All things being equal, higher SAT implies higher acceptance rate. If we were (able) to do a regression analysis and "fix" the other confounding variables (strength of application essays, recommendations, ECs, etc.), we could easily infer a CAUSAL relationship between SAT score (the independent variable) and acceptance rate (the dependent variable).
That said, Stanford seems to weigh the SATs less heavily than its peer insitutions (HYP, MIT). But it'd still definitely be in the prospective student's interest to score as highly on the SAT (I & II) as possible.
A partial derivative is as it goes. There is a problem with "fixing" other variables here: SAT correlates to other aspects of the application. So you can't simply fox variables and call the result "causal". To model this condition successfully, we'd have to use the calculus of variations.
Last edited by sarbaraj101; 11-17-2010 at 12:41 PM.
Reason: name...
There is a problem with "fixing" other variables here: SAT correlates to other aspects of the application.
All we have to do is figure out the strength of correlation between SAT scores and the other confounding factors. The rest can be inferred to be causality.
All things being equal, higher SAT implies higher acceptance rate.
That's exactly the point that I was trying to make. Besides, colleges always want to boost their admissions statistics by making their 25-75 percentile SAT ranges as high as possible, so it would be to their advantage to choose the applicants who would allow such a high range, provided that those same applicants, when put together, also craft a talented, well-rounded, and diverse class.
I'd personally say we're pretty talented, well-rounded, and diverse
So would you lot say that the SAT is more, less, or equally important than/to ECs?
It's hard to compare the two because one is easily quantifiable, the other is not. But I think that ECs count more (or SATs count less) for Stanford than its peers.
All things being equal, higher SAT implies higher acceptance rate. If we were (able) to do a regression analysis and "fix" the other confounding variables (strength of application essays, recommendations, ECs, etc.), we could easily infer a CAUSAL relationship between SAT score (the independent variable) and acceptance rate (the dependent variable).
I agree, but things aren't equal, and they'll never really be equal so long as we have a holistic admissons process.
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All things being equal, higher SAT implies higher acceptance rate. If we were (able) to do a regression analysis and "fix" the other confounding variables (strength of application essays, recommendations, ECs, etc.), we could easily infer a CAUSAL relationship between SAT score (the independent variable) and acceptance rate (the dependent variable).
I agree, but things aren't equal, and they'll never really be equal so long as we have a holistic admissons process.
"Holistic" admissions process does not imply that quantitative and qualitative factors are necessarily taken "as a whole." All it means is that qualitative factors play some role in the admissions process. In Stanford's case, a big role...
All I was trying to say was that it's impossible to 'fix' confounding variables, or to quantify ECs, essays, or recs, so someone can't exactly say that higher SAT score = higher acceptance, even though it's better to have a higher score.
