Test scores of admitted students stratified by gender and ethnicity for top schools

Have been looking for test scores stratified by male/female and then ethnicity without much luck. The common data sets don’t provide such data…Trying to assess my daughter’s chances for some of the top schools (white, from the Southeast, 33 ACT (31 Math / 36 English). Any suggestions for resources on the matter?

Schools can no longer ask about ethnicity when considering admissions…so I’m going to opine that they are no longer reporting this statistic.

@Mwfan1921 your thoughts?

I’d add her GPA to your items to look at when trying to assess chances.

And what do you mean by “top schools”? If you are asking about colleges in the top 20, they will all be reaches for most any applicant, even those with perfect SAT scores and perfect GPAs because their acceptance rates are SOOO low.

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It may not be as informative as you think, because different gender and ethnicity students may have different preferences for intended major that can significantly affect admission selectivity. For example, if students of a specific gender / ethnicity tends to focus on CS and nursing majors, then it should not be surprising that their admitted and enrolled students at a generally more selective school show higher stats than those at the school in general.

But then what matters in this case is which intended major your student will apply for. In many cases, a student applying for CS or nursing will find admission more difficult than one applying for philosophy or physics.

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GPA is 3.95 UW / 4.4 W, strong student-athlete (national club level), some but not many other extracurriculars because of lack of time. Thinking about Economics as a major

Trying to decide whether to reach for UPenn, Vanderbilt, Duke, Dartmouth, Cornell, Rice

For example, Duke’s latest common data set shows 33-35 ACT interquartile range across races/genders. Trying to get an idea what that range is for white women. Thanks.

I don’t think you are going to find this specific information. I would suggest using the acceptance data provided for all students in last year’s incoming class.

These schools listed all have LOW acceptance rates, but your student sounds like a strong one. Will she be continuing her sport (recruited or not) in college?

Still…make sure you also research schools that are sure things for acceptance and affordability as well. Actually my free advice…find two sure things that she likes and are affordable…then build your list UP from there. It’s pretty easy to find reach schools for applications (with no certainty about acceptances).

And lastly, when your daughter applies, if she does not get accepted, you will never know why…and it’s unlikely it will be because of her gender or ethnicity (ethnicity can’t be used for admissions anymore).

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Not in the schools I listed - we reached out late in their recruiting process. She has a good shot at getting recruited with the sport at smaller colleges which are not as strong academically. The decision for us would be a good LA college and playing the sport (which she loves) vs. trying to get in with academics only at a bigger, top-ranked national university.

So is she in the recruitment pipeline at the LACs for her sport? Or is there club sport opportunities at the bigger schools?

Curious why you are looking at top ranked…economics can be studied at a lot of highly regarded schools…even out of the top 50.

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Is she considering an early decision application at these colleges? Otherwise, she can apply to them all.

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I agree, absolutely ethnicity/gender cannot for admission or rejection.

However, it would be interesting to look at the data. For example, MIT had 21K men applying last year and 12K women. The admitted class was split 50/50. Obviously, that means that their admissions criteria was different for men vs. women. It would be informative to be able to imply what the difference was, that’s all.

She definitely is, we are trying to assess chances for each school, since we only have one shot

She should apply early decision to the college she prefers the best bar none…not the college she thinks will accept her ED (unless that is her favorite).

My opinion.

And I think some of these colleges have ED2 as well…check and see.

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She is in the recruiting pipeline for some LAC, but a lot of uncertainty remains. Prefers larger schools with better social scene. As for why the top schools…name recognition entirely.

Also wondering whether it makes sense to push for 34 ACT or agonize on the essays going forward.

I do not think it logically follows that the women admitted must have had lower test scores than the men. MIT has a large number of strong applicants of both sexes.

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I’m hoping some of my friends on this forum chime in. @DadTwoGirls @DadOfJerseyGirl @Mwfan1921 @tamagotchi @blossom @Catcherinthetoast @merc81

The last common data set I saw online for Duke was 2021-2022. For the class admitted after that, the ACT range Duke reported was 34 - 35:

Getting into a place like Duke is a massive uphill battel for anyone, especially with an ACT score of 33.

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It shows an admission rate for women roughly twice as high as that for men, wouldn’t you agree? This, of course, could mean that the pool of women applicants was, at the population level, much more qualified than the pool of men applicants. Or it could mean that the admission criteria were applied differently to maintain a 50/50 gender split for admitted students.

Please look at how many from your daughter’s high school have been accepted in the last few years. It does matter. You may find that no student from that hs has been accepted into schoolX in the last 5 years, but several have been accepted to Y. If occasionally the high school gets 1 admit only, it’s likely a student with a hook. IME high school factors more into the equation than a parent might think.

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Or it could mean…nothing as there are PLENTY of very strong male and female applicants to MIT.

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Agreed. Would be curious to see the percentage of admitted students who provided test scores. Been noticing an artificial “test score inflation” at some schools simply because fewer students submit scores, and those who provide them obviously would only do so if they are very high.

Not saying that applies to Duke…but in the broader sense test scores reported by schools somehow increasing goes contrary to the national trend indicating they are dropping across the board.

I highly doubt that MIT, which greatly values academic qualification, is admitting females with subpar scores. It’s easy to imagine that the applicant pool includes more female applicants with high scores than MIT has room to admit.

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