What's an Academic Index?

Admissions officers primarily rely on academic stats on the first wave of admissions review—namely, a student’s GPA and standardized test scores. It’s that “bottom line on top” mentality. At first pass, officers will review these metrics (together referred to as an “Academic Index”), which shows how applicants rack and stack against the competition. While each school has their own way of how they interpret that data, the inputs are similar: ACT and SAT scores are graphed on the y-axis while the GPA is listed along the x-axis (see below):

At that point, any applications who have been shuffled to the “Maybe” pile are now more closely reviewed with special attention given to letters of recommendation, essays, and extracurriculars.