Accuracy of Niche scattergrams?

amcquilk
Mon, 12 Jun 2017 13:08:19 +0000

I’m wondering if anyone has feedback on whether the scattergram of students admitted/rejected/considering on the College Niche website are accurate? It says the data is provided by Niche users. I’m assuming this is probably a biased sample (it’s certainly self-selected, i.e. those who are obsessed with college admissions and choose to share their information with Niche). So while it doesn’t represent all applicants, it probably is a pretty good sample of those similar to my daughter (those applying to top colleges).

I picked one school and compared the range of SAT scores (the 25%-75%) to that posted on collegeboard. I did this by setting her profile SAT to the 25% range and the GPA to the average GPA, and found it said she was above 33% of applicants. I did the same for the 75% score, and it said she was above 82% of applicants. The high end might be because students with higher SATs have lower GPAs on average, but this wouldn’t explain the low end.

I’d love to hear what others think about this tool. Thanks!