<p>Not only the "public" adds wrongly, all of the guide books inclluding the US News rankings provide the "added" scores as 25-75% ranges, when they actually are not.</p>
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<p>Yes, that's right. The only reliable numbers are the unaggregated numbers (section by section percentiles) found in the Common Data Set data for each college.</p>
<p>Curmudge brings up a very important point.........any one applying for any reach school needs to look at their situation from a realisitc point of view and not be davastated when denied entry.</p>
<p>I have seen kids who believed the stories from friends and family members and had great profiles- one example several years ago, My Ds friend was head of school, top 5, 4.0UW, star of the musical for several years, from a small under-represented state, varsity athlete, etc., scores were 1400+ and she had great recs and I know admissions worked hard to get her in to a HYP...no luck, but another kid from the same school, similar stats did get in.....she burned her sweatshirt and still won't talk to the other student- shew thought she was a lock to get in.</p>
<p>The importance of this thread is to acquaint parents & students, especially when doing the admit game on your first kid, that the top 10 ranked schools are pretty random.</p>
<p>My oldest D was quite saddened by some of her denials, as a CC student I learned what to do better and what to expect- 6 of 7 admits on #2 (including top 20s & top LACs), and no devastation when the EA school said, "no thanks."</p>
<p>The lesson newbies should learn from Curmudge's thread is to still try for, but not pin all your hopes on, the top 10 type school.</p>
<p>If you approach admissions with a reality check, your senior year will be much more pleasant and there is enough going on for your senior, you don't need any self-doubts because a lottery school turned him down.</p>
<p>I didn't stop to read the entire thread, but I want to make 2 points, and I apologize if these have already been made.</p>
<p>1) When you are talking about HYP, probably S (particularly for the West Coast student), maybe MIT (they are looking for something different anyway) - the rules don't apply, they just don't, send in that app and forget it, you may be what they are looking for, you may not be. There are a few students (we could probably pick them out, or create a profile of one of them) for whom the rules apply, but they should keep a low profile (at least on this forum), and decide which one of these schools they want to attend.</p>
<p>2) Our definition of match was a school where chances were somewhere in the range of 60-40 to 40-60, in other words if one applied to 6, you could statistically expect to get admitted to 3. Match DOES NOT equal admission to a given school. Now as you get out of the top 25 schools, I think match begins to mean more of what we want it to mean - in other words if a school's yield is 20% and you are a "match", since more letters must be sent out, you are more likely to get one, than if the school's yield is 50% and fewer acceptances are given. With the more selective school, though ,the person is still, close to 50:50, just more on the 40% side.</p>
<p>I do think that outside of HYPSM there are match schools for the BWRK (remember that is only 50% chance) in the upper echelon. But for the BWRKiest of BWRK, that poor white female non-athlete from a populous mid-Atlantic state, she may need to apply to twice as many as Cumedgette from rural Texas, to get that acceptance. What to do? Look outside your comfort zone - the kid from NJ may be more interesting to Pomona than Swarthmore. The other and complementary approach is to become very sure of what you want and what is right for you (size, atmosphere, etc), find schools that fit that profile and carefully target your application to those schools - aim your few shots as precisely as possible. This approach worked well for my daughter - at least we think, truth is she had geographic interest - but no one ever really knows what it is about them that makes one college admit them and another reject - it is, in the end, at least somewhat arbitrary.</p>
<p>Another component of the second level analysis is where the school is located. For example, if you live in RI like I do most of the students go to school in RI. That makes those students who are a bit more adventurous more attractive to schools outside the Northeast.</p>
<p>I know of many students in RI that apply to St. Joseph's in PA or U of Miami and get admitted with great scholarships and aid. Often they choose to stay close to home but their offers outside the 'region' are quite attractive.</p>
<p>We also have to remember that applying to certain schools from out of state hurts - the UC's, UNC and UVA come to mind. Just to make things trickier.</p>
<p>ohio_mom,</p>
<p>True enough. I should have been more specific and said out of region private schools.</p>
<p>What do you do if your daughter looks like Diana Taurasi but plays basketball like Yo Yo Ma?</p>
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Curmudgeon, excellent advice. To take your point even further, it has been noted elsewhere on this site that for a truly comfortable "match", one's scores should above the midpoint between the 75th% and 800, especially if the applicant is an unhooked white male.
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<p>I hope the person who wrote this is aware that unhooked Asian males, who usually have the highest SAT average, are held by the same high standard.</p>
<p>She is now! Thanks for making the point.</p>
<p>applepolisher, that is funny. Good job. I like to laugh, and to answer the question-that girl is hosed.</p>
<p>curmudgeon, thanks for the reply. I was afraid that might be the case.</p>
<p>can someone please tell me what a BWRK is?</p>
<p>Hi, I'm a newbie. What does "hooked", "unhooked" mean?</p>
<p>BWRK=bright well rounded kid</p>
<p>applepolisher, D will not be a highly recruited athlete or musician, the best she can hope for is some school might view her as passionate about her ec's. I am of the "congregation" that believes that it is not as important what they are passionate about, but more about the existence of the passion itself. A student does not have to be athletic or musically inclined. A student at D's school that I literally had never heard of is getting a substantial merit scholarship from a top 30ish LAC, I would assume largely on her passion for art, as she was not a top student in academic courses, and was not in the top 10%.</p>
<p>I had assumed your post was a variation of the old G.B. Shaw and the starlet joke, where the beautiful starlet asks the wizened and warty and singularly un-attractive Shaw to join with her in creating an uber child with her beauty and his intellect. Shaw supposedly replied, "Yes, my dear, but what if the child we created had my beauty and your intellect?". I had no intention of suggesting a student without varsity letters or musical talent would have a more difficult admissions task. I don't believe that, and I wouldn't post that. I'm sorry if I misinterpreted your post.</p>
<p>Are there any available stats that show acceptances and/or yields from different states or geographic regions? That would be interesting and extremely helpful but I doubt there is any published material anywhere.</p>
<p>I think that the 75% rule is focusing too much on SATs. The reason that a range is reported is because most colleges do NOT use SAT scores as their primary criteria for admission. My guess is that all colleges place much more weight on GPA, class rank, and strength of high school curriculum - so that the kid with a 1550 SAT and a 3.6 GPA is far less likely to get admitted than the kid with 1410 SAT and a 3.9 GPA. And of course all that other stuff: EC's, passion, essays, recs - counts for something too. </p>
<p>I agree with the idea that being above the 50% mark is no shoe-in... but I honestly think that the colleges look seriously at all applicants within the specified range. If that were not the case, the ranges would be even higher at the most selective colleges. </p>
<p>In a way, I think SAT is probably LESS important at the mega-selective colleges than at some colleges a little farther down the US News list. Why? I think some colleges that are looking to increase their standing would tend to be more likely to accept a high-scorer on the basis of score alone. Harvard has no such pressure, and can afford to look beyond the numbers to get a sense of the person ... or to focus on building its class. That doesn't mean that they are going to ignore SATs entirely - it just means that hook+ score in range will get the student in, with the understanding that "hook" is whatever the ad com makes it out to be. </p>
<p>I think that is really the reason that there is so much disappointment around here every April -- too many kids and their parents assume that if their stats are in the upper quartile, they have no worries. Colleges use different criteria. SAT scores are only one factor, and as noted -- probably not the most determinitive factor in most cases.</p>
<p>curmudgeon, I actually was just kidding around, and you didn't misinterpret my post, but I also like your G.B. Shaw/starlet analogy!</p>
<p>Calmom,</p>
<p>I am not so certain. I think there is a balance between the test scores and the GPA that tilts toward the test scores. Here is why I think this may be so.</p>
<p>The Ivy League uses a device called the Academic Index (AI) for recruited athletes. It helps each of the admissions offices determine if a student is academically qualified for their school. The AI has 3 components, an SAT 1 component, an SAT 2 component and a class rank GPA component. Each of these are on an 80 point scale. Because 2 of the components are test based this tool has a bias toward test scores.</p>
<p>It is one of the reasons I have wondered what the average SAT 2 scores are for schools that ask for them. If anyone has information on SAT 2 score averages please post it. In the past when I have asked this people supplied links to a few school specific examples, as I recall the UC system and MIT.</p>
<p>Here is the link to the AI calculator on the CC web-site:</p>