<p>I recenter to 1490. V goes up to 800 but M sinks below 700. Oh, the shame! :D</p>
<p>So, am I the only person here who took the old-fashioned NMSQT?</p>
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<p>Such as his wife. <:-P </p>
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<p>Not sure about that as HRC came from a well-off upper-middle class family in an era when having higher SES provided greater advantages for college admissions. </p>
<p>Not saying Bill Clinton wasn’t hooked, either. Just that HRC herself had a substantial hook…especially in that era. </p>
<p>No, cobrat, coming from a middle or upper-middle class family was NOT a hook at Wellesley then (or ever, most likely).</p>
<p>nor does a scandal or reference to amy chua have anything to do with anything.</p>
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<p>The period when they started college was when coming from the lower SES meant one was most likely ruled out for admissions altogether and prejudices against lower SES folks were much more openly expressed and acceptable in academic/social milieus like the ones at Wellesley, Harvard, or Yale. </p>
<p>This was a factor in why some public colleges like CCNY/CUNY were able to rapidly develop academically elite reputations during the '30s till the late '60s. The high academic achievers attending were effectively shut out of the private elite colleges like the Ivies or Seven Sisters due to lower SES status along with other factors prevailing back then. </p>
<p>I took the old-fashioned versions of both the NMSQT and the SAT. I was a National Merit Finalist, and my SAT re-centered to a 1480. (Would not have satisfied frazzled kids, and I admit I was disappointed but not enough to take it again.) I did not prep and was too lazy to even look at the sample questions, but when I opened the test booklet I realized that our teachers had been giving us practice questions similar to those found on the test. Perhaps Bill Clinton’s teachers hadn’t bothered?</p>
<p>Cobrat: I am aware of a male who graduated HS in 1968 who came from a low “SES.” He was admitted to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Penn, Williams and a few others. In those days – like today – colleges liked to take outstanding folks who were the first generation to go to college in their family. </p>
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<p>Keep in mind HRC graduated college in 1969 and Bill Clinton graduated college in 1968. </p>
<p>Elite colleges like the ones you described were transitioning to the more academically meritocratic model after both started college. </p>
<p>My uncle had a firsthand experience with this as someone who entered Yale two years behind W and noted how older classes like W’s took serious issue with his and younger classes because there was a much higher proportion of lower-SES and middle class students who weren’t connected with the same WASP social milieu as they were. His experience was corroborated by a Yale alum magazine article discussing this transitionary period shown to be by another Yale alum. </p>
<p>Your friend’s experience isn’t a surprise as he graduated HS two years after my uncle did. </p>
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<p>I don’t think Wellesley required the same degree of academic excellence as Yale Law for unhooked candidates, especially back then. </p>
<p>However, HRC did have the hook of having been chosen to give the speech at college graduation and having been featured by Life magazine, so Yale may have also taken her because she appeared (correctly) to have leadership potential.</p>
<p>She clearly had leadership potential. That’s why she was chosen to give the speech at graduation.</p>
<p>^^Yes. Hillary didn’t need a hook to get into Yale for law. She was an excellent student with a great application ‘package’.</p>
<p>I seemed to recall each subset of the ACT having a different max score. I know I had a 34 on Math and that was the max for math. I think some subtests had a max of 32. I knew I needed a minimum of 29 to get into an accelerated med school program at Michigan. The counselor called me to her office to give me my scores (how it was done back then!) and I was over the moon excited. that I’d met that minimum. I slammed my car door on my leg getting in the car on the way to the ACT. I could barely walk when it was over and it turned out I had a hairline fracture. That was not a good day.</p>
<p>I was the first year they combined the PSAT and NMSQT. I don’t know if it would have helped or hurt, but my SAT scores were much better than my PSAT scores. I was commended but not a semi-finalist. I was in the northeast boarding school contingent, which in any event had the highest scores in the nation - higher than any of the states.</p>
<p>Wellesley was full of future leaders then. I don’t know if they looked for it or nurtured it. And even back then colleges were looking for bright kids outside the usual prep school pipe line. That was the whole reason Conant et al. were in favor of the SAT was to find the bright kids from other parts of the country.</p>
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<p>This is completely false.</p>
<p>You really do not know what you are talking about in this instance. Yes, there was discontent among the alums at Yale when Kingman Brewster decreased legacy admits. This does not translate to scorning the poorer students. (My father was in the class of 45W at Yale. He came from a poor immigrant family in Oregon and received full rides to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.)</p>
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<p>The Ivies were not coed when HRC was in college. The Seven Sisters enrolled the outstanding female students who nowadays would likely attend the Ivies instead. (Which is why when Yale decided to go coed, they attempted to persuade Wellesley or Vassar to join them.) They were the top of the heap. HRC <em>was</em> a leader in college, which was why her classmates chose her to speak.</p>
<p>Of course, admission to Yale Law was competitive then, as now. Yale Law wouldn’t take most HYP undergrads, either. </p>
<p>I do not understand why people assume one person’s score (ie Scarlett Johansen) should be higher than anothers…based on what? She is an actress, was a model. Did she go to college? From what I have heard, she was lower SES growing up. She is a lovely woman, but I am not sure what these comments are suggesting. </p>
<p>SAT scores often correlate to family income. </p>
<p>Back in my day, I took it once. Didn’t prep. Didn’t KNOW to prep. Few of my friends did, regardless of SES. Most of us were first gen college-bound. </p>
<p>Some did better on test than others. Most that did the best were from those families that were already college going - parents who attended and got the culture. </p>
<p>This topic reminded me of another test that I took in the 9th grade around 1964. My English teacher prepped us for it, but we were not supposed to tell a single soul or she would be in trouble. I’m guessing it was a verbal test but I don’t think it was the PSAT or a Massachusetts state test. Any ideas?</p>
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<p>Sounds like you father attended Yale during the wartime years. </p>
<p>With a return of older students who finished their service…some with GI bill mixed into the student population, it probably meant there was much less issue with snobbery on social class or other factors than what took place when Yale and other elite private colleges went back into the previous peacetime status quo not too many years later. </p>
<p>“Not sure about that as HRC came from a well-off upper-middle class family in an era when having higher SES provided greater advantages for college admissions.”</p>
<p>No, not really. Comfortable, but not upper middle class. Park Ridge, IL is hardly Winnetka or Lake Forest. Try again </p>
<p>Unless she had a scholarship that paid for Wellesley, she was upper middle class for her parents to be able to afford it. </p>
<p>She was a National Merit Finalist so she probably had at least that scholarship. She was also in th top 5% of her high school class. </p>