<p>The higher your SAT score the better your chances are at any college. Anyone who says otherwise is an idiot…</p>
<p>Even if I get a 2400, I’d probably be rejected by all the Ivy-League schools. I’m confident in a 2300+. </p>
<p>First, my GPA is no where up to par. </p>
<p>Second, I have no ECs (that I’ve stayed in for >1 year). </p>
<p>Third, I managed to offend all my freshman teachers and half my sophomore year teachers. No recs for me. </p>
<p>So pretty much it’s like this:</p>
<p>Stellar SAT, poor GPA, no ECs.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>I would cry tears of joy everyday as well :). </p>
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<p>Silverturtle is going to Brown. A very nice consolation prize from Harvard, and Harvard’s loss.</p>
<p>bump 10 char</p>
<p>Only school that puts out statistics based on SAT score and acceptance rate is Brown. Others only provide with 25 and 75% numbers for their admits. Even brown does nt define them by complete score but breakdown on each area. One place where you might actually get a clear indicator is from ACT score where they show 36 out of 113 getting accepted for a perfect score.</p>
<p>[Brown</a> Admission: Facts & Figures](<a href=“Undergraduate Admission | Brown University”>Undergraduate Admission | Brown University)</p>
<p>As you can see, silverturtle did have a 68% chance of being rejected with his 36 too.</p>
<p>WHAT? 2400 and rejection? Probably because their EC’s aren’t good.</p>
<p>For anyone who is reading this thread who has already scored 2400, and is applying to college this year or in the future: The scenario posted by IceQube is not typical for a rejected 2400 scorer, based on my observations in real life and in multiple years of reading CC and following the outcomes. </p>
<p>Going into the admissions process, it is easy to imagine that the rejected 2400 scorers have weak GPA’s, less than rigorous course loads, limited EC’s, and/or teachers who do not particularly like them. Or else they have strong qualifications on paper, but they are robotic, test-obsessed perfectionists who are being driven by their parents.</p>
<p>I believe that this is far from the truth. There are rejected 2400-scorers who have all of the following, in one package: 4.0 UW GPA, enough AP’s to qualify for AP National Scholar, multiple college courses, varsity sports, state-level awards (at least), teachers who really respect them, outstanding interviews, and great personalities (and they are non-Asian). Although I have not read the admissions essays of these students, I doubt that they were complete turn-offs.</p>
<p>I think it is very important for applicants to know, going into the process, that this can happen, through no fault of their own. I suspect that the admissions committees are somewhat more cavalier about rejecting 2400-scorers who have strong overall records, because they assume that the students will surely be admitted to multiple top schools, so their individual decision does not matter too much. This situation was particularly exacerbated at MIT in the Marilee Jones era.</p>
<p>I have argued on other threads that there is a random element in admissions to top schools. I think this element comes into play after the students have crossed the basic hurdles to admission. At that point there are uncontrollable elements in the selection, and I believe that the outcomes are unlikely to be perfectly repeatable, with different admissions committees at the same school, or with the same admissions committee in different years. (And I am not referring to the scenario where the school has already admitted someone who plays the oboe.)</p>
<p>The effect of the probabilistic element is that a small number of 2400 scorers will have, in effect, bad die rolls at several top schools. Yet they are students with great promise, and anyone would be lucky to count them as friends.</p>
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<p>And they are great catches for the colleges or universities where they do ultimately enroll.</p>
<p>But this phenomenon explains why it’s so important to have one or more genuine safeties that you really like.</p>
<p>QuantMech, I couldn’t have said all that any better.</p>
<p>Silverturtle was accepted to Columbia and Brown among other great schools. Are you seeriously suggesting this is not great?</p>
<p>Purely a personal opinion: I believe that the universities that rejected silverturtle (specifically) accepted applicants who are less promising. Also, as an adult observer on CC, I admire silverturtle’s maturity. Brown is a very fine school, as is Columbia. As I have posted multiple times (on different threads), my undergraduate university is one that many on CC would not even consider, and yet any limitations now in my work are my own, and not a result of going to the university I attended. Nevertheless, I do consider some of the admissions decisions in silverturtle’s particular case to be suboptimal, yes.</p>
<p>@QuantMech - I would love your opinion:</p>
<p>Where do you think I can make it into? As previously outlined, I’m confident in a 2300+ and National Merit SF.</p>
<p>IceQube, I’d be happy to make some suggestions, but would need a little more information. When you say that your GPA is “nowhere up to par,” what GPA range are you talking about? </p>
<p>Also, will your interactions with teachers in the early high school years keep you out of AP classes, as could happen in some schools? If you can take AP, I would not worry about teachers’ recommendations at all, at this point. Many students have recommendations only from junior/senior year teachers. The only issue would arise if you go to a very small school, and have the same teachers freshman through senior years. There was a brief biography of Dick Zare (currently Chairman of the Department of Chemistry at Stanford) in Discover a few years ago, and he mentioned that his middle-school science teacher really hated him. People understand that this can happen.</p>
<p>You don’t need to have formal, school-related EC’s. Do you have a common thread of interest among your one-year EC’s, even if the activities themselves are different? Also, do you have outside interests not connected with your school, that you have pursued? That can make a difference in terms of admission to the HYPMS category of university.</p>
<p>I’ll PM you, Quant.</p>
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<p>My son had stats similar to Silverturtle’s – a 36.0 ACT and 240 PSAT (SAT not taken); he was rejected from MIT, Yale and Princeton. If I had to guess, I’d say that my son’s ECs were not sufficient – no statewide or national awards or competitions – to make the final cut.</p>
<p>He did, nevertheless, get into 4 top-20 colleges (with two likely letters) and decided to attend Brown. Brown’s open curriculum and self-deprecating sense of humor makes the school a perfect fit for him. In the end, he probably would have chosen it anyway. I don’t think that having gotten a couple of rejections was a big deal, since he could only attend one college anyway.</p>
<p>I’m aiming for a 2300 rather than a 2400. I feel like a perfect score would make me look weird, considering I only have a 3.6 GPA and a 178 PSAT score.</p>
<p>^ I don’t see any reasoning behind that. If 2400 makes you look “weird”, then why not aim for the national average of a 1500 which would make you seem prefectly normal? A 2400 needs a bit of luck and lots of pratice but there’s no reason not to aim high just because of your GPA.</p>
<p>^lol.
I always aim for a perfect score, but I’d be happy with over 2100.
@LoremIpsum, I remember reading that almost exact same post about your son before.</p>
<p>Here it is:</p>
<p>NOTHING IS BETTER THAN A 2400. That is like saying, which one is more expensive, a thousand dollar car, or a 2 million dollar bugatti.</p>
<p>lol i am also very paranoid-stressed about college admissions. Im S. Korean-American, and my practice SAT score is currently 2280 and i am planning to take it in December. I am not aiming for 2400 (although that would be nice), and I am fairly satisfied with my current score. (I hope I can score equally well on the real SAT)
I have a 4.3 unweighted GPA and some volunteer work involving pet adoptions and hospital volunteering… I am in nature somewhat introverted but these volunteer work, which involved human-human interactions, which helped my social skills to some degree.<br>
My dream college is Brown >.< </p>
<p>meh. blargh!!</p>
<p>I think Mark Zuckerburg got a perfect score and went to Harvard.</p>
<p>As for on topic, I always thought this.
‘A prestigious school isn’t prestigious for how many valedictorians and perfect test scorers they have in their roster, its how many they reject.’</p>