Santa Clara University

Santa Clara makes selective decisions regarding applicants for admission based on the following criteria:

• the overall quality of your high school courses and appropriately challenging coursework;
• academic performance in high school, including your cumulative, unweighted GPA from your first year of high school through your junior year (we may also include your first-semester senior grades)
  
• scores on standardized tests—SAT I or ACT;
  
• recommendation letter(s) from a counselor or teacher;
  
• the quality of the essay you write for your application;
  
• and personal factors, such as extracurricular activities, your involvement with your school and community, and character.

Admission to Santa Clara depends on a continued high level of performance during the remainder of the applicant’s senior year in high school and on receipt of a high school diploma. If a significant change occurs in academic work during this year, the Admission Committee will reevaluate the acceptance in light of that change. SCU reserves the right to rescind a student's admission to the university as a result of the student's poor and inconsistent academic performance in his or her 8th semester.

What we're looking for

We do not have minimum GPA or SAT score requirements. We evaluate GPA based on an unweighted (4.0) scale. The average GPA of students who were admitted last year was a 3.55.

Many of you will take the SAT or ACT exam more than once. You might be glad to know that we do not average your test scores. Instead, we will combine your highest verbal and math scores regardless of test dates. Please note, we do not require you to take the SAT II exam for admission purposes. The middle 50 percent of students who were admitted last year scored between 570-670 in the SAT Verbal and 590-680 in the SAT Math.

The letter(s) of recommendation and extracurricular activities become important pieces in the application process. We require only one letter of recommendation, but you may submit up to three. A good letter of recommendation will provide insight into your character, helping us better understand what motivates you and what makes you a valuable member of your community.

We also look at your extracurricular activities. How you have spent your time outside of the classroom shows your interests and accomplishments. Your level of involvement and commitment means a lot more to us than the number of clubs you are in or the number of sports you play. Many of you will be team captains. Some of you will be participants. Your individuality expressed through activities outside the classroom is what is important.