<p>OP here–</p>
<p>There was one letter to the editor in the July/Aug issue, responding to the article, which critized Yale’s admission practices.</p>
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There is not a huge difference between the SAT scores of ivy league schools and everyone else. Instead there are many colleges with similar high scores – some part of the ivy athletic conference and some not. A list is below from highest scoring to lowest scoring 75th percentiles CR + Math (based on the thread at <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1524929-selectivity-schools-based-2012-13-standardized-test-scores.html?highlight=sat+percentile[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1524929-selectivity-schools-based-2012-13-standardized-test-scores.html?highlight=sat+percentile</a> ). I only included the 1520 to 1590 range in which the ivies appear.</p>
<p>Caltech - 1590
Harvard - 1590
Princeton 1590
Yale - 1590
Chicago - 1570
Columbia - 1570
Harvey Mudd - 1570
MIT - 1570
Stanford - 1570
Dartmouth - 1560
WUSL - 1560
Vanderbuilt - 1560
Swarthmore - 1550
Northwestern - 1540
Penn - 1540
Amherst - 1530
Brown - 1530
Duke - 1530
Ponoma - 1530
Rice - 1530
Williams - 1530
Bowdoin - 1520
Carleton - 1520
Cornell - 1520
CMU - 1520
Haverford - 1520
Notra Dame - 1520
Tufts - 1520</p>
<p>Of course, all of these schools also admit many students who score well below the top scores listed above . As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I was accepted to ivies + S + M with a verbal SAT that was only in the 48th percentile, without hooks .</p>
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<p>No, there are far more than 30,000. You’re thinking about the top quartile of the class at HYP. But by definition, the bulk of the class at HYP is not in the top quartile.</p>
<p>Look at the 25th percentile scores. At Princeton they’re 700 CR, 710 M, 700 W. Good scores, to be sure, but tens of thousands of HS seniors score in that range. Adding those figures (which I know is a mistake, but that’s how US News does it), you’d need a 2110+ to be in the middle 50% at Princeton. Some may get in with even lower scores, because 2110 is the 25th percentile. But let’s say the addition error cancels out the 25th percentile, and you’d need at least a 2110 to be admitted to Princeton. The chart you linked to says at least 55,000 students scored 2110+ on the SAT, but that’s single sitting. The number who scored 2110+ superscored is much larger–and almost all the elite colleges say they look at superscores, not best single-sitting scores. On top of that, roughly as many people take the ACT as the SAT; some take both, but you probably need to nearly double the number to account for those who took only the ACT and scored similarly well, or who scored better on the ACT than on the SAT and submit only the ACT score. So my guess is there are probably 100,000 or more HS seniors annually whose test scores make them plausible contenders for Princeton. Only a fraction of them will apply, and only a fraction of those will be admitted, and undoubtedly those in the lower portion of the test score range face much longer odds than those higher up. But to suggest that fewer than 30,000 have test scores that would qualify them for Princeton seems wildly off the mark.</p>
<p>I also think you’re placing far more emphasis on test scores than elite colleges do, and far more than they say they do.</p>
<p>What’s more, very few elite colleges have entering class test scores as high as Princeton’s. At Brown, the 25th percentile CR+M+W is 2010, and the 25th percentile ACT is 29. These figures are at or below the average figures for the entering class at Michigan, a much bigger school. Yet Brown says it rejects 86% of those scoring 800 in CR, 88% of those scoring 800 in M, and 84% of those scoring 800 in W, along with 71% of those scoring 36 on the ACT and 87% of those scoring 33-35 on the ACT, all well above their averages. Why? Well, because as they try to explain repeatedly and ad nauseum, test scores don’t matter nearly as much to them as you seem to think they do.</p>
<p>You may have been admitted to Yale primarily on the basis of a stellar SAT score, and your child may have been admitted to Yale on the basis of a stellar test score and a legacy preference. That doesn’t mean it takes a similarly stellar SAT score to be admitted to Yale, or that most people with similarly stellar test scores will be admitted to Yale. The admissions calculus is far more complicated than that. Most people with stellar test scores will be rejected, and many people with less stellar test scores will be admitted.</p>
<p>And I still haven’t seen any evidence (apart from your personal anecdote) that for someone with a stellar test score, it’s an advantage to come from an unknown school. I suspect it’s just the opposite.</p>
<p>The question is who are getting those 25th percentile scores in the top schools. Atheletes, URM and maybe some international students from a remote part of the world? They reject many high scoreless to “make room” for those with such hooks to meet their institutional needs. Those high scoresrs rejected by these ivy+ top schools end up in other top 25/50 schools that are far more predictable in winning with scores and grades only, bigger public schools in particular. Of course there are those who are only interested in their state flagships or schools close to home , or those knowing just a high SAT score without other remarkable strengths wouldn’t be enough for the super selective colleges choose to stay put in the first place.</p>
<p>High SAT score is never a deal maker or breaker for the top schools, but imagine you are from one of many unknown high schools with 6 Val’s and you don’t have any hook, what might get AO’s attention and maybe get you in the game? Possibly high sat scores. To many, this is the one and only platform on which they are compared directly with all other applicants. That’s the significance of standardized test scores for students from unknown schools.</p>
<p>25% if the class has to be in the bottom 25th percentile. That’s how it is.</p>
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<p>I agree GPAs and SATs are needed to be in the possible pile but I do not believe kid’s from unknown schools have little to no chance. I interviewed for Cornell for a few years and easily 80% of the kids I interviewed would have done just fine at Cornell. However within all those applicants there were a few who had “it” … and these kids stood out in their interviews (and in their admission outcomes). These kids with “it” could be anywhere … and if they have “it” it will show up anywhere. Two examples.</p>
<p>Watch the movie “October Sky” … these kids accomplished something amazing, could not be denied, and could not have had less to work with.</p>
<p>Closer to home on CC … an all-time great CC poster, Soozievt … her kids went to a non-descript rural Vermont high school … but both kids were great, had “it”, and did great in college admissions (and in college and in life).</p>
<p>Amazing kids can be found everywhere and I believe will be given a fair shake in admissions to top schools (and any other schools).</p>
<p>Agree that amazing kids can be found everywhere. Homer Hickham, from “October Sky”,graduated from Virginia Tech.</p>
<p>^^It’s not a matter of whether they “can be found”, but a matter of how they manifest their talents and stand out, and how practically the AO’s can find those gems hidden. If you are one of the few applying to these schools in your area, then you essentially have a “geographic diversity” hook, but if you are from an unknown school in an over-represented area and don’t have easily discernible hooks, talents or achievements, high SAT scores MAY be something significant to grab AO’s attention - that’s all I am saying. Then of course, in my book, these applicants don’t stand much of a chance to the tipsy-top colleges, but at least two posters in this thread including Data10 said otherwise drawing conclusions from their own experience. The ones I know from our suburban public schools who got into HYP are athletes, Intel award winners, USAMO members, etc., so I guess everyone’s experience is different.</p>
<p>I think the desired combination from an admissions standpoint is unknown high school plus beyond the school recognition. If you go to an unknown high school and are a USAMO qualifier or even just did very well on the AMC, you are an Intel semifinalist, placed in the chemistry or physics Olympiad, are talented and attended Stage Door or Interlachen or some such program and get good recs from it, place near the top at major debate, mock trial, Fed Challenge, model UN, etc. events…you’ll get in.</p>
<p>The 25 percentile for Princeton is 2120 SAT and 31 ACT. Those numbers sit at the 97th percentile. That means roughly 96,000 students scored high enough to be in the top 75% at Princeton.</p>
<p>However, only around 27,000 students applied to Princeton. Even accounting for students who might take both tests and are double counted it is clear that there are many high scoring students who do not apply to Princeton. I am sure that the numbers are similar for other Ivy league schools.</p>
<p>My anecdotal evidence suggests that here in FL the top scoring kids are not Ivy obsessed. My son scored 33 on his ACT and didn’t have a single Ivy on his list. Many of his friends who were similarly high scoring wound up at top schools, but not necessarily the Ivies.</p>
<p>Top college acceptances for 2013 include Georgetown, Northwestern, Duke, Carnegie Mellon, Caltech, Johns Hopkins, MIT, and the Air Force Academy IN ADDITION to the Ivies. The Ivies are not the only selective schools out there and not everyone applies to them just because they are qualified.</p>
<p>A graph of chance of acceptance vs combined SAT percentile at Princeton, Harvard, and MIT is at <a href=“http://s13.postimg.org/e60llqzvb/sat.jpg[/url]”>http://s13.postimg.org/e60llqzvb/sat.jpg</a> . Note that at the time this study was done (A Revealed Preference Ranking of U.S. Colleges and Universities, 2004), chance of acceptance did not continually increase as SAT score increased, with a sharp cut off at a higher percentile SAT. Instead applicants in the 90-96th percentile combined SAT had a better chance of acceptance at Princeton than students in the 97-98th percentile, and the 93-98th percentile combined SAT at Harvard all had a similar chance of acceptance. The author, who is a professor at Harvard, concluded that the unexpected test score distribution at highly selective ivies related to yield manipulation (93rd percentile SAT app is unlikely to be a cross admit who chooses to go somewhere else). I realize that acceptance rates have dropped substantially since when the study was done, so the curves have likely shifted a bit up in the percentiles. Nevertheless, the same principle applies, without sharp cut-offs at a very high percentile SAT score, for a variety of reasons.</p>
![http://s13.postimg.org/e60llqzvb/sat.jpg[/url]](http://s13.postimg.org/e60llqzvb/sat.jpg%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
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My combined SAT was in the ~13th percentile of the freshman class at Brown and ~7th percentile at Stanford (estimating based on ACT composite after conversion since combined SAT is not available), yet I was accepted without having any hooks, including the ones that you listed. I agree that persons with lower scores need to really stand out to make admissions overlook the scores, but there are many ways to do that besides being a hook or under-represented group, and national awards.</p>
<p>I guess in your case the “yield manipulation” strategy didn’t work, eh?</p>
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I was also accepted to MIT, which did not have any obvious yield manipulation in the graphs above. I do not believe it was simply a matter of choosing a less qualified candidate to increase yield in my case, although the study data does suggest that yield consideration was an influential factor for many admissions decisions. This effect is more obvious in colleges that offer binding ED. The same author found that binding ED increased chance of acceptance by 31 to 37% at highly selective colleges, after removing differences in application strength between the 2 admissions pools, including test scores and hooks. His study found this 31 to 37% increase for binding ED was similar to the increase in chance of admission one would expect from 150-200 points on combined SAT score (<a href=“http://www.stanford.edu/~jdlevin/Papers/EarlyAdmissions.pdf[/url]”>http://www.stanford.edu/~jdlevin/Papers/EarlyAdmissions.pdf</a> ). The study also compares the influence of private school, which fits with the OP discussion.</p>
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<p>Not to second-guess a Harvard professor, but it also seems likely that there are a significant number of applicants to HYP-type schools who get a high score on the SAT or ACT and assume that that will be enough to get them in. It is not unusual to see postings here on cc from HS students saying “I got a 2400 on the SAT, but my grades are only a 3.0 - will that hurt me getting in at HYP-type school?” I think students who apply to MIT are more likely to have other science/math attributes which explains why their graph is more conventional. I have never heard of Harvard or Princeton admissions suffering from Tufts syndrome.</p>
<p>I doubt the Harvard spike at 93% has anything to do with yield management. Is there a significant size group of Ivy League admits with a different standardized test statistical profile than the typical admit that might explain the graph? </p>
<p>Of course there is, which also explains why you don’t see the bump at MIT.</p>
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This is what I think as well.</p>
<p>Despite Data10’s counterexample, I do think the lower 25% at the most selective schools is largely occupied by hooked students. My review of results threads here on cc over the last 6 years supports this opinion, although of course that isn’t a scientific sample. I think it’s likely that pretty much all of the students in that lower 25% have something specific for which the school is looking other than good grades and pretty good scores. It may not be a traditional hook, but it’s probably something that wouldn’t surprise you too much–especially if, as with Data10, they were accepted by more than one super-selective school.</p>
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<p>Hmm … good question. How about this … where the local optimum at 93% for Princeton lies is also the SAT score that ties with the lower end of the first sports recruiting band (or one of the bands). I haven’t played with AI formula enough to know where the AI requirement tends to push SATs but it might explain some of the odd hump.</p>
<p>I wonder if that 93% represents a floor for some categories of hooked applicants.</p>
<p>Data10, Your example is interesting and no doubt an outlier since you say you had no hooks (not first gen, low SES, URM, athlete, national award winner, published author, celebrity, developmental case, recommendation from famous person, significant research,etc.) . Most unhooked kids cannot bank on your success . Your 500 CR SAT was clearly not what you were capable of as your posts indicate here. Luckily, admissions people recognized that.</p>
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I agree that persons on the lower end of test scores need to really stand out to make admissions overlook the test scores. I also agree than many do this by being a hook, including URMs* and stellar athletes. However, being a hook is far from the only way to stand out among the tens of thousands of admissions. The threads on CC show several lower test score accepted students who aren’t hooks in the traditional sense . I’ll use Princeton as an example since it had been discussed frequently in this thread. The RD sticky in the Princeton forum shows 5 applicants with a SAT of under 2100 – 3 were accepted, 1 was waitlisted, and 1 was rejected. 2 of the accepted were URMs. The 3rd did not have a hook in the traditional sense, however, he stood out in other ways. In one of his essays, he described his experiences as a commander in the Israeli army and how that experience shaped him in to the person he is today. He brings a unique background and experiences that many colleges value, along with personality traits that colleges value. One can find similar examples in the decisions threads for many other selective schools… not enough to even guess at the percentage, but enough to know they exist.</p>
<p>*I did not mean to imply that URMs get a free pass and do not stand out in unique ways. Many URMs also meet the description above and show strong indications that they will be successful, in spite of their scores. As an example, the lowest SAT I’ve heard of for a Stanford student is a superscored 1750 with the first test at ~1400 . Her essay is at [My</a> College Admissions Essay: Stanford University (Long Essay) - YouTube](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBEQR1Ay_1I]My”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBEQR1Ay_1I) . After hearing her essay and learning of her experiences, I’m not at all surprised she was admitted with this score. She recently graduated from Stanford with honors, finishing a BA + MA in 4 years, while doing some amazing things out of the classroom along the way. The poster Mr. Tubbz is also a good example.</p>