Application statistics

JHS
Mon, 28 Jan 2013 09:20:44 +0000

About 5,000 students per class get 2300 or more on a single SAT. Superscoring probably boosts that by 2,000-3,000, and ACT-equivalence probably gives you about 13,000 students nationwide with 2300 SATs superscored or the ACT equivalent. How many apply to Harvard is anyone’s guess, but I bet it’s a fair number, several thousand at least.

As for a 4.0 GPA – there are 4.0s and 4.0s. Weighted 4.0s (and higher) are as common as sand in the Harvard application pool; I would be surprised if 70-80% of the high test-scorers don’t have that (out of the ones that go to schools that publish weighted GPAs). Unweighted 4.0 GPAs are also pretty common. There are over 40,000 high schools in the U.S. alone, plus homeschoolers, and I bet almost all of them have a few 4.0 kids in every class. But unweighted 4.0s are not necessarily common among students with super-challenging curriculums, or who go to demanding schools. On the other hand, THOSE students are far more likely to apply to Harvard than most other groups. Not all of them, of course, but it’s got to be a high percentage, and those students are also very likely to be among the SAT 2300 group as well.