<p>DUKE!!!</p>
<p>Duke and Wash U put a ton of emphasis on SAT scores</p>
<p>Penn State and Pitt.</p>
<p>isn’t Duke (more than any other topschool) known for loving valedictorians ?</p>
<p>My daughter’s experience at Michigan (deferred admission, out-of-state) would suggest that it was harder for her to get into a state school with 2 of 3 800s (she got into several more selective private schools and didn’t wait to get a final answer from Michigan, which was not among her top choices). </p>
<p>I think what might explain my daughter’s case (and perhaps some others) is that it matters how many applicants are coming from your high school. The only two colleges that my daughter had trouble getting into were the two most popular schools for graduates of her high school.</p>
<p>My impression is that colleges are looking for diversity of all types and will accept less qualified students from high schools or areas of the country where they don’t typically recruit.</p>
<p>So high school location trumps credentials in many cases.</p>
<p>You wrote:</p>
<p>“Affirmative action is not that powerful a factor in admissions!!!”</p>
<p>.
You MUST be kidding. Both proponents and opponents of affirmative action agree that it is a big thing, as the background research in California and Michigan showed. Remember, proponents of affirmative action in Michigan argued that only a tiny fraction of African-American admits would have been accepted without affirmative action, which is why it would have been a disaster if it had been completely eliminated (and if the schools complied with such a ban). The admitted white and admitted African-American distributions barely overlapped in Michigan. If I recall, the SAT differences averaged 150-200 points on the 1600 point SAT.</p>
<p>But that doesn’t mean that any particular white student would have gotten in but for affirmative action. The African-American student population is small enough at elite schools that almost all white students who think they were denied admission because of race are wrong.</p>
<p>^^^Right. On an individual basis, affirmative action is a HUGE help. URM’s at Yale have on average 150 pts. lower on the SAT. However, URMs account for so few spots that you’d have a hard time arguing that the reason you didn’t get in was because of affirmative action.</p>
<p>I don’t think it is fair to focus on affirm action without also mentioning legacy and athlete preferences. Altho I don’t know how important legacy status is to public universities.</p>
<p>At the U.C.'s, legacy is a non-issue. No legacy credit. Ended several years ago.</p>
<p>I think Jesuit schools and smaller state universities actually determine their aid on SAT scores; I applied to several with a 3.3 GPA cum and a 750, 710, 500 on my SAT and got a ridiculous amount of aid, especially when you consider the fact that I’m white and middle class.
So even though they don’t like to admit it, schools without great reputations or with lower SAT averages will jump to have someone with higher SATs, even if their grades are somewhat lower.</p>
<p>Ped-neurologist,</p>
<p>Affirmative action makes a HUGE difference. Are you kidding me? How else do people get into the Ivies with low SAT scores and GPA’s? Sure, legacy helps… but not AS much as affirmative action.</p>
<p>norcal, care to share some secrets as to how you managed 3.93 at cornell? 
pretty damn impressive to me</p>
<p>I didn’t read past the first page, but apparently the UCs communicate with each other and try to reduce the number of students admitted to both UCLA and Berekley, even though they may otherwise have obtained admission to both.</p>
<p>I thought that was a rumor that they communicated? I could be wrong.
I think it’s pretty ridiculous why they would do that. If I get into UCLA and not Cal, I’d be pretty upset… unless I get into the privates that I’m applying to. Then, I’d be fine with it :)</p>
<p>I can help with Norcal’s explanation. If he gets something like a 3.6 his parents get ****ed at him and threaten to stop paying. That puts the genius back to work! lol</p>
<p>ps that was the explanation if you didn’t catch it. He’s a -genius-. lol</p>
<p>Affirmative action shouldn’t play into it anyway. Didn’t CA public schools outlaw affirmative action?</p>
<p>I have a strange relationship with my parents. They never ask how I’m doing in school and don’t care if I try to tell them about how I did on a midterm or something. Not once during the course of a semester do they ask how I’m doing in my classes. But at the end of the semester, they want to see those straight A’s lol</p>
<p>In response to two posters on this thread who mentioned that Duke places a ton of emphasis on high SAT scores and valedictorians, I have a modest 2150 (average to below average for duke) and am not valedictorian, and I was accepted.</p>
<p>Though I am only once case, I am sure there are more.</p>
<p>I would say that the biggest emphasis is placed in large state schools as well. A lot of those places would take a chance on a kid with a modest GPA and a high SAT.</p>
<p>Definitely WashU. My college counselor told me that I should apply to WashU if I liked it. (I’m one of those kids with a modest GPA and high SAT)</p>
<p>And Duke, really? That’s news to me.</p>
<p>^^^WashU for med school as well. Definitely a numbers whore.</p>
<p>Duke, Caltech, Wash U and some state schools. Also, I’m confused about the U.C. thing. On collegeboard’s website under admission factors UCB does not even list GPA/class rank. <a href=“http://apps.collegeboard.com/search/CollegeDetail.jsp?collegeId=988&profileId=1[/url]”>http://apps.collegeboard.com/search/CollegeDetail.jsp?collegeId=988&profileId=1</a></p>
<p>However, Norcalguy’s denial from UCLA was not because of AA. I thought they discontinued this at all the U.C.'s. To be honest, I don’t know why he was denied. He was a shoo-in, regardless of how competitive people say college admissions are, if you’re in-state and you have scores/GPA like him, you are a shoo-in.</p>
<p>IMO, these days not only do you need a high SAT, but a high gpa, all the AP or IB courses you can handle, great recommendations, solid ec’s including academic and/or athletic competitions, community service/volunteer work, be able to write an outstanding, unique essay, and interview well, if necessary. Many schools are taking this “holistic” approach. :)</p>