von_herrs

yep. what's the reject rate for apps. with perfect SAT's?
cuz i read earlier that the MAJORITY of people of perfect SAT's, at least in the earlier 1600-era, were rejected.
(http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly...?story_id=1568)
(paragraph 11)
throw in your two cents, thank y'all.

Predator

The thing is....most of the people you hear that are "2400s" or "valedictorians" that get rejected come from small schools....where valedictorian especially doesn't mean much since you're not competing against a lot of people.

Coolphreak

the thing is, if stanford rejects 60% of 2400's (this is just a random "majority" number), and if the accept rate for all other scores adds up to 60%, you still have a 40% chance of getting accepted with a 2400 which is better than most.

Sheed30

35% acceptance rate for Valedictorian and perfect scores....

von_herrs

yep. not that big of an advantage. wonder how it will play out for me

Dauntless9

Well, what does perfect test scores and/or valedictorian status really add to Stanford? Once you get to campus, they're practically meaningless, as you have a clean slate. Who you are as a person carries over though. Your work ethic, the clubs you do, the instruments you play, the art you create. Basically, your talents, and the culture you add to the school.

Obviously, GPA, rank, and scores help determine whether you are smart enough to handle the curriculum, but once you've proven you can contribute to the school intellectually...does it really even matter anymore exactly how high you scored or ranked?

tokenadult

I suspect the reporter didn't grasp the context of what Dean Shaw said about this. First of all, there probably weren't that many three-section, single-sitting SAT I scorers in that year (class of 2006), because the number increased in class of 2007,

http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_dow...tile_ranks.pdf

but was still below the number mentioned in the quotation. My wild guess is that the quotation may have been based on a conversational mention of two-section SAT I scores (critical reading and math), and it may also reflect "superscoring." The OP's question was about "SAT 2400s," and I don't think the newspaper article answers that question.

But of course it is well known that perfect high school grade averages are a dime a dozen. Lots of high school students play it safe and don't challenge themselves so that they can keep straight 'A's. With more than 20,000 high schools in the United States, rejecting valedictorians is not newsworthy. Perfect SAT scores (REALLY perfect scorers, as found in the link above) are much rarer, but it is well known too that test scores are not all that matters in college admission.

How do top scorers on tests fail to gain admission to top schools?

Looking at the SAT state reports (table 28 in each .PDF document for a particular state)

http://collegeboard.com/about/news_i...7/reports.html

gives an idea of how many students sent SAT score reports to the most sought-after colleges in each state. The number of score reports sent varies quite a lot from state to state for colleges in different regions.

Sheed30

whatever, all it means is that you are not going to be accepted purely by test scores and GPA.....

von_herrs

tokenadult, the "perfect score" in the article was based on the old 1600-scale system. so yeah, it would be a bit different.
lol there is no way there are gonna be 300-something 2400-SAT kids applying to stanford. there are only 270 of those people in the US anyways.

tokenadult

Yes, the two-old-section "perfect score" (1600) level is reached by more test-takers.

http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_dow...tile_ranks.pdf