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Is SAT 25th or 75th percentile a better indicator of how much schools care about the SAT (or ACT)?
Jedelm23
99 replies14 threads Junior Member
I was looking at the average SAT scores for schools, and I noticed some interesting things. For one, the University of Michigan has the same SAT scores as Princeton (1380-1540), even though Princeton is much more competitive. Also, Yale's 75th percentile is 1600, the only school with a quarter of students achieving perfect scores. Harvard's 25 percentile (1470) is a full 80 points higher than Stanford's (1390). So, as a baseline for how much schools value standardized testing, is the 25th or 75th percentile a better indicator, or are they even good indicators at all?
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Replies to: Is SAT 25th or 75th percentile a better indicator of how much schools care about the SAT (or ACT)?
I think Stanford's the only outlier with reasonable interpretation -- Stanford's show they care way less about stats, and I think Harvard had a 1600 SAT 75th percentile in most years too. I will only say that given people with perfect SAT scores seem to be rejected at a 80%~ rate, you're really better off having a perfect score than average.
Then, I'm stating that Stanford generally cares noticeably less about test scores than all its peer schools. Which could mean they also care less about a perfect SAT score than its peer schools.
Yale does not report a composite middle 50, so only use the section scores.
Note that some schools report admitted student stats in their class profile while others report enrolled. (Admitted stats are higher than enrolled.) The Common Data Sets only report scores for enrolled. When you are comparing score ranges of different schools, make sure you are comparing apples to apples.
(There is an additional wrinkle, that class of 2021 SATs included Old SAT scores concorded to New and mixed in, not only combining these different test types but adding in what turned out to be problematic, the concordance itself. That may have bumped up score ranges by a small amount. Class of 2022 stats include virtually all New SAT scores, a safer bet where accuracy is concerned. Not all schools have yet posted their 2018-2019 Common Data Set with class of 2022 data, but that would be what I'd use to compare if available, or class of 2022 data in the class profile if it represents enrolled student data rather than admitted.)
https://www.veritasprep.com/act-sat-prep/average-sat-scores-top-30-us-universities/
I got them from here, which might be inaccurate, I'm not sure. But thanks for the tips! I'll be sure to look at the common data sets; Yale's 1600 looked a little bit suspicious in retrospect.
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=Princeton&s=all&id=186131#admsns
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=Michigan&s=all&pg=2&id=170976#admsns
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=Yale&s=all&id=130794#admsns
Michigan 25th -- 660/670; Princeton 25th -- 710/720
Michigan 75th -- 730/780, Princeton 75th -- 780/790
The latest CDS also lists different numbers for Stanford:
Harvard 25th -- 730/730, Stanford 25th -- 700/720
The CDS does not list a 800 on verbal for yale, but more importatantly, if 25% of students received a 800 on math and 25% of students received an 800 on verbal, it does not mean 25% of students received a 1600. Most of those students probably received 800 on one section, but not the other. ~40% of matriculating students did not report the SAT at all. I expect many of this not reporting group scored less than 1600 as well.
For colleges like HYPSM, SAT score percentiles is not a particularly good indicator of how much score is valued because the colleges primarily admit on non-score criteria that has some degree of correlation with score. MIT's website explains this more eloquently than I can in the quote below
"Now, I and others are on the record as saying that we admit people, not test scores, and that in any case there is really not a difference in our process between someone who scores, say, a 740 on the SAT math, and someone who scores an 800 on the SAT math. So why, as the commentor asks, is there such a difference in the admit rate? Aha! Clearly we DO prefer higher SAT scores!
Well no, we don’t. What we prefer are things which may coincide with higher SAT scores. For example, a student who receives a gold medal at the IMO is probably more likely to score an 800 on the math SAT than a 740. But if we take an IMO medalist (with an 800) over random applicant X (with a 740), does that mean we preferred an 800 to a 740? No. It means we preferred the IMO medalist, who also happened to get an 800!"
If a HYPSM type college did not consider scores at all in their application process, they'd still have a very high score range due a high scoring applicant pool and selecting for characteristics that are correlated with score (high GPA, high course rigor, stellar LORs, impressive out of classroom achievements, etc.). However, there would be a larger number of anomalies at the low end, so I'd expect the 25th percentile to have more notable decreases. We see this effect in test optional colleges. For example, a comparison of score ranges for Bowdoin (test optional) to other top ranked LACs is below. I used ACT instead of SAT for simplicity. Note that Bowdoin has all matriculating students take either SAT or ACT and reports all students, even though it is not considered in application process for non-submitters. The gap is larger in 25th percentile than 75th, when tests are not considered for a large portion of applicants.
Bowdoin -- 30-34
Amherst -- 31-34
Swarthmore -- 31-34
A similar effect occurs when a large portion of applicants are given strong preference, such as strong hooks. Hooks have more impact on the 25th percentile score than the 75th percentile score, so a lower 25th also can have implications on hook preferences.
If you want to guess at how much score impacts admissions by score ranges, you might look for colleges that having higher/lower score ranges than suggested by their selectivity and/or give scholarships for high stats or NMS. Vanderbilt is a good example. An ACT comparison is below. Vanderbilt has a higher score range than HYPS (and all the LACs listed above), even though most would consider Vanderbilt less selective than HYPS. Both the 25th and 75th percentile scores seem higher than expected. You can confirm by reviewing Naviance and similar scattergrams. Scattergram decisions for Vanderbilt seem to better follow scores than HYPS, particularly for the 75th percentile.
Vanderbilt -- 33-35
Harvard -- 32-35
Yale -- 32-35
Princeton -- 31-35
Stanford -- 32-35
SAT middle 50s
Brown 1410-1570
Columbia 1450-1580
Cornell 1390-1550
Dartmouth 1430-1560
Duke 1490-1560
Harvard 1460-1580
MIT 1490-1570
Princeton 1430-1570
UPenn 1420-1560
Stanford 1420-1570
Yale 1420-1590
Test scores importance
Brown - Very Important
Columbia - Very Important
Cornell - Very Important
Dartmouth - Very Important
Duke - Very Important
Harvard - Considered
MIT - Important
Princeton - Very Important
UPenn - Very Important
Stanford - Very Important
Yale - Very Important
Only MIT had "Character/Personal Qualities" ranked higher than test scores importance. (Harvard had everything "Considered".) All top schools had the SAT Math 75 percentile at either 790 or 800. Cornell had the lowest overall 25 (1390) and 75 percentiles (1550) . Duke and MIT tied for highest 25 percentiles (1490) and Yale had the highest 75 percentile (1590).
Further, when I look at the Cornell and Brown SAT scores on CollegeBoard at the link in #17, they seem to be making the same mistake that so many do---adding the EBRW 25-75 scores to the Math 25-75 scores to get composite 25-75 scores, which is not accurate as datadad points out in post #16. Seems like CollegeBoard should know better.
t's no indication that scores are more or less important- to a college or among colleges. And we all should know that the 25th percentile can be all sorts of kids wanted for other assets, like their athletic prowess, legacy, some amazing kid whose scores are lopsided, and on and on.
Stanford used to show score ranges and percent admitted. At one point, Brown and Dart did. PLENTY of "above average" scorers got rejected- the vast majority. These schools are holistic, you don't get to submit scores, then sleep walk through the rest of the app.
Btw, the CDS section on Most Important, etc, is not policed. Colleges can answer anyway they feel. And No One Category trumps the others, regardless of whether it's called Very Important or not.
Exactly. Those answers can also vary by program/dept/school within a college/uni, and just to stay with the Cornell example, enough people have heard in admissions presentations that they do in fact track interest and it can help applicants (but the CDS says not considered).