<p>I have heard from a few somewhat-shady sources that something like 50% of perfect scorers get rejected from Harvard.</p>
<p>Is this statistic legitimate?
Since Harvard brags about the number of 2400s it rejects every year, would it make sense to submit a perfect score, if a 2350+ score was already submitted?</p>
<p>Thanks for any feedback, guys.</p>
<p>no troll, peace guys :)</p>
<p>Of course, a 50% admit rate is 5 times the average. But yeah, makes you wonder if they reject a certain amount just to brag about it haha. But why not submit it? It's a pretty decent score, in my humble opinion :P</p>
<p>Why did you take the SAT again after scoring 2350. If I were reviewing your application, the fact that you re-took the SAT would make me worry about your understanding of elementary statistics. Also worrying is your failure to realize that a 50% rejection rate also translates to a tremendous acceptance rate- 50% of all 2400 scorers! I suspect the acceptance/rejection rate for 2350 scorers is statistically the same.</p>
<p>I would say neither a curse nor a boon. It's certainly better to have higher scores than lower scores, but it would hurt you if they saw you obsessively retaking the test half a dozen times to score marginally higher.</p>
<p>If you only retook once, and now have a single-sitting score of 2400, or now have a superscore of 2400, it's hard to imagine it would hurt you that they saw you retested, but I doubt it would help much either - unless you had one noticeably lower score of 750 which is now 800, in which case it would certainly be better to submit the new score. If you had, say, 780/780/790 instead, they may wonder why you spent another Saturday on a retest.</p>
<p>Overall, btw, I am surprised at the extent to which applicants to Harvard, Stanford, etc on this forum add up their scores and think it is the total that matters. It isn't - a 750 CR/750 M/750 W is very different from a 650 CR/800 M/800 W at every highly selective school....</p>
<p>A big ponit missing from this discussion, and practically all discussions about the SAT, is how much the test has changed over time. It used to be that a 1600 SAT was incredibly rare, the kind of thing they'd write about in the local paper. That has changed for several reasons. First they recentered the test in 1995, turning an old 730 into a "new" 800 on the verbal section. They've also changed the verbal, getting rid of analogies and focusing more on critical reading, and changed the math to make it more of an achivement test and less of an aptitude test. </p>
<p>Students are also much more sophisticated in taking and preparing for the tests, it's extraordinary the resources available on this forum.</p>
<p>All this makes a 2400 less special. The SAT doesn't differentiate among top students like it used to, it merely stratifies students into broader categories. The college admissions people know this. But the public still talks about the SAT like nothing has changed.</p>
<p>a boon, i would think...</p>
<p>if you score a 2400, you automatically have a 75% chance of being accepted...</p>
<p>you'll see- im not an expert on this but i seriously doubt thats true. even a 2400 can't get you in on its own, without the grades, ec's and recs to back you up. on the other hand, i cant imagine that it would hurt you.
wlh08- this is just my personal opinion, but if i were an admissions officer i would be puzzled as to why a student with 750+ in each section dedicated another saturday to the very enjoyable experience of taking the sat. i think they want smart/motivated/hard working people, not robots...</p>
<p>it is true indeed...</p>
<p>harvard states that is rejects 1/4 2400 SAT scores.....and therefore accepts 3/4 2400 SAT scorers....75%.</p>
<p>it is quite true that a 2400 can't get you in on its own, which is why there are some perfect scorers (25%) that are rejected from Harvard.</p>
<p>But of course people with 2400-ability are often the same types with outstanding grades and intense ECs, which explains the 75% acceptance rate - which is incredible for one of the most selective schools in the country.</p>
<p>You'llsee - do you have a source that claims Harvard accepts 75% of 2400's?</p>
<p>be careful how you interpret that number, even if accurate (used to be about 50% for single-sitting 1600s, don't know if this is also for single-sitting or superscore) but regardless - I think it's unlikely that Harvard targets a 75% admit rate for students with this score - more likely just that students with 2400 tend to also have other factors in their profile that seals the deal...</p>
<p>"it is true indeed...</p>
<p>harvard states that is rejects 1/4 2400 SAT scores.....and therefore accepts 3/4 2400 SAT scorers....75%.</p>
<p>it is quite true that a 2400 can't get you in on its own, which is why there are some perfect scorers (25%) that are rejected from Harvard." </p>
<p>I think You'll see has explained it well enough. No one said Harvard targets a 75% admit rate for students.</p>
<p>That stat was buried in a New York magazine article (they said in passing that Harvard turns down 1 in 4 perfect applicants, which suggests that they accept 3 in 4). The article did not cite its source. The 75% figure may also come from a stronger, more direct source as well; I'm not sure.</p>
<p>Thanks, guys. I think my ECs and other academics are up to par. i.e. Valedictorian candidate/National Merit/Nat'l AP Scholar.</p>
<p>I really appreciate your comments, but no, I hardly see myself as a robot. I got my first score almost a year ago and have helped a lot of my friends achieve higher scores (So i didn't have to spend more than a weekend preparing for my own test). After a year though, as you might imagine, lots of my buddies were posting similar scores, so I just wanted to one-up them 8p. I mean, my Saturday mornings are basically consigned to hiking, sleeping in, or volunteering. SAT is not the worst way I could spend a morning :).</p>
<p>I have actually already submitted my applications- everything else is pretty much set except for the SAT score.</p>
<p>And while your comments are certainly helpful, my essential dilemma remains.</p>
<p>I would feel horrible if I gave the admissions officers the impression, as I have given some of you, that I am a robot. My application is already gone, so i will not have the opportunity to explain to them the circumstances as I've just explained to you guys.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I would feel pretty bad if I held onto a 2400 without sending it to any school. That would make me quite sad indeed.</p>
<p>So any more comments would be totally appreciated!
Thanks :D</p>
<p>Okay, OP, my additional thoughts:</p>
<p>In my opinion, the idea that Harvard would turn down perfect scores for "bragging rights" is so far wrong that I don't even know where to begin refuting it. For one thing, it's very, very hard to figure out exactly what percentage of 2400s Harvard accepts. (If you can do it conclusively, post it here and prove me wrong! :) ). If Harvard were turning down 2400s for the sake of bragging rights, don't you think it would be a little bit easier to figure out how many 2400s they were rejecting?</p>
<p>Harvard is 140 years older than the United States, and it shows in their thinking. Their admissions office is trying to maintain and build brand equity into the next generation, not trying to lord it over Princeton in 2008. (After all, their yield is already around 80%, I believe.) I don't think they would run the risk of turning down a possible Nobel laureate in order to spite other Ivies. If nothing else, they'd be hurting their reputation in the long term in order to help it in the short term, and the Harvard administration is all about the long term. </p>
<p>I don't mean to be scornful of your question; I just want to state my opinion clearly, because I've heard this rumor from other quarters and I think it's nuts.</p>
<p>Now to your dilemma:</p>
<p>It's pretty clear that a perfect or near-perfect score correlates highly with Harvard admissions. More than one study has shown that your chances of admission increase significantly as your score approaches 2400.</p>
<p>As other posters have pointed out, correlation is not causality. In other words, students with near-perfect scores are very likely to have other things going for them which could account for their abnormally high acceptance rates.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, all things being equal, I would want to apply to Harvard with the highest SAT score that I could, because it is statistically possible that Harvard shows preference to perfect scores.</p>
<p>That's my opinion. I think if you've got a perfect score you should send it in by all means. In your case, you have nothing to lose. I'd go for it.</p>
<p>excellent post, I agree with lof629.</p>
<p>I also vote for sending the 2400 score. I understand your concerns and I still think you were nuts to take the exam again, but I doubt that sending the higher score would hurt your chances.</p>