Our son is fairly optimistic over an UIUC admission into their DSC school.
UIUC’s published stats as follows (I have deleted the data for other schools.)
Middle 50% of Admited Students<br>
College ACT Score SAT Score High School Class Rank
AHS 26 - 30 1700 - 1985 84% - 95%
DGS 25 - 30 1780 - 2000 80% - 93%
Campus 27 - 32 1860 - 2110 85% - 97%
His interest is to enter DGS(General Study). When he files his priority application in October, his SAT school will be around 1650. His class rank, I guess, will be at 75 to 80%.
The logic of his comfort level is, his SAT is in the 40% to 50% percentile because 1780 minus about 10% is probably around 1602 to 1779 on a normal bell curve.
Granted the admission is a holistic appraisal believed to base primarily on a test score, the school performance, & the essay plus many ther secondary factors, I do not feel as comfortable as he does. I believe that the curve is possibly/likely a very skewed one which may just shoot up very high after 1780 then drastically drop off to almost zero students considering the factor that many of them are already ‘self screened’ applicants - even though 2 out of 3 in the >20,000 applicants, therefore many will got rejected, yet most fo these will not even be applying to begin with if their SAT/ACT is not within reach of the low point of the published 50% levels.
In my mind, this bottom 25% is therefore filled from a large field of closely competitive candidates. This long line mathematically will equal to about 9 times the number of the students who finally got accepted in this 25% group. Challenging!
Of course, there will be some isolated cases of exception w/ exceptional single ‘talent’ but I will not assume my will fall into this category.
The biggest flaw in this logic based on the stats you posted (I didn’t double check) is that his SAT is well below the 25th %ile and is not in the the 40-50th as you suggest. the numbers you posted are for the middle 50% admitted students, meaning that in each case the lower number is for the 25th%ile and the higher is for the 75th%ile. You son’s stats are well below the bottom quarter mark for SAT for DGS. if his rank makes it to 80 he’d be right at that bottom quartile mark but will it be there for his priority app or are you thinking that’s where he’d wind up by the end of this year? It sounds like is rank is also well below the 25th currently. You are correct in thinking that it’s a relatively long shot to get admitted to a large public school in that situation without other strong factors in his favor
Now, when you say below the ‘bottom quarter mark for SAT’ or at ‘bottom quartile mark’,
are you saying he is out of the range of the 100% of admitted students or he is theoretically possibly somewhere in that lower 25% of the admitted students (assuming there is some merit to his thinking that he is in the 40-50% or my thinking that it depends on how skewed the curve is)?
To answer your questions: That is his current SAT score and the class standing is the projection of his minimal based on the track record.
I agree with you on how the middle 50% numbers work and I think that means we agree that if accepted your son would be in the bottom quartile in BOTH Rank and SAT.
That is, he is not a lopsided student with a strong rank and low score or vice versa. He is just a plain old bottom quartile student for this school. (I don’t mean to be insulting - I’m in a similar boat at many schools that I had thought of applying to.)
It’s a relatively long shot to get admitted to a large public school in this situation without other strong factors in his favor. Transcript and scores are the primary factors most schools consider and neither of those is in your son’s favor.
Whether the bottom quartile in Rank and SAT includes some, many or no accepted applicants with Rank or SAT below your son’s is unknown and generally unknowable.
Whether there are some, many or no accepted applicants who are BOTH in the bottom quartile for Rank AND the bottom quartile for SAT is also unknown and generally unknowable.
And, I’m sorry but I don’t understand the 40-50% comment you made. Are you trying to figure out if your son’s stats put him towards the middle of these bottom quartiles? If so, I don’t think that’s possible. Unknown and generally unknowable.
Griffen, we have not disagreement and we need to call a spade a spade!
Re the 40-50%, it is my son’s assumption/interpretation. He is believing that he is somewhere above the 40% percentile therefore barely below the 50% if it is somewhat close to a bell curve, i.e. a fairly good chance. I am thinking that there will be extra tons of people barely below 1780 so and the curve is skewed up around there therefore it is a long shot!