<p>SAT: 2230 (800M 700CR 730W)</p>
<p>SATII:
800 Math II
800 Chemistry
800 Physics</p>
<p>intended major is chemical engineering</p>
<p>My question is, are these scores good enough to go EA, or would you recommend retaking (can probably get 750+ W, and 720+ CR, I sort of goofed up this test) and applying RD. I’m hooked CalTech slightly (being recruited), so I sort of want to EA there, but I like Harvard a lot too. Advice!</p>
<p>Those scores are plenty good enough for EA!</p>
<p>Some reasons to choose RD rather than EA:
-You like Caltech equally well or better, and choose to apply there.
-Your SAT is below 2150, or one section is in the 600s. (And 690/680/670 are debatable.)
-Any other part of your application will be better RD/you just won’t be ready EA.</p>
<p>Not a good reason to RD rather than EA:
-Increasing 50 points from 2200+ SAT</p>
<p>Your scores are great, but in terms of deciding between harvard and caltech, I would say caltech definitely has the stronger ChemE program.</p>
<p>@Exultationsy, what do you think would be an acceptable range for the ACT?</p>
<p>If you have been recruited by Caltech and you like the school, then accept it. Its ChE has always been among the top 5 as far as I can remember. Your SAT scores are not really competitive if you are not recruited, especially for H - which has a much higher standard for writing and requires all freshmen (no matter how good they write) to take at least one writing class without exception. Besides, H’s ChE is not great at all any way. Sorry, but I believe only the fact matters. Please don’t take the words personal.</p>
<p>@Collegeinfo I don’t really know. The ACT wasn’t that common at my high school, so I’m not all that familiar with it. I’ve heard that 32+ is pretty good? I think I can safely say that 34+ is absolutely solid, but I don’t know where the line would fall about 32s and 33s.</p>
<p>Also, I feel like I need to clarify. The 2200+ level is the level at which you absolutely should not retake, assuming that the 200 missing points didn’t all come out of one section. A 2150 is still a fantastic score, it’s just that if you feel like you could improve 100+ points, that’s the level about which I feel that putting applying off to retake it becomes sometimes permissible, rather than OMG what are you thinking that is already a superwonderful test score! I didn’t mean to make it seem like a 2150- will doom anybody, or that a score around there is worth retaking if you already feel like you did your best.</p>
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<p>Being recruited at Caltech for an athletic team means the team will let you play if you get in Caltech. I don’t want to burst your bubble, but being recruited has no bearing whatsoever on admission, though.</p>
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<p>Is this a joke? He’s in the range, first of all, for writing and CR. Anything above a 2200 is competitive for H, and if you have around a 2250 it will probably won’t be the factor that causes your acceptance/rejection.</p>
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<p>Wrong. It’s called a strong hook for a reason. Being a recruited athlete is highly desired by universities, so it would affect your admission as well.</p>
<p>Caltech is Div III, where it has no bearing on admissions. It is a strong hook only at Div I schools.</p>
<p>Be careful not to generalize about D1 vs. D3 recruitment. It’s all sport and school specific. Truth is, coaches at Caltech have virtually ZERO pull.</p>
<p>he said that he would be able to get a director to read my app… as well as the regular admissions committee, so I would get a good read. Also, I have quad 800s in all the math/science SAT, as well as a national medal in an Olympiad… what else are they looking for?</p>
<p>I believe Caltech is highly numbers driven. With those scores you stand a good chance, and coach’s support can only help. But still, it won’t help much at all. That’s how Caltech is. A family friend was HIGHLY recruited by Caltech, had scores in range (not quad 8’s, though), and was rejected.</p>
<p>For high stat athletes, H, P, and S offer the best athletic support. Athletics are less helpful at Y, because the coaches’ slots are more limited. Athletics are even less helpful at MIT, and Caltech is the worst. Coaches can talk about helping, but their actual pull is very, very limited.</p>
<p>You may be the exception. If you are a VERY strong Caltech applicant and the coach fights for you, you may cruise right in. On the other hand, if the H coach supports you, your admission is virtually assured.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>i’m not nearly good enough to be recruited at H though. I know a few people there though</p>
<p>Doesn’t Harvard claim that there is “no score cutoff” for admission? I think their range last year was 31(25%)-34(75%) ACT…is the 31 only for URMs and recruited athletes? What do you guys think? </p>
<p>The reason I ask is that I currently have a 31. I re-took the ACT today, but I don’t think it went too well. I have two 770 scores on subject tests, and I’m registered to take two more in November. Do you guys think it would be a better idea to change to SAT reasoning? My only concern is that I probably wouldn’t do as well on reasoning as I would on subject tests. If I do really well on all subject tests, will take make up for my poor ACT score by showing a wide range of academic abilities? I once read that Harvard has an initial gate where scores are a pass or fail thing, but I don’t know how to interpret that in my case. </p>
<p>P.s. I’m sorry, Sheepgetkilled. I don’t mean to take over your thread with my questions.</p>
<p>Well, just be “in the range” doesn’t mean much when the admission rate is 6-7% as in the last several years. You need to be at (or close to) the upper end of the 25-75% pool to have a real chance, unless you have a strong hook or very unusual and highly desirable talent. Although I’ve not been able to find H’s actual data yet, here are some Y’s data I saw on the Y forum. Just FYI and You’ll get the idea, hopefully:</p>
<h2>Scores and admission – Y 2015 </h2>
<pre><code> For the class of 2015, a few stats on test scores and admission. The executive summary, no surprise, is that the better your test scores, the better your chance of admission, but even very high scores don’t guarantee you’ll get in.
The admission rate was 7.7% (this is a little higher than the 7.35% reported earlier in the year – probably due to 104 students accepted from the wait list, and 36 students who deferred admission). Yield was 65.2%. For entering freshmen, the SAT 50th percentile was 740V, 760M, 750W. 25th percentile was 700-700-710. The 75th percentile was 790 or 800 on all three tests. For ACT, the 50th percentile was 33 and the 25th percentile was 31.
For students with scores at 760 or above, Yale accepted about 15% (800/5359) on critical reading, 13% (1049/8064) on Math, and 15% (974/6556) on writing. For students with scores between 700 and 750, Yale accepted ~10% on critical reading (675/6964), ~8% on math (466/5658), and 8.5% (551/6461) for writing. Below those levels, the admission rate falls off to less than 5% for applicants with scores 600-690, and less than 2% for scores below 600.
At the other end of the range, Yale accepted 2 of the 587 applicants with scores below 500 on critical reading, 0 of the 409 applicants with scores below 500 on math, and 2 of 521 below 500 on writing. (Those who got in with low verbal scores might be otherwise brilliant international applicants for whom English is a second language.)
</code></pre>
<p>And, for the record, 181 of 930 legacy applicants (about 20%) were in the entering class – mostly children of Yale College alums, but some children of parents with graduate degrees. If we guess that yield was 80% for legacy applicants, then the admissions rate would have been a bit under 25%. </p>
<p>Of course SAT is only one factor of the admission decision, but the fact is when aiming a highly selective school such as HYPS you would really need everything in the right place in order to be truly competitive. No matter how many more applicants “get in the range” each year, the number of real contenders remains relatively unchanged. Sure, there are exceptions – but they are just that, exceptions.</p>