How do top scorers on tests fail to gain admission to top schools?

Parents Forum
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<p>Hi, mammall, you most recently wrote, </p>

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<p>Replying to that, I’ll say that in one of my earliest threads I defined a “safety” college as one that </p>

<p>1) is pretty much certain to admit my kid, based on its known behavior in acting on admission applications,</p>

<p>2) has a strong program in an area my kid is interested in,</p>

<p>3) is affordable based on its known behavior in acting on financial aid applications,</p>

<p>and</p>

<p>4) is likeable to my kid. </p>

<p>In the state I live in, the state “flagship” university appears to fit those characteristics, although it claims to practice “holistic” admissions and thus could conceivably reject any applicant for any reason or no reason at all. In practice, our state university offers an “on-the-spot” admission evening for students in my son’s math program there and to students in the dual-enrollment program there (which I expect him to join next year). I am told that the base acceptance rate for students invited to the on-the-spot admission evening is 97 percent, and in any event one gets a decision right away, early in October, in plenty of time to adjust one’s application list. </p>

<p>I expect college admission tests to endure for a long time, because they are still the one aspect of the admission process that is comparable across almost all applicants. The great thing about the computer that scores a machine-scored test is that it can’t be bribed or seduced, so that some students’ tricks for getting good grades can’t be used to get good test scores. </p>

<p>If your kids have scored well in middle school, they should take advantage of the resources available through whatever regional Talent Search program serves your region to challenge themselves academically and stay informed about academic extracurricular activities. Suffice it for me to repeat myself that a summer spent on test prep is a VERY bad idea, but a summer spent at some interesting academic program that fits your child will do a lot to make your child happier and more capable (the main good reason to do a summer program) and can hardly hurt in the college admission process. The best extracurricular academic programs help your children build peer groups of students who may be their college classmates a few years later. I just learned that one of my son’s online buddies, a guy he IMs with from time to time, is one of this year’s [Davidson</a> Fellows](<a href=“Davidson Institute | Programs & Support for the Profoundly Gifted”>Davidson Institute | Programs & Support for the Profoundly Gifted). I had the privilege of meeting two Davidson Fellows from earlier years at a conference earlier this summer. They both really enjoy their studies at Harvard. I don’t doubt that they had good SAT scores, but they had a lot more in their application package by the time they applied. (At least one was already admitted before winning the Davidson Fellowship.) There are a lot of worthwhile things for young people to do besides taking standardized tests, and I urge young people to do those things. Definitely don’t neglect the tests, but don’t count on them as a sign that a kid can rest on his test-taking laurels. It’s best for a child’s development to take on lots of other challenges besides test-taking.</p>

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<p>If a UC school has really rejected an in-state 2400 scorer, as opposed to that person being accepted early at an ED school and being required to withdraw their application (which the UC school decided to call a rejection), the only possible reasons are that the person failed to complete the UC admissions requirements (ie 4 years of English, etc, the A-G requirements as they are called), had very poor grades, or wrote a personal statement that revealed him/herself to be a racist or psychopath. The most likely explanation is that any rejected 2400s were out of state applicants to Berkeley or maybe LA, who are held to standards about as high as applicants at a top (but not HYPSM) private. Even so, it probably would have required less than stellar grades.</p>

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<p>One thing this discussion doesn’t mention is how few questions separate a 700 from a 750, and a 750 from an 800. Adcoms know this. One of my kids went from 600 to 790 on writing component at the next sitting. A friend went from 690 to 800 on math in one sitting. All things being equal a 2400 is an attractive asset and one that helps a school’s marketing efforts. The point people are making is that all other things are never equal. A school is not rejecting someone because of their perfect score; the school has just found other candidates it prefers. Many factors could contribute to this preference: urm status, exceptional achievement on the national level, an ec the school very much needs, interest in a very underrepresented major, geography, or celebrity parents, just to name some of them.</p>

<p>Thus, although it may be a rare occurance for a a perfect scorer to be rejected from a school of choice, it is certainly plausible that it does happen.</p>

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<p>I think that UC Berkeley’s admissions process are misrepresented somewhat. While the minimum UC admissions standards are specified, those threshold numbers merely entitle a student to admission at some UC campus - not necessarily to Berkeley. While the less-selective campuses are more numbers-driven, Berkeley (and UCLA, I think) use a more holistic approach to assess the applicants within the specified admissibility range. At Berkeley, for example, each application is read by two “readers” and assigned a score between 1 and 5. That assignment includes all of the factors UC has designated as relevant to its “comprehensive review” policy, which includes grades and tests scores as well as economic and other factors. It is not expressly numbers-driven, although “On average, reader scores improve as SAT I scores and GPAs increase.” The Moore’s report highlighted the dozens of 1500+ SAT applicants who received scores of 1 or 2 but still weren’t admitted. I don’t know why that occurred.</p>

<p>Here’s the link, by the way: <a href=“http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/compreview/mooresreport.pdf[/url]”>http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/compreview/mooresreport.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Well, I consider that it is highly unlikely UCB has rejected anyone with 2400 SAT (UC only accepts single sitting score). So I do a search the cc as well as google the web. So far, the only reference to UCB rejecting 2400 applicant I have found is epiphany’s own posting here.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the link to the report of the committee chaired by John Moores. The UC admission process has been interesting to me for years, just as a contrasting example to how admission is done at the state flagship university in my state.</p>

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<p>kluge (and others): for heaven sakes, I never claimed that UC is purely numbers driven. Please do not mischaracterize my remarks, or exaggerate them. I merely said that uc is more numbers-driven, as are many publics, due to the eligibility aspect which always must be considered for in-staters. I’m extensively acquainted with UC’s admissions policy, & their procedures. As to the poster who hypothesized about OOS students applying to UC with perfect scores, the examples I am thinking of were most definitely not OOS students. Finally, with regard to the remark about needing to be a psychopath or racist to be rejected on the basis of an essay, that is simply not true. There have been examples which UC has made available to the general public, in which the content of the essays was posted, as well as the student’s numerical data. The rejected students represented no such extremism in their essays.</p>

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<p>epiphany, my post was in regards to claims about students with perfect scores (2400) being rejected at Berkeley. You are telling me that you know of a case (either personally or through publicly available sources) in which a CA-resident 2400 scorer was rejected at Berkeley without either poor grades (by Berkeley standards, probably a UC weighted-GPA below 3.8), or poor SAT II scores (average below 650), who had met the A-G requirements (ie, was in fact UC eligible) and that you know the content of said-person’s essay (or know the person on a personal basis) and saw that it did not contain objectionable content. And that person should have submitted all required parts of the application. If so, I would like details, because I find it very hard to believe.</p>

<p>edit: I re-read your post, and think you may have misconstrued my comments about an essay needing to be racist or psychopathic to lead to rejection. I am referring only to cases in which the academic record is exemplary (far above the average at Berkeley). I don’t deny that the essay matters in most cases, and if you look at my post carefully you will find that I did not make that claim. For most applicants, the personal statement is important, and the quality of the statement can affect acceptance. For a very high-SAT scorer with near-perfect grades, however, an essay would have to be extraordinary (in a bad sense) to lead to rejection.</p>

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<p>Post 285: You have your reply, both earlier in this thread and on the student forum on which you posted just after you made your post #285 here.</p>

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<p>Post 288: No! It was NOT a sub 4.0 UC weighted GPA. I’ll PM you.</p>

291

<p>I am still waiting to see the 2400 example and the essay sample.</p>

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<p>Of in-state students receiving an academic rating of 1, 1.5, 2 or 2.5, and with an SAT score of 1500+, only 15 were rejected from colleges other than Engineering (0 in Natural Resources, 1 in Chemistry, 0 in Environmental Design, 14 in Letters and Science). Hardly dozens.</p>

<p>In Engineering, it says that 96 were rejected, but the numbers seem off, because it claims far more 1501-1600 scorers with 1.5 or 2.0 ratings were rejected (64) than 1401-1600 scorers with the same ratings (17), even though the latter group includes the former group. Engineering is more competitive anyway (2.5s are frequently rejected). The number of 1401-1600 scorers (since these numbers look more reliable) with 1.0, 1.5, or 2.0 ratings who were rejected was only 23, and presumably the number of 1501-1600 scorers with those ratings who were rejected is smaller (perhaps 10).</p>

<p>All in all, the rejected high-scorers with good grades seems to be an extremely small group that could be explained by intensely negative personal factors.</p>

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<p>Re Post 291: sorry, but I’m not your instant slave. Start doing your own research if you’re just so impatient for “proof.” I know that one of the examples I’m thinking of was, again, from a public posting (not CC), and did not include someone who had “intensely negative personal factors” (post 292). Even qualify the Moore report all you want (“must have been this,” “must have been that”). Gee, could have been similar kinds of adjustment factors that privates use when modifying the supposedly Wow factor of a perfect/near perfect score. The point holds: Both publics & privates use a variety of factors when evaluating applicants. Interestingly, the U.C. process is both more numbers-driven (because of the eligibility index & the way the table works proportionally) and less so, because of generous allowances for personal challenges, compromised opportunities, immigrant status, etc. (Comprehensive Review). In addition, even the supposedly numbers-conscious California Institute of Technology is reputed to use a “holistic” process. Finally, the to-die-for MIT of hallowed fame, where supposedly one needs knock-out scores for consideration, has accepted lower scorers over higher ones in the past few years, minimum. Anyway, I need to go & do some things now, so people with instant needs need to calm down for a second or two.</p>

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<p>Regarding the Moore Report, I think it is important to note the repercussions of that report and the subsequent censure by the Board of Regents.</p>

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<p>xiggi makes a good point. Berkeley may in fact be even more of a sure-thing for top-scorers with good grades now than it was before 2003. As a recent grad of a public high school that was basically a Berkeley feeder (about 60 accepted in my graduating class), my experience was that a certain level of stats was basically a guaranteed acceptance, and I never encountered a counter-example at my school (though I’m certainly interested to see epiphany’s example).</p>

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<p>Caltech couldn’t use the Common Application, as it now does, unless it convinced the Common Application organization that it genuinely does holistic admission. That is a requirement for use of the Common Application forms and trademarks. So that’s an easy way to compile a list of colleges that AREN’T “by the numbers”–any college that accepts the Common Application could, in principle, reject a perfect scorer. </p>

<p><a href=“https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/CollegeInfo.aspx[/url]”>https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/CollegeInfo.aspx&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>svalbard:</p>

<p>two years ago, a kid at our competitive HS was rejected from Cal with a ~2300, but accepted to UCLA w/Regents interview and recieved merit money from Hopkins. Of course, he was the only one of the top ~30 that was rejected by Cal (more of the class applies to UCLA). </p>

<p>In '05, if I recall, Cal rejected ~15 1600’s. [Sorry, the article is no longer available online, or at least I could not find it.]</p>

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<p>Thanks, tokenadult. I really do have to run now, but I just noticed your post. Truthfully, that comment of mine regarding CalTech is not based on checking the facts but on something a poster reported on PF, I think, within the last couple of months on a very active discussion about scores or AA (LOL, the 2 most hotly contested issues here, probably). I thought that the word he used was ‘holistic’ to describe the process, but I’m quoting without looking up that reference, so I’ll bow to your definitions for the moment until I look that up. (Later! :slight_smile: )</p>

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<p>One thing to remember is that UC is expressly pro-grades. That means that high SAT, low GPA applicants could well be rejected. (of course, a 2400 SAT applicant with less than a 3.0 GPA would be ineligible to attend UC.)</p>

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<p>Actually, there are 3 pathways to admission for the UC, the third being “eligibility by examination alone” – see:
<a href=“http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/paths_to_adm/freshman/exam_eligibility.html[/url]”>http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/paths_to_adm/freshman/exam_eligibility.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>So, assuming that the 2400 scorer with a below 3.0 GPA also had scores averaging at least 530 on 2 SAT II exams, the student would be eligible and (if a California resident), guaranteed a spot with at least one campus – though Berkeley or UCLA would be highly unlikely. But I think there’s plenty of room at UC Merced for those really smart slackers…</p>