College lists

Colleges that weigh character most heavily

These colleges rate character and personal qualities as very important, the top level of their Common Data Set. Kindness, integrity, resilience, and the way you treat others are read through your essays, your recommendations, and the texture of your activities, not a number.

You cannot fake this, and you should not try. The most useful move is to make sure your recommenders know you as a person and that your essays show, not assert, who you are. A specific, honest essay carries real weight here; get a read on yours with the free analyzer.

90 schools on this list

Harvard admits 4.2% Princeton admits 4.4% Vanderbilt admits 4.7% Duke admits 4.8% Penn admits 4.9% Northeastern admits 5.6% Dartmouth admits 6.0% Bowdoin admits 6.5% Amherst admits 6.8% Pomona admits 6.9% Colby admits 7% Northwestern admits 7% Swarthmore admits 7.4% Williams admits 7.4% Rice admits 8% Barnard admits 9% CMC admits 9.6% USC admits 10% Tufts admits 10.5% Emory admits 12% Georgetown admits 12% Notre Dame admits 12% WashU admits 12% Boston College admits 12.6% Davidson admits 13% Harvey Mudd admits 13% Hamilton admits 13.6% Wellesley admits 13.7% Middlebury admits 13.9% Haverford admits 14% Bates admits 15% Grinnell admits 15% UNC admits 15% Babson admits 17% Denison admits 17% Holy Cross admits 18% Miami admits 18% Wake Forest admits 18% Vassar admits 19% Colgate admits 20% Skidmore admits 21% Smith admits 21% Carleton admits 21.8% Richmond admits 22% Olin admits 25% Pitzer admits 25% Reed admits 27% Villanova admits 27.4% Columbia admits 29% Kenyon admits 31% F&M admits 32% Oberlin admits 34% Mount Holyoke admits 36% Conn College admits 38% Scripps admits 38% Whitman admits 38% Gettysburg admits 39% Brandeis admits 40% Dickinson admits 42% Macalester admits 44% LMU admits 45% Furman admits 47.9% Clark admits 49% Occidental admits 50% Rhodes admits 50% Santa Clara admits 50% Bard admits 52% MIT admits 52% USD admits 52% Wofford admits 52% DePauw admits 54% Sewanee admits 57% Colorado College admits 58% Fordham admits 58% Yale admits 59% USF admits 60% Stanford admits 61% Sarah Lawrence admits 62% Beloit admits 63% Elon admits 63% Pepperdine admits 63% Lawrence admits 64% Brown admits 65% Knox admits 71% Earlham admits 73% Hampshire admits 75% Willamette admits 77% Lewis & Clark admits 78% Gonzaga admits 79% Hope admits 79%

See your real chances at every one of these.

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