How accurate are class profiles?

As the title says, how accurate are class profiles and student statistics that colleges and universities post on their sites? It seems like every college I look at has students with 30+ ACTs. Are there really that many applicants with those stats? It is bumming me out as I currently have a 1330 SAT, which is around 90th percentile, yet I feel like I have zero chances of getting into any of the schools I want to, or getting any merit. Ohio State University, for example, states that their middle 50% ACT is between 28-32, yet they admit a LOT of applicants. Do 75% of their applicants actually have a 28+? Also, college websites such as Niche and Collegeboard list the stats as lower than on the actual college website. Can anyone explain this to me? I’d hate to not apply to a school because they skew their scores and I don’t think I have a chance. Thank you

Class profiles published by the school or on the common data set should be accurate. If you HS has Naviance that is another tool you can use.

And in your example 28-32 ACT for Ohio State represents accepted students (not applicants). http://undergrad.osu.edu/apply/freshmen-columbus/who-gets-in

CDS stats are most always for enrolled students. They are often not the same as for admitted students. Just something to keep in mind.

Thank you for pointing that out! And I do not have Naviance

What does that acronym mean? Also what does the acronym D mean? I hear people on here say “my D” xD Like is that someone talking about their kid?

D is daughter. S is son.

CDS is the Common Data Set. Every college is required to report annual statistics in a standard format. You can see any college’s CDS by googling “[name of college] Common Data Set.” Here is the 2017-2018 CDS for Ohio State. Look at section C9. It says the middle 50% ACT composite score was 22-26 for ENROLLED freshmen. The numbers are always a bit lower for enrolled freshmen than for ACCEPTED students.
https://www.ohio.edu/instres/commondataset.pdf

Thank you!! That is very interesting. Why is it that admitted is lower than accepted? And when looking at common data sets and comparing my scores to colleges to see if they are a match should I compare to admitted or to accepted?

ENROLLED is lower than accepted. Admitted and accepted mean the same thing.

If you had a 34 ACT and applied to Ohio State as your safe school, but were admitted to Vanderbilt with excellent financial aid, where would you go? Exactly. Many applicants with high scores end up elsewhere.

Assuming you mean ENROLLED or accepted … look at accepted. That’s the field you are competing with.

Admitted student stats are usually HIGHER than enrolled student stats. Maybe someone out there can explain exactly why, but I’m going to assume it’s because applicants apply to numerous colleges, then often choose the most prestigious school they get into; this leaves the admitted students with slightly lower stats to enroll in the college that others have chosen not to attend, which means lower enrolled stats represented in CDS. Consequently, the more “prestigious” schools won’t have the same statistical discrepancies. Make sense?

Correct. Harvard will not have a discrepancy between admitted and enrolled. University of Chicago or Vanderbilt will have only a small discrepancy between admitted and enrolled. But in-state students with tippy-top scores apply to their public flagships as safeties. And unless their public flagship is highly selective (Michigan, UNC, UVA, Berkeley, UCLA are), there will be a big difference between the scores of admitted and enrolled.

CDS for The Ohio State University - Columbus campus https://oaa.osu.edu/sites/default/files/uploads/irp/cds/columbus/IRP_CDS_2017-2018_Columbus.pdf

2017-2018 ACT composite 25th percentile was a 27 and the 75th percentile was a 31.

The data in post #5 above is for Ohio University in Athens, OH I haven’t seen the 2018-19 CDS numbers yet for Ohio State, but the numbers for who gets in on their website probably reflect their incoming 2018 freshman class stats.

I’ll assume you mean a wide discrepancy, since even Harvard does not have a 100% yield rate. Per the last CDS, Harvard admitted 2037 and enrolled 1687 for an 82.4% yield.
https://oir.harvard.edu/files/huoir/files/harvard_cds_2017-18.pdf

Oops! Sorry about that. It was late …
Thanks for pointing it out.

Eh. Effectively no discrepancy. Those accepted who enroll elsewhere are not enrolling in schools that have more stringent requirements.

Thank you everyone! Your feedback was very helpful!

Go look at Lafayette College’s website. It has the most telling and detailed student profile. It shows that those who end up attending have lower stats than those admitted overall. Very interesting, and it makes you wonder if it’s similar at most colleges

citymama9, as explained upstream, the admitted stats everywhere will nearly always be higher on average than the enrolled stats since higher stat student admits will have more competitive options than will the student admits on the lower end of the spectrum and thus those students will be more likely to enroll.

At the moment, the most current Common Data Set, titled 2017-2018 and available on most college websites as well as at https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/, contains enrolled student data for the Class of 2021. Most colleges will not post the 2018-2019 CDS with Class of 2022 data until this winter or even spring (e.g. Harvard posts in late May). There may be a few early birds, so it’s worth checking your colleges’ websites.

However, many colleges have posted a class profile for 2022 on their websites by now, i.e., this data is more recent. The caveat has pointed out above, that some colleges post data for admitted rather than for enrolled in their class profile, so it is important to note which one the data refers to. Occasionally colleges will post both.

Colleges’ middle 50 ranges for ACT scores seem not to change much from year to year. However, for SAT scores, note that class of 2022 is the first class submitting virtually all New SAT scores, whereas class of 2021 was mixed Old and New; accordingly, the 2022 data may be slightly more accurate, in addition to being more recent.

Don’t forget that when you look at, say, a school with 32+ ACT average, but not a top 20 college, a lot of those enrolled kids applied to a tippy top and didn’t get in at that first choice.

Also, D or DD means daughter or dear daughter. S is son, H or W is husband or wife.