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^that's not true at all, I personally know 2 people who both had less than 1900 and weren't athletes or legacies, both urm though. I do know an asian kid with less than 2000 (got into seas, which has higher average SAT scores) and again no athlete, no legacy, no crazy competition winner. Probably just had a great high school record, great ECs and a rock solid app. But SAT score matters much less than people think. Just because you can quantify it doesn't mean it takes precedence over qualitative achievements. It's a one time test, if you do well (2200+) it means you are at a certain level of smartness, if you badly it doesn't (necessarily) mean you suck at academics, intelligence etc etc.
Columbia and most top schools have figured this out, it's riskier to take kids with lower scores. But if you spend time to get a feel for the applicant, it's much easier to pick the stellar 1900s from the simply mediocre ones, it's also possible to weed out the non-stellar 2300. Higher risk, higher average reward.
Similar to GPA in college, important but, does not define your future success, one year into a job, no-one will give a sht what you managed. In some industries it's more like one day into the job. Only grad schools care, and again once you're in, and doing research it doesn't matter.
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