Engineering Admission Statistics 2018

[firmament2x]

@RichInPitt . . . I can’t buy into what you’re saying…

Here’s my quote with yours following:

Additionally, the 1,515 would doubtlessly be a median, not a mean. This is because a median SAT score will either end in a 0 or a 5. Please note, @sushiritto in your #6. The chances are fairly small that they would end in a “5” because there would have to be a switch in scores by 10 points right at the median splitting the scores of the one above with one below it.

This would make it much more likely to be a mean. What are the chances that out of 3040 students, exactly 1520 students had a 1510 or lower and exactly 1520 students had a 1520 or higher? Did you reverse what was after “doubtlessly“?

I suspect they are all means (often used synonymously with average) and rounded to the nearest 5. (In fact, many schools with odd numbers of students, but ending in 5 make median impossible).

I agree that the probability would be pretty remote that the reported number would end in a five if it were a median. And since most of the colleges in the Greymeer’s data have SATs ending in five, it does come into question. I stated what I did without perusing all the scores.

But, too, what would be the chance of many colleges rounding its SATs to a five rather than a zero (or more likely rounding up)? Not very… I believe the answer is that since they’re so used to reporting their SATs in a 75th and 25th percentile format, that they’ve become a bit lazy and have just taken the mid point of those two markers, which would be an egregious error because they would most likely be shortchanging themselves, because the higher scores should have a greater density and so the median score should be closer to the 75th. That still wouldn’t explain, though, why the predominant number of scores in the data have scores ending in five, because there would seemingly be a 50-50 chance that there would be a trailing five or a zero, not predominantly ending in five as here.

If these are indeed means and not medians, then the numbers would be much better for all, because just about all schools, probably with the exception of Cal Tech and Harvey Mudd who would probably have a pretty even and high distribution of scores all throughout its freshmen E students because of there are essentially no legacies, athletes, etc, as with the others.

@greymeer

3. UCLA listed number of applications as “26”… which I guessed meant 26k.

4. Schools listing only ACT scores were scaled from the lower end of the comparable SAT range. Example 36 is 1550 not 1600. 35 is a 1490…

You are correct wrt to 3). The number of applications for UCLA’s E majors totaled 26,195 for 2018-19. Your number for E majors minus CS is correct also: 3,924 total E majors - 884 CS majors = 3,040.

Re, 4), I don’t agree with this. A 36 should be a 1,600 and nothing else; a 35 should be ~ 1,560 or a 1,570; a 34, 1,510; a 33, 1,460. But if you’re the one who did the conversions, I like that you did because it puts all on the same plane of comparison.

@IWannaHelp, per your quote:

I think there’s a plausible explanation as to why the engineering school’s score is so much higher than the rest at UCLA. **I forgot that 40% of the student body are Asians **and prop 209 bars UCs from considering race in admission. Out of those 40% (also among the highest scoring within the student body), a lot are concentrated in the engineering school. I was surprised initially but once I recall this, it makes sense.

You keep digging your ditch deeper and deeper. Actually, for the undergrad student body as a whole, whites and Asians comprise about the same percentage, about 26-28%. For the incoming freshman class it’s more comprised of Asians but the percentage isn’t 40%. White students are more concentrated in xfers. The university counts Internationals as a separate category as do all universities, and many of them are from Asia, specifically the People’s Republic of China, which means the 27% of Asian students would indeed be higher, but it wouldn’t be 40%. I’m guessing you cited your number without any forethought