UC Irvine average SAT about 1750, Rochester about 2050.
My mistake @bluebayou
UCs, with their heavy GPA emphasis and light SAT/ACT emphasis, can give unpleasant surprises to test score heavy applicants who assume that much higher SAT/ACT scores can compensate for GPA on the lower end of the range, especially when applying to popular majors.
@Lindagaf Thanks for the info! Going by my D’s one SAT sitting she is right at 50% for UofR. She’ll definitely retake once or twice so we can hope for heading into that territory.
Northeastern is another one I didn’t know was so selective. We tossed it on the list last minute since we were visiting BU. Of course D loved Northeastern and took BU off the list. Oh well, she does have a decent number of safeties!
UMass Amherst - didn’t know they took GPA so seriously when I applied. Fall 2015 entering class acceptance rate was 58%, a 3% decrease from the previous year.
Clark University - lower acceptance rate than UMass (52% or so), doesn’t really strike me as that type of school tbh.
Clark University rejected very high stats kids this cycle. My D was well above the 90th percentile and got in prob because of a visit and meeting the rep, but we saw several scattergram dots rejected that were higher than her.
^I agree. ClarkU is inching its way up the tier so to speak. My D was also accepted with fantastic merit aid (not the LEEP though which is what she was aiming for). From what I’m reading this past year they are definately on the up-swing.
Also, UMassAmherst. Once known as the safety school for a lot of MA students, this is no longer the case. There were a whole bunch of students I know of that weren’t accepted. Apparently, the scuttlebutt is they don’t even consider engineering majors who apply with a high school GPA of less than 3.6. Many of those same students who would normally go to UMA are now going to UNH for double the price.
@snoozn - I live in the suburbs of Rochester and went to the U of R. They warn students at the high school here that U of R really considers interest in the school. There have been students at the top of the high school class who didn’t get in because they never bothered to visit.
Admit rate is a terrible stat to look at. It’s a self-selecting population, since for most schools the applicant pool is those students who believe they have a reasonable expectation of getting in.
@soze Admit rate is a typical stat to look at. In terms of self selecting, how many times have we seen posters on CC that have completely unrealistic thoughts on where they would be admitted. Or how do you account for “reach” applications?
It might be a typical stat to look at, but it’s a bad stat upon which to rely.
Much better would be to look at Naviance as to how students from your particular school with scores/GPA combinations similar to yours did.
Iona has a higher admit rate than High Point. Does that make High Point more “selective?”
Hardly.
In terms of selectivity @soze it is common to look at acceptance rates to determine the general selectivity of a school.
I’m not talking about the likelihood of acceptance of a particular student to a particular school. I agree that in order to determine the likelihood of acceptance to particular school it is best to look at a students stats in comparison to students that have been accepted to a that school.
@Lindagaf @NEPatsGirl what makes Clark so desirable? I never thought it was THAT good by any means.
UNH = Univ of New Hampshire?
Clark (from 2014-15 CDS):
76% 4-year graduation rate
81% 6-year graduation rate
88% retention rate
54% acceptance rate
25-31 middle 50% ACT
37% top tenth percent of HS class
65% from out of state
70% undergrads live on campus
95% of FA need met
$33,231 avg financial aid package
75 National university - US News
I would place this school solidly in the middle tier, probably not easy to get in category.
@LBad96, I have no idea why people find Clark so appealing. Although D applied there as a safety in hopes of the full tution LEEP, after visiting it fell into last place for safeties. They do offer a free 5th year Masters if you qualify and good merit aid which are definite selling points even for high stat kids. If you read through CC posts, you’ll find some people really like it there (parents and kids). I was immediately turned off at the visit. At the overnight dinner, we sat with three other families, and all three kids had high stats (one family was from California). I hope I have not offended anyone who has chosen the school, this is just IMHO.
UNH = University of New Hampshire, yes. Many, many local kids go there. Maybe its just far enough away from home (2.5 hours)? I don’t see the pull, except that UMassAmherst is getting more difficult each year to get into, especially if you want a specific school; ie., Eisenberg Business or Engineering. Personally, I can’t imagine paying more than double our top instate COA to attend UNH, but again just my solo opinion of course.
@LBad96 what is THAT good? Clark is a very solid college. It consistently gets named as one of the top 20 in Princeton review for: impact schools, best college theater, green, lots of race/class interaction, and best bang for buck. On the website Niche, Clark rose 56 places, far more than any other college, to enter the top 100 in the country, which clearly means it has happy students. It’s also one of the CTCL colleges. We thought students seemed happy and engaged. I am not an expert, but I am guessing it is going to become more selective too. It’s not Stanford, but it sure isn’t Podunk U either.
@NEPatsGirl @Lindagaf interesting. I barely applied there EA, but only because they gave me a fee waiver and I had already sent them my SAT score so I figured why not. I initially liked the school, but further research on my end found that it was a haven for the socially awkward, the social scene generally was very dim and boring, not a lot of fun things to do on campus, surrounding area wasn’t very safe, no one cared a lick about sports etc. As a result it slipped down to my second-to-last choice. I think the adcoms caught on to my lack of interest, but I wouldn’t have attended regardless. If I had to do it all over again I would have kept it off of my list. I don’t see how it’s a nationally-ranked university by USNWR tbh - too small. I see it as more of a LAC than a research university.
I mean absolutely no offense to anyone affliated with Clark who’s reading this. I have absolutely nothing against the school in any way, shape, or form. It’s a pretty decent school, just not for me at all.
the problem with this thread is that op didn’t define middle tier so anything from say the number 20 ranked school to number 200 (and of course those are just arbitrary numbers) are fair game. It is amusing that this lack of precision has migrated to terms like desirability and “that good” (as @lindagaf points out).
in any event, I’ll play, I’ve always been surprised by Tulane’s selectivity, measured by admit rate, at about 28%.