History Main / ArtisticLicenseUniversityAdmissions

** Lauren applying for a wrestling scholarship at Harvard, despite the fact that Ivy League schools rarely provide athletic scholarships.

* A character gets into a prestigious school with terrible grades and only one reference.
* A character with a decent enough application can't get into ANY school, even community colleges and state universities that admit everyone.
* A school has specific, bizarre admissions criteria.

[[folder:Real Life]]
* To be fair, many prestigious universities are known for having (unspoken, in-house) admission criteria that seem arbitrary and bizarre to outsiders because of the general high caliber of applicants. They get a large number of "4.0 GPA, volunteers at the food kitchen every week, and plays five instruments" students that it's not really impressive to them. They're perfectly willing to accept a person with a lower GPA if they've done something more interesting. Though "interesting" is less "walked into the admissions office naked with a trombone" and more "started an educational web series", "published a scientific paper", or "founded your own semi-successful local charity". And, of course, "lower" GPA is more around "B to B+ average" not "barely passed their classes" (unless the student did something truly extraordinary, and even then it's dodgy). Admittedly, this applies less so to "more traditional" places like Yale and Harvard and more so to "creative" ones like MIT or Carnegie Mellon, but it does happen more frequently than one may think that a "worse on paper" student will be accepted for doing something interesting or exceptional over a "perfect on paper" student who obviously just studied and joined a bunch of clubs just to get into a good college.
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** MIT inviting Brittany to attend in the middle of the second semester due to her supposed untapped math genius. At least they admit to making a special exception to their admission practices for her. In reality, this was to [[PutOnABus write out]] the newly-pregnant Heather Mills, so ''some'' Artistic License is justified.

** Finn basing his goals on a football scholarship to The Ohio State University. When that fails, his next goal is Pace University, home of ''InsideTheActorsStudio,'' despite being way out of his league, which predictably fails too, and he suddenly scraps all college plans until the next season when pep talk inspires him to apply at the fictional University of Lima to major in teaching.

** Finn basing his goals on a football scholarship to The Ohio State University. When that fails, his next goal is Pace University, home of ''InsideTheActorsStudio,'' despite being way out of his league.

Generally, it is to either kickstart the plot of the work or to keep all the characters in the same setting after they graduate high school.

* A character with a decent enough application can't get into ANY school, even community colleges that admit nearly everyone

* A character who hinges all of their college hopes on one competitive scholarship, without ever considering other forms of financial aid or choosing a less expensive school.

* A character pulls a wacky stunt to get into the university of his/her dreams
* A character gets into a prestigious school with terrible grades and only one reference

* A school has specific, bizarre admissions criteria

* In ''VideoGameHighSchool'', the protagonist Brian D gets accepted to the school after he surprisingly defeats their star student "The Law" in an online match.

* To be fair, many prestigious universities are known for having (unspoken, in-house) admission criteria that seem arbitrary and bizarre to outsiders because of the general high caliber of applicants. They get a large number of "4.0 GPA, volunteeres at the food kitchen every week, and plays five instruments" students that it's not really impressive to them. They're perfectly willing to accept a person with a lower GPA if they've done something more interesting. Though "interesting" is less "walked into the admissions office naked with a trombone" and more "started an educational web series", "published a scientific paper", or "founded your own semi-successful local charity". And, of course, "lower" GPA is more around "B to B+ average" not "barely passed their classes" (unless the student did something truly extraordinary, and even then it's dodgy). Admittedly, this applies less so to "more traditional" places like Yale and Harvard and more so to "creative" ones like MIT or Carnegie Mellon, but it does happen more frequently than one may think that a "worse on paper" student will be accepted for doing something interesting or exceptional over a "perfect on paper" student who obviously just studied and joined a bunch of clubs just to get into a good college.

* ''[[Series/TheSuiteLifeOfZackAndCody The Suite Life On Deck]]'': Cody is a genius who has a 4.0 grade point average, yet in in the final episode, "Graduation On Deck", he gets rejected by Yale University.

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Cornell University requires its students to pass a swim test.
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* ''[[Series/TheSuiteLifeOfZackAndCody The Suite Life On Deck]]'': Cody is a genius who has a 4.0 grade point average, yet in in the final episode, "Graduation On Deck", he gets rejected by Yale University.

* In the manga ''Alice the 101st'' a prestigious music school that only admits one hundred students a year bends its own rules to admit a "violinist" who cannot read music, has never had a violin lesson and doesn't even know how to hold his instrument properly. They do this at the insistence of one faculty member, who is then incapacitated before he can tell anyone why [[EmbarrassingNickname "Alice"]] is an exception.

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* Cornell University requires its students to pass a swim test.

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[[folder:Real Life]]
* Cornell University requires its students to pass a swim test.
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* In season five, [[spoiler:April]] of ParksAndRecreation has decided to go to vet school without any references from actual vets, any practical experience that we know of, or possibly even the mandatory prereq classes (biology, chemistry, math, and so on).
* One episode of HomeImprovement has the eldest son put together [[StylisticSuck an application video for college]]. Thankfully, a heavily-edited version made by his brother gets sent instead.

* April of ''ParksAndRecreation'' has decided to go to vet school without any references from actual vets, any practical experience that we know of, or possibly even the mandatory prereq classes (biology, chemistry, math, and so on).

* In ''Film/{{Legally Blonde}}'', Elle Woods submits a video application, allowing the Harvard Law admissions committee to see how pretty she is. It works.

Examples:

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Cornell University requires its students to pass a swim test.
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This trope can work in several ways:

Generally, it is to either kickstart the plot of the work or to keep all the characters in the same setting,

* In ''Film/{{Legally Blonde}}'', Elle Woods submits a video application, allowing the Harvard Law admissions committee to see how pretty she is. It works.
* Elle Woods does this in a different way in ''Theatre/{{Legally Blonde The Musical}}''. She shows up at the Harvard Law admissions office while they're looking at her application to present a huge dance number and an equally huge guilt trip until they agree to accept her.
* April of ''ParksAndRecreation'' has decided to go to vet school without any references from actual vets, any practical experience that we know of, or possibly even the mandatory prereq classes (biology, chemistry, math, and so on).
* One episode of HomeImprovement has the eldest son put together [[StylisticSuck an application video for college]]. Thankfully, a heavily-edited version made by his brother gets sent instead.
* ''Film/{{Accepted}}'' plays with this, since the whole student body of the fake school was rejected for one reason or another from legitimate universities but one of the characters mentions throughout the film just how illegal and crazy their actions are. [[spoiler:In the end, it saves them, since he applied for accreditation in case something happened.]]
* In ''VideoGameHighSchool'', the protagonist Brian D gets accepted to the school after he surprisingly defeats their star student "The Law" in an online match.

* [[RealLife Cornell University]] requires its students to pass a swim test.