Santa Clara University is all about location, location, location. As a selective university with a strong academic track record and Jesuit Catholic foundation, what really sells Santa Clara to strong students is the fact that it sits in the middle of Silicon Valley. Students at Santa Clara don’t need to wait for summer break for an impressive internship. Instead, they are able to start doing the work parallel to their academic path, with gives many students at Santa Clara a leg up when it comes to launching a career. This makes Santa Clara a strong strategic choice for many students, which is why we recommend it as a target or foundation school for driven students. The acceptance rate is about 50%.
When applying to Santa Clara, you can choose to submit Early Action, Early Decision, Early Decision II, or Regular Decision. Historically, Santa Clara admits about the same percentage of applicants Early Decision as they do Regular Decision. They do, however, expect strong grades to earn access. The average unweighted GPA for students admitted to the Class of 2030 was 3.87.
Santa Clara does not require applicants to submit SAT or ACT scores and less than 50% of recently accepted students included scores as part of their application, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try to earn strong scores to improve your application. A strong SAT for Santa Clara is 1480+, and an impressive ACT would be a 33 or higher.
The university also has minimum high school course requirements that ensure all students arrive already having practiced the Jesuit principle of educating the whole person. This means taking a fully distributed courseload, including two years of laboratory science and two years of a language other than English. Visual and performing arts aren’t required, but they recommend at least 1 year.
Beyond your grades and, should you submit them, scores, Santa Clara has only two supplemental portions of your application. Below, we’ll break them down.
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The Santa Clara supplement is deceptively short — so short, that many applicants won’t put much effort into it at all. That is a big mistake, and can severely hurt your chances of admission. When it comes to college applications, even seemingly simple things require thought and care.
Why are you interested in pursuing the [Division or Major] selected above? (50 words)
50 words is about the length of the paragraph above the supplement prompt. It’s 2-3 sentences, or there abouts, and it could be written on the fly right before pressing submit. Because you can do that, though, doesn’t mean that you should.
First, think about what any response needs to include. It must emphasize your interest in the area of study and should specify why Santa Clara is the perfect place for you to pursue the subject. This gives you a guide on what you need to include, but before you can write you need to research and build the story scaffolding that will help your response connect with the reader.
First, find the name of the program that you want to pursue (don’t assume it’s obvious) in the College of Arts and Sciences, School of Engineering, or Leavey School of Business. Then, you need to identify something within the program that makes it particularly interesting to you. For example, if you are interested in majoring in something within the Leavey School of Business you may be drawn to the combination of learning from experts in the field and the internships and Peer Career Consulting Program that Santa Clara runs for students in their senior year.
Once you have your research, it’s time to squeeze it into just a few sentences. We like to practice expansion and contraction when crafting a strong supplement, so don’t kick yourself for writing long on the first go. It isn’t always easy to trim words out, but it’s the best way of getting to your strongest response.
Résumé
The second piece of the Santa Clara supplement is the résumé. There are some rules for this resume, and they really are hard rules even if Santa Clara doesn’t say them.
Your resume cannot be more than one page. Seriously. If your resume is longer than one page that would be because you did a bad job editing it, not because you’re simply so impressive that you must have more room.
Your resume should be tailored to your prospective major at Santa Clara. This isn’t about reiterating what is in your activities section. Instead, pick a few of the most relevant experiences that would contribute to you succeeding at Santa Clara and provide more information on them than the general Common App activities section provides.
Finally, your resume should have an “Objective” at the top. If you use a customizable template on Word or Google Drive to build your resume, which you should do, you’ll see this section. For a job seeker, it typically focuses on what they are looking for. You are going to do the exact same thing here, except that what you are looking for is a seat in their first-year class.
The Santa Clara application does not provide a ton of room for self-expression or personalization, so you need to take every opportunity the offer whether it’s a 50-word explanation of your major interest or a one-page résumé. Treating these as serious additions to your case for admission will greatly increase your chance of acceptance.
If you want to know how else you can ensure that your application stands out, get in touch. We can help.
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