@cobrat : Probably their board scores lol. Speaking of that, hasn’t the SAT been recentered or changed many times anyway since then to either become “easier” or to provide a more crunched distribution near the top (and thus at top schools)? Like the latest one makes it out of 1600 again (I looked at Emory’s, and as of last year, the bottom quartile of matriculates shot up by 60 points versus the old and the top quartile 30. For those who reported old SAT, the range was 1290-1500 an improvement from previous year but the ones who took the new got 1350-1530. I think that difference is insane. So Emory, on the new system shoots past a 1400 median nicely, but isn’t there yet on the old. Other schools must be at like a 1600 then lol), which means the score out of 1600 is generally higher than the old. if you just take two of them. Score ranges at elites will appear even more compressed and many were already pushing nearly perfect averages. It just looks like a tool of limited use beyond a certain score. Like if 13 something is the bottom quartile at a school, that student can likely still do the work solidly depending on which majors they choose and what instructors they take, or they may be very little correlation at all beyond that level (there will be some because many top scorers may also have special attributes and aptitude in certain disciplines, but most schools, even elites are not recruiting a really large portion of these more academic admits in the first place. The STEM schools may be, but not too many others) because again, hopefully all the instructors are not giving multiple choice as the primary form of assessment. The elite schools, especially if a medium sized private is supposed to (excuse me, claims to) provide a more intimate education that rebuilds or builds upon the standard HS way of learning and testing. Beyond a certain threshold, maybe AP scores, subject tests, and accolades in certain types of disciplines should be a better proxy for aptitude or “grit” in an area.
Again, I think this explains the phenomenon of some schools over-relying on the SAT/ACT in admissions but not necessarily matching up to the academic intensity of other schools who have traditionally had that score range (or again, even rigorous lower score range schools). Some other schools may have just taken into account more “raw talent” in certain subjects, so can cut some slack on the SAT/ACT and bank on the students pursuing studies in their area of strength as based on SAT2, AP, and extracurricular engagement. Thus at these places, many instructors can pitch the courses pretty high and still expect students to put up a good fight academically without the whining and complaining. At some places, regardless of scores, students are just less tolerant or comfortable with being challenged at very high levels. They aren’t used to it (having to very deeply engage a subject and even struggle with it to succeed).
I wonder how different schools select for this mixture of “grit” and talent. As alluded to above, I have my ideas, but I wonder what it really looks like in an application and why some schools choose this route of selection and others choose a more superficial route. The latter appears to pay off in short term but then has diminished returns later. Perhaps schools that employ the latter really just want to “kick-start” themselves again and then fix other things later (minus say Chicago, which had great academics already but just wanted to join the popularity contest that is the rankings game. Some schools look like they want to jump the gun.).