Friend from school accepted with a 2220 and a 3.9 UW

Anonymous1993
Wed, 24 Nov 2010 21:31:49 +0000

These are great stats!

College Confidential really has a problem understanding how admissions works. Most of the people on the chance me threads are just trying to get their own chance me posts read. They are going to say that you need a 2300 or higher or else you are screwed.

I admit, look at the acceptance threads and you will see that most people who got in had really high scores. Think about this; there are three kinds of people that score really high. Those who get high scores are either really good test takers, really hard workers, or both. Many people with high scores get rejected from top schools. Those are the natural test takers who have nothing else going for them. The people who get in are usually hard workers. Hard work correlates with great essays, great grades, great teacher recommendations etc. The reason many low scorers do not get accepted is because a lot of the low scorers are more likely to be lacking in areas other than SAT/ACT. There are plenty of people who are extremely hard workers but are just terrible test takers. These people show that they are great in categories other than SAT/ACT, and they will often get in to top schools. I know plenty of people who got in to top schools with low SAT and ACT scores. It was because they had a strong overall application.

Many colleges are similar to MIT. They look at scores and quickly see if you are a strong applicant and they move on. Harvard will not look at an asian’s application and say “he has a 2150, he is at a serious disadvantage.” If that 2150 kid did not get in, it was because of something else in his application. Most often, an applicant with a 2300 will have a strong application all around.

Basically what I am saying is that the reason that average SAT scores are so high is because strong SATs correlate to strong applications (other than standardized tests).

Sorry if this post is all over the place (with bad grammar also). I typed it up rather quickly.