<p>from bluebayou’s post, I will have to concede to being incorrect about the certainty that high stats alone can provide at Cal. It seems to do admissions even more differently from the rest of the UCs (particularly UCLA, which by some measures is very close in selectivity) than I thought. On the other hand, high stats will provide you much more certainty at Cal than it will at HYPSM and their ilk. After all, according to the Moore report, the acceptance rate for SAT scorers between 1510-1600 with good grades (as determined by having a strong academic rating: 2.5 or better) was something like 98% (668/682) for Letters and Science applicants. And though, as seems to be the case with bluebayou’s example, these include people who seem not to have written unadmissible personal statements, a few of those 14 may have had something in their personal statement (or perhaps disciplinary record) that precluded admission. It’s still a pretty good bet (which isn’t the case at HYPSM).</p>
<p>According to the charts on page 44 and 45, 201 applicants rated 2.5 or higher with SAT scores above 1500 were rejected, while 1325 were admitted. That’s an admit rate of about 87% overall for applicant’s “scored” over 2.5. </p>
<p>But the reader’s scores don’t necessarily reflect grades. There were 77 1500+ SAT L & S applicants with GPA’s averaging over 3.7 who were scored below 2.5 and rejected. Again, I don’t know why, but essays are part of the scoring process. The likelihood of rejection does appear to have risen sharply when you drop below 4.0</p>
<p>I believe essays are part of the scoring process to determine “comprehensive review” factors. Some of those are subjective factors that will be assigned a specific score; the scoring systems differ from one campus to another.</p>
<p>302/303 is also my understanding. I remember the essay scoring process as described online, & believe that blue is correct in that there were earlier examples of the particular apps (with the stats) that are now no longer available to view.</p>
<p>Essays are huge with the two UC flagships, and, based on anecdotal experience, the W score appears marginally more important to UCLA than Cal.</p>
<p>“Essays are huge with the two UC flagships…”</p>
<p>I cannot agree more.</p>
<p>
Sorry Kluge, I should have clarified that I was only referring to in-state Letters and Science applicants (see page 76). Only 14 people with scores 1500+ and 2.5 or better rating were rejected while 668 were accepted.</p>
<p>
Interesting. I had been under the impression that the personal statement was part of the non-academic review (ie the stuff that causes some applicants scored a 1.0 to be rejected). But after reading the study, it seems that the 1-5 rating is supposed to include all factors, academic and non-academic. Which of course brings up the question of why some 1.0s are denied while some 5.0s are admitted (see page 44). Since that rating is the score that reflects all factors considered by the university, why aren’t all the highest scores admitted and lowest scores rejected? From what I gather from page 23, a 1.0 means both readers of the application “emphatically recommend for Fall admission” while a 5.0 means both readers “recommend deny.” And according to the official Berkeley policy stated on that page, “Applicants will be ranked based on the scores they receive from at least two readers
and will be admitted in rank order.” So it seems to be against official policy to admit a 5.0 or deny a 1.0 (since there is space for every 1.0 and not enough space for a single 5.0, if applicants are admitted in rank order). Does anyone understand why Berkeley seemed to have been breaking its own admissions policy (and how they would have arrived at a decision to reject a 1 or admit a 5)?</p>
<p>svalbard:</p>
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<p>Bingo! That is the exact same question Moore (and others) were asking… </p>
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<p>That was how UCLA implemented its comprehensive review process until they changed it this year to be smilar to Cal’s.</p>
<p>So the conclusion here is that Cal could deny an applicant with perfect test scores, and perhaps already has?</p>
<p>I think Cal could deny an applicant with perfect test scores with valid reasons. Some of the reasons are: no strong interest in Cal and not much effort in essay, did not complete application (accepted ED somewhere - notes: only 25% of 1500-1600 admitteds enrolled), lack of ECs.</p>
<p>Oh, so you’re talking about who actually enrolled, not who was rejected. It feels as if colleges keep their actual data under pretty close wraps regarding this question. And for good reason. If a perfect SAT or ACT was revealed to be an automatic admit to anywhere then the test prep frenzy would be even more insane than it already is.</p>
<p>I still maintain that schools who will reject a 2400 or 36 in favor of a better packaged kid with so-called “passion” then I’m really not sure I want to shell out 200K to send my kid there. I might. But I’m not sure. It’s a question of values, I guess. I might be more inclined to send my power tester to a very good school that valued his talents more and gave her merit money.</p>
<p>Someone should start a thread on this question. Even if admitted, should families who are prosperous enough to come up with the $$$ to send their kids to elite schools, even if that means substantially reducing the family’s wealth (retirement, home equity, etc.)? Many of us in this position were by no means born rich. We’ve just worked really hard and saved. Now we see other kids go free. Many with lower test scores than our kids who follow the model of their parents and have worked harder in school. Ahh . . . the injustice. Just kidding. Really, I think our admissions system in this country is absolutely wonderful! Don’t all of you? Yes, I am being cynical.</p>
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<p>I’m talking about the student who has no choice of enrolling, because the student wasn’t admitted in the first place. I’m checking what people are saying about Cal, in particular, because Cal would appear to be more numbers-driven than, say, Brown, and there seem to be several published studies of admission practices at Cal. I still am sorting out what information about Cal here is confirmed and verifiable and what is still to be confirmed.</p>
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<p>Getting admitted in the first place is the primary concern of this thread, but I’ll respond to this question by referring to an article by two economists </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/hoxby/papers/aidpaper.pdf[/url]”>http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/hoxby/papers/aidpaper.pdf</a> </p>
<p>suggesting that many parents make economically irrational decisions about which financial aid offers to accept when their children are admitted to more than one college. </p>
<p>After edit: I will start a new thread on this particular question, as suggested.</p>
<p>Token,</p>
<p>You are a force for good. Your scrupulously analytical tone scared me at first but now I glimpse the good pure heart within. This artictle is absolutely fascinating. Thank you!</p>
<p>Mammall</p>
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<p>I’d agree with you if that’s what it was. Quiltguru, however, has given an example of a very good reason for preferring someone with a less strong set of stats over a power tested because the first student had plenty of other and far more impressive academic achievements than the power tester. While he may have benefitted from enrichment programs, he was by no means package. The contents were the real deal.</p>
<p><a href=“tokenadult:”>quote</a>
It bears repeating that every year some peak test-scorers, students who submitted a sole-sitting score of 2400 on the new SAT accompanied by a trifecta of 800s on SAT II tests, nonetheless can be, and are, rejected by colleges that overall appear to be very desirous of high-scoring students.
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<p>It is illogical to knowingly concentrate on test scores alone when every university in the country affirms the primary importance of GRADES. As everyone here understands, if even a few percent of high SAT scorers have grades or AP exams or other material in the file that is inconsistent with the level of standardized test performance (and it’s more than a few percent in reality), their chances of admission are reduced, so that a number of such people will be rejected every year from top schools. It means nothing.</p>
<p>A more informative question (the “real issue”, if you like) is how often top universities reject applicants who present a battery of essentially perfect, but vanilla, credentials, with no amazing additional accomplishments. Imagine a string of 5’s on solid APs, near-perfect grades, val/sal, perfect SAT I, perfect SAT-II on three or more of the harder exams, National Merit Scholar. Assume also that the applicant comes from a reasonably large high school with class rank, that each year sends at least 1-2 students to a university in the top 12 in the country (not a backwater where the grades can be discounted, or a school where val/sal or “best in several years” is unimpressive). Further assume that the recommendations are enthusiastic enough to be consistent with the numerical credentials; they do not have to claim that the student is best-in-decades or a genius, just the best of at least the last several years in a high school where that isn’t a joke. Finally, suppose the applicant has no special credentials such as competition victories, advanced sports or music proficiency, or “hooks”.</p>
<p>Are there any universities in the top 15 that routinely reject such applicants?
Any outside the very top of that group? How often does it happen?</p>
<p>
Would you want your kid at a school full of introverted nerds who spent most of their time holed up in their rooms absorbed in their computers? I’m not saying that all power scorers are like that – but if they look at the numbers only they could very well end up with a student body top-heavy with brainy but self-absorbed students. I suppose if your own kid is kind of like that it could be a good fit - but the point is – if the college wants a vibrant student body, if they want participation in arts and athletics and student organizations – then it helps them to look at the bigger picture.</p>
<p>I’d note that my non-power scoring daughter is a serious student on Dean’s list at an elite, Ivy-affiliated college – so those test scores don’t tell the whole story in any case. You’d be making a big mistake to assume that the power scorers are better or smarter students than those whose scores lag a few hundred points behind. The best students are simply the ones who are the most serious & focused on their studies, no matter what their SAT scores were. I mean – in any college seminar there are kids who have done the reading and kids who haven’t – the colleges are right to look beyond the numbers and try to pull in kids who are likely to contribute, both inside class and out.</p>
<p>I think, and this ties back to some points that cghen was making earlier in the thread, that, yes, with no other information, it’s reasonable to assume that the 2400 kid is in fact more qualified than some other applicant with a lower score. </p>
<p>However, admissions committee members are looking at much more information than just SAT scores, and in the presence of other information, it may become clear that the lower-scoring applicant is actually more of an academic powerhouse than the perfect scorer. </p>
<p>It’s easy for us to equate SAT scores concretely with intelligence, or qualifications, but that’s a sloppy way of thinking about the relative merits of the top high school students in the nation.</p>
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<p>Yes. I think that is the estimation, that some applicants really has more to offer, based on some evidence that is in the admission file, than the applicants with higher scores, even though high scores are a good starting point of inquiry. </p>
<p>It is even more commonplace for a college to report rejecting valedictorians or, more generally, students with perfect grades than it is for the colleges to report rejecting perfect test scorers. Students with perfect grades are quite commonplace these days, so the inquiry turns to what kind of course selection resulted in the grades. Even taking college courses for high school credit is increasingly commonplace, </p>
<p><a href=“http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2005008[/url]”>Dual Enrollment of High School Students at Postsecondary Institutions: 2002-03; </p>
<p>so it must increasingly painstaking for college admission offices to evaluate student transcripts to figure out which students really took a challenging set of courses in high school. I can say with confidence that most high school valedictorians will be rejected by the small set of the most selective colleges–because those students are simply too numerous to admit all of them–but what I am still trying to wrap my mind around is what distinguishes one high-grade-average student from another. I try to learn each year from the local examples of young people in my part of the country how the admission process is working in practice these days, and so far I wouldn’t buy into, for example, a statement that IB is always preferred to AP (or vice versa) or that there is a sure-fire set of extracurricular accomplishments that smooths the path to admission to a particular college.</p>
<p><a href=“mollieb:”>quote</a>
However, admissions committee members are looking at much more information than just SAT scores,
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<p>I have never, since the recentering of the SAT, heard anyone suggest that SAT scores alone are an extremely powerful driver of admissions. What I have heard and what is apparently true is that explicit (Ivy League AI) or de facto academic index ratings derived solely from standard data (profile of courses/grades/tests, class rank) can so drive the admission, even for candidates who lack other significant selection factors, provided they have no other handicaps (a weak high school, disturbing essay, etc) and the rest in the admissions file is consistent with the high objective performance. The rate of exceptions must be rather low if the overall stat level is uncommon enough.</p>