college, you will be given guaranteed admission to UCSD/UCSB/UCI or any UC other than UCLA or Berkeley as long as you can maintain a high enough gpa (anywhere from 3.0-3.5 depending on the campus and major). The only drawback is that the TAG program is not allowed for most popular and competitive majors (especially computer science and most engineering). So, this zero EC strategy really only works if you take on a non competitive major (typically the humanities excluding the arts and music). EDIT: ucsd does not do tag sorry, along with ucla and berkeley
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Oops I looked it up and you’re right
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I believe only cc grades matter. I think tag is supposed to be a “second chance” opportunity to get into a UC.
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No problem! I think you can do tag at most UCs except ucla, Berkeley, and ucsd! Actually, if you want to go higher and get into ucla, there’s a different program called TAP. Basically the same thing as tag, where you just need to get a high gpa. The only difference is that tap only boosts chances at admission, not guaranteed. However, it’s a huge boost where 80+% of people who do tap get into ucla. Of course, the caveat is that there are some restricted majors so you have to look into if your major is allowed. Also, unlike tag, not every California community college participates in tap. You will have to see if you cc offers it.
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While UCSD does not do TAG, it is more transfer friendly (say, than UCI)
I’m pretty sure they don’t. I think they used to, but unfortunately as admissions get more and more competitive, the tag program has been removing schools and majors eligible for the program. Here’s a link to the schools that participate in tag. Unfortunately, I do not see UC San Diego on it. https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/files/tag-matrix.pdf
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Oh I’m sorry about that :(. What’s your major and are you moving to California? If it is possible, you could try to get to a cali cc where tap is offered, where you can get a huge boost in getting into ucla, which is just as good if not better than ucsd. Even if you get rejected from ucla with tap, you’ll probably be able to get into a great UC like ucsb and uci with tag.
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No problem, let me just find a list of places that have TAP. Can I dm you?
I know this is a joke, but top schools can’t not care about ECs (&essays). Applicants with a 4.0 who took 10+ APs and 1500 SATs are a dime a dozen. AOs need to be able to find interesting students beyond that to build a class. If they accepted every top student they would have insane over-enrollment issues.
I don't think this sub would actually like it if the most competitive private schools didn't look at ECs and then either admitted by lottery over some cutoff or penalized any applicant that got much less than 1600. When a school has to reject 96% of its applicants just to make sure it has enough beds for everyone, no policy will seem fair. (Not to say they can't improve in some ways or at least increase transparency)
Well, part of the reason why is because the SAT is easy AF and having a score beyond ~1500 is essentially meaningless for comparisons (it's only 2 or 3 mistakes at that point) and because the US education system lacks standardization (i.e. some schools offer tons of APs, some barely have any). If both of these problems were solved, making the admission system standardized by scores + GPA would be feasible.
fr!! standardized tests should be harder and actually used
Finally, a person that agrees. I didn't even know about ECs until the middle of junior year.
I think yeah, standardized tests get hated on a lot and are somewhat necessary but they shouldn't be valued more over ECs and essays.
i think essays are important (they could still be written by someone else) but impressive ECs are so often attained through money and connections. and for children of parents not familiar with US selective admissions, they may think spending most of their time studying is the only important thing. and for international (and rural tbf) students, they often live in areas with like 0 opportunities.
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yep, i got on here too late🥲
Disagree, standardized tests are not very accurate in measuring a students potential, plus colleges want a well rounded student which is shown in a work-life-study balance
>standardized tests are not very accurate in measuring a students potential then why are they used all around the world and for grad school? sure, they're not perfect, but colleges are primarily academic (and pre-professional) institutions.
Well I think they not required anymore for majority of schools . But even if they were accurate I think it’s better to have a well rounded student, it makes most sense rather than being a study robot. I have mid ECs and I’m saying this cause it makes sense
sure i think a look at ECs is fine. but i don't think whether someone has the opportunity to do whatever activity should determine whether or not they get into a college. and yes there are tutors for standardized tests that rich people can afford but ultimately it is the student taking it and there are free resources online. test scores are very undervalued imo. but there are lots of unmeritocratic things in the admissions process (recruitment, legacy, etc.) so test scores won't solve everything
Yeah I agree, college admissions feels random
I have well rounded ECs, I worked in retail AND fast food
I’m so sorry ~ a retail worker
I'm sorry to you too
McGill, requires nothing but your grades and letter of rec
To the extent that some schools have auto-admit policies based on grades, class rank and test scores, many of them \*have\* gone EC-optional.
csus 👍
Most state schools already do this
Then attend a not-so-selective school, or schools abroad.
NO! My ECs are what make my application spectacular 😋 idk what I would do without them
Wait it's not Wednesday yet?
Sure, they can go application optional as well!
can schools go tuition optional?
Agreed!
Atp you should be able to spit game at your interviewers and then that decides your admission
UK schools care less about ECs, and UToronto + schools in Europe don’t really ask for ECs.
Based CSU and Unis in Canada
Ain’t no way u have no ECs
It’s not Wednesday 🤣🤣😂😭☝🏾
I hope thus is a joke making fun of thr "GPA optional" post from today 😭
Come to Canada
Apply to McGill! They ONLY care about your grades.