Determining your competitiveness on the web, percent accepted/admitted question/data

Applying to College
1

<p>Hi, I think this is a simple issue, but I have not seen it discussed much. Many people want to understand their chances for good reason, where should one spend their effort in the application process. People use various datasets on the web to compare their credentials with others that have applied and been accepted or denied.</p>

<p>But there must be a difference between the mean scores among those “accepted” versus those “admitted”, and the admitteds must generally be lower, the reason being that the most competitive students are more likely to have more attractive options.</p>

<p>What is the magnitude of this discrepancy?</p>

<p>Well, I went to a popular site and collected the distribution of mean SATs for students accepted and declined. I compared the quartiles of these with the actual data from one University. Here is the comparison. I think the effect is there, not huge, but not insignificant. Feel free to comment.</p>

<p>Web Site (2012 data):
lower 25% - 700, upper 75% - 765</p>

<p>Students Admitted 2012 data:
lower 25% - 646, upper 75% - 745</p>

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<p>OP, the state-specific data and the gender/race specific consideration within the state is
quite important. The gross data does not hold much relative meaning (for admittance %)
unless you are far removed from the state where the college is present.</p>

<p>Stanford for example will admit more students from CA; MIT,Harvard, Brown
from New England States, Duke from NC etc. This % will skew the average
stats significantly.</p>