<p>^Per Grutter v. Bollinger, colleges don’t really have to follow a non-discriminatory policy if they don’t want to.</p>
<p>My question is, why do people seem to value the SAT more than the ACT? I tell people my score on CR on ACT and they’re like, oh that’s cool, but if I tell them my score on SAT they’re blown away, yet my CR is higher on the ACT…</p>
<p>At least where I’m from, I had to find out about the ACT on my own, whereas College Board is completely hyped up in high school and the SAT is the biggest focus of all counselors.</p>
<p>SAT/ACT is regional. Wikipedia has a map if you’re interested:</p>
<p><a href=“http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/SAT-ACT_Preference_Map.svg[/url]”>http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/SAT-ACT_Preference_Map.svg</a></p>
![http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/SAT-ACT_Preference_Map.svg[/url]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/SAT-ACT_Preference_Map.svg%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
<p>Coasts prefer SAT, almost everyone else prefers ACT. And Indiana’s an island, for whatever reason. The CC preference for SAT is probably because most people here are from coast states, but obviously I’m just guessing with no data.</p>
<p>There’s “merit” – the ability to sit through a 3.5 hour test on basic grammar and freshman year algebra and keep clumsy mistakes to a minimum, or argue endlessly with teachers for that one point to push your grade to an A – and then there’s true merit, which comes in too many forms to list. From a quick glance at any top college results thread, colleges are mostly meritocratic.</p>
<p>The statement that 2400’s are being rejected because the field is just <em>that</em> competitive these days implies that there’s actually value to having one.</p>
<p>imareaver: That’s a great map showing the areas of SAT/ACT prevalence. I think there is now more awareness of ACT, so I am assuming ACT will be first choice in the next couple of years. </p>
<p>I am not criticizing every one, but I am assuming that the stress is getting to the kids and the parents waiting for admissions ( reading all the different posts that are going on now and posts tend to be more negative blaming on ethnicity/gender/system/schools/teachers/etc). </p>
<p>Good luck to all of you that are waiting!!! Life goes on and you all will do well as long as you are working towards the goals (the same applies to those who get in and do not work towards their goals tend to lag behind everyone else).</p>
<p>GolfFather said: “Probably ninety-nine percent of the (serious) applications to HYP have 4.0+ GPAs and perfect SAT scores.”:</p>
<p>That is ** . . . pretends that many more people get those high SATs than really do.</p>
<p>Here are the stats for how many people got specific scores on the SAT in 2010:
2350 and above - 2311 students
2300 and above - 6925 students</p>
<p>For comparison to those 3 totals:
Accepted frosh to Harvard and Yale= 3086 > everyone scoring 2350 and above
HYP + MIT + Stanford + Williams = > everyone scoring 2300 and above</p>
<p>And then there’s the fact that HYP doesn’t care much about those things above a certain threshold.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t argue with MollieB about what MIT does.
I would argue with MollieB about what MIT should do, in some cases.</p>
<p>I feel like the big thing is that there are so many kids now with 4.0 and high test scores that they sometimes don’t matter.
Especially at top schools.
They need a new way to stand out.</p>
<p>And, QuantMech, I value your arguments. (Not that I don’t value those of others. But I value yours in particular.)</p>
<p>Thanks, molliebatmit–I agree that the route to truth often passes through arguments.</p>
<p>The information on CC has been really helpful in gaining a better understanding of the admissions process–which is hard to glean otherwise, for people coming from schools/parts of the country where relatively few students apply to MIT or other top schoos. </p>
<p>I really value your comments and point of view (even when I disagree).</p>
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<p>And in case anyone is wondering, the percentage of people who get perfect 2400 scores is extremely small. It’s something like 2 hundredths of 1 percent; at least that’s what I’ve seen in my Google travels. That amounts to something in the neighborhood of 300 in any given year. So, you know, perfect SAT scorers are not beating down the door of any colleges or universities. They are rare, I expect they get due consideration at any school where they do apply and I would bake everyone on this thread a batch of cookies for any 2400 scorer who didn’t do more than fine in the admissions race.</p>
<p>Someone that takes the SAT and gets a 2400 may easily get a 2200 the next time they take it. This does not mean that the student experienced an intelligence drop between those two tests. It just means the first test, he/she could have gotten lucky. Maybe the first test was full of vocab words the student happened to know and the essay topic was easier for them to write about. Maybe the next test, the vocab words were foreign, the essay topic didn’t relate to him/her, or etc… In this sense a 2400 really is equal to a 2200. I’m not saying this is true for all 2400’s. However, it is very likely true for some. Therefore, it would be entirely unfair for a college to accept a student simply because they got a 2400 over a student that got a 2200. ESPECIALLY if the 2200 has better EC’s or something.</p>
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<p>This link is cool. It suggests that a high sat score just gets you over the first hurdle.</p>
<p>I don’t really buy your statement about a 2400 being “really equal” to a 2200, guacamole. </p>
<p>Start with math. Normally, to score 800 on math, a student cannot miss any questions. Unless the person is ill the second time, I wouldn’t expect the person to miss more than 2 questions the next time around. So, find the harshest SAT curve for missing 2 questions, and I am willing to say that score is “equal” to an 800.</p>
<p>For CR, it depends a bit on the raw score. If a person has an 800 and has missed no questions, I would expect the person to reliably score 800 the next time around as well, since typically on CR, the person can miss 2 questions and still score 800. If the person missed 2 questions and got an 800, then I wouldn’t expect the person to miss more than 4 the second time around. Again, you can see what score that converts to. That’s the minimal score I’d expect to see the next time around.</p>
<p>For the writing, it depends again. If the person has a 12 essay and no misses on the multiple choice, that person is exceedingly likely to score 800 again. If the person has a 10 essay and no misses on the multiple choice, I think it’s essentially guaranteed that the person will be able to score 10 again. The person might miss 2 on the multiple choice. So you can work out the corresponding score.</p>
<p>I think that the lowest likely scores for a second take by a student who scored 800/800/800 the first time around will add up to more than 2200. Actually, if the person had no misses on CR, no misses on M, and a 12 and no misses on the multiple choice W, I would project that the student would score at least 2350 the second time around.</p>
<p>The CB has a lot of projections on the average changes in score by students in different scoring ranges. I don’t have those handy now, but maybe they are available on the CB site.</p>
<p>The other element of your claim is that the person would have to have been lucky across the board, in all three sections, and then unlucky across the board, in all three sections, and I still don’t think they’d be projected to score “only” 2200.</p>
<p>This would be different if they were ill or seriously distracted one of the times they took the SAT. I think a person could definitely go from 2200 to 2300+ (though maybe not 2400) by working hard on SAT-related topics, though it would take some time. And some probably could not get much above 2200.</p>
<p>Yeah the idea that a 2200 is equivalent to a 2400 is ridiculous. One way to test this would be take a pool of students who scored 2400 or 2200 and have them all retake the SAT then calculate the probability that a student who originally got a 2200 outscores a student who originally got a 2400. Does anyone think that percentage would be close to 50%? [My guess is it would be <=10%]</p>
<p>In any case, there is nothing unfair about college decisions coming down to noise [e.g. random variations in SAT scores]. Although everyone would like to reduce noise there is no way to even come close to eliminating it.</p>
<p>Comparing a 2200 to a 2400 is kind of insulting. I know most of you think nothing of test scores but some people do work for them, and there is a pretty clear distinction between a 2400 and 2200. Be cautious with your words, test scores don’t tell the whole story but they’re not as irrelevant as you make them out to be.</p>
<p>llazar - Well, that depends. A person with a 740/730/730 score isn’t all that different from a person with a 800/800/800 score. On the other hand, a person with a 600/800/800 score probably is noticeably different from an 800/800/800 score. I think most people assume a somewhat even distribution.</p>
<p>Why in the world is this insulting?</p>
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<p>It’s a test score.</p>