<p>Earlier in the thread, I mentioned that Stanford’s CDS indicates 25th and 75th ACT scores of 31 and 34. Most other highly selective colleges have a bit higher scores including Notre Dame, WUSTL, Vanderbilt, most ivies, MIT, Mudd, etc. Stanford has a lower acceptance rate than all of these colleges and an equally or more competitive applicant pool, so why don’t they have the highest test scores? </p>
<p>Test scores are only a small portion of the application, and one Stanford weights less than many similar schools. You aren’t going to get in on just stats alone, even if you have a 4.0 UW + 2400 SAT + 36 ACT + the max APs your school offers. Similarly you aren’t going to be dismissed on stats alone with any scores in the range discussed in this thread, nor is it impossible for unhooked applicants to get in with a 32, like the OP. Obviously, he’d have better odds with a 75th+ percentile score of 34+, but probably not a great deal better. </p>
<p>The ACT scores of rejected and accepted posters in this year’s RD thread are listed below. Note that there was not a positive correlation between test scores and acceptances in this sample. Instead the accepted posters had a slightly lower median test score than the rejected posters.</p>
<p>accepted – 28, 30, 31, 33, 33, 34, 34, 35, 35, 35 – median = 33.5
waitlisted - 31, 35 – median = 33
rejected – 29, 32, 33, 34, 35, 35, 35, 36 – median = 34.5</p>