<p>I’m a 15 year old junior who’s been homeschooled my entire life (except for sophomore year). I’ve always had above-average test scores, and this past October, I got a 192 on my PSAT (I’m hoping to get at least a 2100 on my SAT in June). But my sophomore year, my parents and I decided that I should try out an online school to see if separate teachers would be better for me. The online school had an awkward system when it came to turning in homework and attending classes, and it just didn’t work for me. By that time though, we were already deep into the school year, and I didn’t want to just leave in the middle of the curriculum. Due to this, my final grades were way worse than I thought they’d be. In addition to a few A’s and B’s, I also had C’s and D’s. </p>
<p>My question is, do you think that those grades will overshadow my test scores when it comes to college (but specifically Stanford’s) admissions?</p>
<p>It is difficult to have Cs and Ds not overshadow everything else in an application. Your predicted test score wold also be a little on the low end for Stanford.</p>
<p>The school didn’t have a clear schedule for classes, because they would have multiple ones that tended to overlap. And because some were optional and some weren’t, you would have to pick and choose which ones you would do on each day, which was hard to do because of the way they set up their schedule.</p>
<p>When it came to turning in homework, each class had a separate schedule, so one might be detailed enough to show which homework was due each day, but another class might only tell you what was due at the end of the week - which led to some late homework. </p>
<p>Also, because of the online school aspect, there tended to be times when I couldn’t access the site for hours at a time. This really messed me up when it came to graded tests, which would would be closed down after a certain amount of time.</p>
<p>Under normal circumstances test scores are more important than grades since SAT and ACT scores are used to compare you (and your GPA) to the rest of the nation. However Ds really kill your application. </p>
<p>@saif235 - I disagree that test scores are more important the grades. Many schools will say that the transcript is the most important piece of information. It shows grades, rigor, trends… a much more complete view of a student along with the school profile.</p>
<p>^Many private schools use the academic index to rank students. AI=SAT/30 + 2 SAT2s/20 + class rank score. Thus quantitatively test scores are weighted 2:1 in comparison to grades. It’s true that the transcript is extremely important, but schools use your test scores to validate what’s on your transcript. A kid with mostly Bs but high test scores (2200+) is “better” than a kid with all As but sub par (less than 2000) test scores; the kid with poor grades is considered smart but cheated by his school’s grading system (typically) while the other kid is considered not so smart but helped by his school’s grading system (typically).
Of course having high scores and grades is best - Ds are red flags on any application, but from what I understand test scores are just as (possibly even more) important than grades. </p>
<p>@saif235
I see what you’re saying, but I don’t agree. The SAT/ACT measure almost absolutely nothing. They are only indicative of your ability to take tests or your ability to prepare for them, nothing more. The only reason most schools factor them in is to guarantee a standard comparison with other applicants. Once you are above a certain score (which depends on each school) the tests simply stop mattering. Your comparison of a B student with 2200+ scores being better than an A student with 2000+ scores is faulty because it really depends on each individual case.</p>
<p>@saif - many private schools do not use the AI to rank students. The AI may be used for athletes, but not for the general population. Schools are not routinely calculating an AI on 30,000+ applicants. The B student with higher scores will not be the better applicant.</p>
<p>Each year, the NACAC does a survey asking a large number of colleges what factors are “considerable importance” to admissions decisions, and each year the top two factors in their survey are grades in college prep classes and strength of curriculum. I’d expect grades in relevant classes to be more important than scores as a whole for Stanford, as they are a better predictor of success in college. However, test scores certainly do have an impact for Stanford admissions, as do LORs, essays, ECs, awards/talents, and personality/character. Stanford says all of these are “very important” in the CDS. </p>
<p>You’re missing my point. I’m not saying that the tests are useless in terms of college applications, they are very vital for a strong app. What I’m saying is that the tests themselves are useless, they indicate almost nothing about a student beyond his/her ability to take a test. Colleges know this, and that’s why they don’t put an enormous emphasis on them. Once your score is above a certain point, they don’t weigh into your application any more. </p>
<p>Sure… “Once your score is above a certain point, they don’t weigh into your application any more.”</p>
<p>But therein lies the catch. Apply to a good school, you must meet a certain score; otherwise, it’s an uphill battle. For some lesser schools, test scores determine merit aid. </p>
<p>High SAT scores imply 2 possible things: 1) the kid is smart and/or 2) the kid is a hard worker. Either way, you kind of need both - the genius and the hard worker.</p>
<p>Once you get that baseline, then you can differentiate based on other criteria. But given the sheer amount of applicants to certain schools, the easiest way to filter out people is by SAT/ACT scores. Heck, if I were a top school, I’d just run a filter to knock out everyone under 600 for any SAT test (except for those programs that require audition like music, art, etc).</p>
<p>You’re right, but that bar for a good score is usually far lower than other bars for the given university. For example in Stanford a 2200 is about the bar for most top-tier applications. Even then, scores in the 2100s are still fine, that application just has to has to have a little more umph to it.</p>
<p>High SAT scores do not imply level of intelligence or hard work. They can, but they do not in and of themselves. I have met plenty of people who exhibit neither trait and have scored high on the SAT/ACT. A number between 800 - 2400 is not going to define a person as smart/not smart or a hard worker/not a hard worker.</p>
<p>At schools hovering in the 30% - 50% acceptance rate, sure, SAT scores become far more important. But we’re talking about Stanford and it’s contemporaries. At those schools, yes, you need to have the baseline to be a competitive applicant, but the thing is that meeting the baseline does only that, it means you meet the baseline. It guarantees you absolutely nothing in terms of acceptance. If you don’t meet the baseline, and don’t have anything else to make up for it, then you shouldn’t be applying with the expectation of having a shot. For the other competitive applicants, the SAT is not an important factor.</p>
<p>@cba read the book “A is for Admissions”. or “Though it has traditionally been used for sports purposes…every Ivy League school still calculates an AI for every student…many schools began to print the number right on the front of every student’s folder and used it to help them rank a student academically.” (Dr. Michele Hernandez, Dartmouth admissions officer). The University of California system also use a similar formula to determine eligibility for guaranteed acceptance to a UC campus. (<a href=“http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/”>http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/</a>)</p>
<p>@RedSn0w you are correct, my example is flawed in that decisions are made on a case by case basis. And to be clear I was not trying to create a definitive case. However my central point, which you agreed with in your post, remains the same. While grades are important they remain subjective as grades are determined by individual teachers, schools etc. Standardized test scores -while inadequate when measuring the true worth of a student- provide a means of putting each student’s grades into context. Here I would argue that subject test scores (SAT subject, AP, IB, A levels, etc) should be more important than standard SAT and ACT scores. </p>
<p>@saif235 Fair enough, that makes sense. Subject tests and AP scores should be more importantly certainly, but I don’t believe they are unfortunately. </p>
<p>Regarding AP/IB scores, Stanford’s website states they rarely play a significant role in admissions:</p>
<p>We want to be clear that this is not a case of “whoever has the most APs wins.” Instead, we look for thoughtful, eager and highly engaged students who will make a difference at Stanford and the world beyond, and we expect that they have taken high school course loads of reasonable and appropriate challenge in the context of their schools. As a result, we do not require students to submit AP scores as part of our admission process. AP scores that are reported are acknowledged but rarely play a significant role in the evaluation of an application.</p>
<p>It’s difficult to estimate how much impact SAT/ACT scores have because they are correlated with so many other factors. For example, Princeton publishes stats on how acceptance rate changes with SAT score. For each ~200 points on M+V+W SAT sum, acceptance rate drops by ~half. This doesn’t tell us much about how much influence SAT score has because the higher scoring students likely also had an overall stronger application, including better grades while taking more challenging courses. The other admissions factors that improved with the scores likely had more impact than the scores themselves. One can limit the range for some of these factors and then compare admit rates using the self-reported Parchment data (biased sample, which probably includes some who are not truthful). Among Parchment members who applied to Stanford and had a 3.9+ UW GPA while taking 4+ AP classes, the acceptance rates by SAT score were as follows:</p>
<p>It’s an interesting distribution. Note that there are 2 sharp changes in the acceptance rate – one at Stanford’s approximate 75th percentile SAT score and the other at Stanford’s approximate 25th percentile SAT score. This is the type of distribution I’d expect if a school was concerned with keeping their publicly reported 25th and 75th percentile SAT scores at a particular level. Or it may just be a coincidence.</p>
<p>Note that an SAT score below 25th percentile does not necessarily mean one is doomed to failure. Stanford has been known to accept unhooked students with scores under 2000 on occasion. A few months ago a poster on this forum mentioned her unhooked daughter was admitted with an 1890. I was admitted unhooked with a similar combined total several years ago, including a 500 verbal, which was one of the ~6 lowest verbal scores in my class.</p>