Now that you know the two main questions a university is trying to answer when evaluating your application. And the eight pieces, they're using to get those answers. You need to understand how the evaluation is done. Let's start with how universities use the two questions. All universities use them, but not in the same way. At one end, you have highly selective universities. Universities that do not accept many of their applicants. Highly selective, at a highly selective university, the quantitative, the things that we looked at in question one, those are expected. When you look at GPA and test score ranges for those universities, you'll see that GPA's are high, that test scores are high. Highly selective universities will put the emphasis on the qualitative asp, elements found in question number two. Things like, who you are, fit, unique qualifications that you might have. This is also true for some smaller universities. At a smaller university, you're a member of a small community. Being a big part of a small community is important. So who you are is more important. On the other side of the spectrum, you have less selective universities. Schools where they accept many of their applicants. Those less selective universities often focus more on question number one. If you meet the stated academic requirements for admission, then you have a good chance for admission. The qualitative is important, but it's not as important as a highly selective university. The reason is that less selective schools accept more students to fill their classes. In the admission's world, this is something known as yield. The percentage of the students who are admitted or accepted, that actually enroll or attend the school. At a less selective school, they have to accept more students to fill their classes. So they cannot emphasize the quantitative as much. This is also true for some larger schools. At some larger schools, they have a lot of seats they need to fill. So, they need to accept a lot of students. It's also a larger community. And in a large community, almost everyone will be represented and comfortable. So how do we know this? Well, we know this because universities tell us. We also know this because research supports what they say. NACAC, the National Association of College Admission Counseling conducts a research and publishes a report called the State of College Admissions. Now, who is NACAC? They're the people who make the rules of admission and yes, admission has rules. So let's take a quick look at this report. In the table that you'll see, the table that you're looking at, you'll see different factors of the application. And how important a university considers that particular factor. I want you to take a look at the top four factors. You'll notice that the top four factors all refer back to question number one. They're all academic, quantitative factors. Now, take a look at the fifth piece. Essay or writing sample. That is the first piece that we look at in answering question number two, in understanding the qualitative factors. Now, in the column for Considerable Importance, look at the difference between grades in all courses and essay or writing sample. The number drops from 51.9% all the way down to 24.9%. You can see, there is a big difference when you move from question one to question two. Let's look at another piece from this report. In this table, you're going to see the same factors that you saw in the previous slide. But now, you're going to see a difference in the university types. I want to draw your attention to the second section for enrollment. You'll notice that smaller schools, schools that have fewer than 3,000 students. In some areas, are highly different than the larger schools, the schools with 10,000 or more. As an example, in the column for Essay/writing sample, you can see that smaller schools placed a, a considerable importance on the essay over 28% of the time. Where the school with 10,000 or more, that number drops down to 17% of the time. Also, let's take a look at selectivity. At schools that accept fewer than 50% of their applicants. You can see how important some of those qualitative factors are. Especially when you compare that to schools that accept over 85% of their students. By looking at these tables you can really get a feeling for how different universities evaluate applications differently. Now I know you're asking a big question. So what do universities want? It's a great question. The criteria is not a mystery. Let's take a look at a website from MIT. On MIT's website, they tell you exactly what they're looking for in a student. You'll notice on this website, when you go through each section, that you're going to get amazing information. When you look at the selection process, you'll notice one thing that it says. At least a dozen people will significantly discuss and debate an application before it is placed in the admissions pile. When you go to the next tab the match between you and MIT. You're going to see eight different criteria for who is a good match. The tab on admissions statistics and the tab on the freshman class profile are going to give you the facts and figures about applying to MIT. Which will give you an understanding of the quantitative side of acceptance. But after reviewing this website, you should have a really firm understanding of your likelihood of being accepted at MIT. Now, MIT is not the only one with a fantastic website. Let's look at a much bigger school. The University of Michigan - Ann Arbor. On Michigan's website, they have many similar tabs. We're not going to go through them, but I want to draw your attention to the last tab. How we evaluate your application. Michigan publishes the actual evaluation sheet used by their reviewers. Take a look at that admission sheet, at the evaluation sheet, and evaluate your own application. To get an understanding of how you will fare at University of Michigan. Now, these are two examples of really great websites and not all schools are as thorough as MIT or Michigan. But now that you understand the questions. Now that you understand the pieces. You should be able to figure out what is important to each university. And start to figure out are you a good fit? Are you a good match? Now to help you do this, the next part of the lectures. Will be our interviews with admission representatives. Where they will address some of these questions. [BLANK_AUDIO]