<p>Wow. For the record, my class rank & SAT's are virtually unchangeable at this point of the yr. My big EC at the moment is this bowling fundraiser I'm running w/ 160 people.</p>
<p>But disregarding all that, I thought it would provide an interesting perspective. Hence, as a statistics kind of person, I wanted to test it out.</p>
<p>One thing that is being forgotten is that a "match" does not guarantee admittance. A match is a school that is likely that you will be accepted to, not 100%. </p>
<p>And sr6622, if you had the stats to be considered a "match" at Harvard (based on the chart), you have an excellent chance of being admitted, as to meet the requirement you would have to rank in the top 1% of your class & have a 2350+ SAT.</p>
<p>stambliark, buddy, I like your statisticall analysis but even you know its obviously flawed due to the obvious problems of class rank... and the fact that some schools value it more than others (ex. Penn does not care if you have a 3.8 UW GPA, if you're not in the top 10% of your class. Im not making this u, look it up). Why dont you e-mail me and we can work on a better statistical method of evaluating. Here's something im thinking of, [(SAT's+2 SATII scores)/5]+a slightly weighted GPA... How we weigh the GPA would be the interesting part, by giving some bonus points to AP/Honors classes. I had the idea of doing this but I never really bothered. Im happy someone else is interested in the statistical aspect of college admissions which I find fascinating. </p>
<p>Anyway, if you're interested in working something out with me e-mail me at <a href="mailto:jdelavalle@hotmail.com">jdelavalle@hotmail.com</a> or simply PM. Thanks, a nice work.</p>
<p>I have a question: whydo you assume that SAT scores and GPA are equally waited? Also, why can't people just use college confidential's academic index to see their chances of getting into a college?</p>
<p>There are 3 fundamental flaws with your approach.</p>
<p>1) you write "Northwestern accepts 30% of their applicants. In other words, you have to be in the 70th percentile of their applicant pool to be accepted. Based on the SAT, 70th perentile is an 1130. Therefore, a qualified candidate for Northwestern will score an 1130 or above for the two categories (rank + SAT's)." </p>
<p>But Northwestern (or any other selective school) does not simply rank their applicants by test scores & GPA, accepting those at the top. Your model of how admissions works bears a weak relationship to reality. Scores and class ranking are the factors that are weighed by adcoms which is far different from the deterministic role your model assigns them. If you looked at the acceptance rate against SAT, for example, you'd find a rising percentage as the SAT score rises. But not all 1500's get in, nor do all 1100's get rejected.</p>
<p>2) The most fundamental flaw is you've used the wrong table!! Your top 30% percentile number comes from SAT percentiles nationally. Even if Northwestern accepts the top 30% of its applicants based solely on SAT and ranking, that would be based on the population of kids applying to the school. Your number, 1130, is not what it takes to be in the top 30% of Northwestern applicants. Northwestern does not randomly draw from all HS students (which is the only way your number would make sense), so the top 30% of applicants have a SAT score substantially higher than 1130. If you checked the common data set info for Northwestern, you'd find that the 25th percentile of enrolled students is an SAT score of 1310 which should have warned you of serious deficiencies in your approach. </p>
<p>3) The same criticism holds about your model that holds in psychology, econ, and so many other disciplines that try to follow the model of hard sciences (or statistics). Your model ignores what it cannot measure. Admission to a competitive college depends on SAT and class rank, yes, but it also depends heavily on essays, ECs, teacher recs, and sometimes interviews. You mention as an aside that predictions from your model are reliable "as long as his EC's are not particularly dismal" but this completely ignores several important factors in admissions, and downplays the importance of those aspects not easily measured.</p>
<p>My recommendation is to abandon the project.</p>
<p>Yeah this kid has a point and its definetely not fair to schools such as U Chicago who have really good applicant pools, yet still admits 40% of them.</p>
<p>But anyway, to answer the other question he is using SAT and rank. They are not necessarily equally weighted, but no school gives much more importance to one over the other, so its a decent/safe average. (Correct me if Im wrong now) The purpose of the sytem is to help determine whether the school is a safety/match/reach, not to predict whether they would be admitted or not. In other words, take for instance two kids applying to Brown:</p>
<p>Kid A: Valedictorian, SAT 1550
This kid has a good chance of making it, he/she can consider Brown a safe match. In other words he has a good probability of getting admitted, I would say there is an 60% chance of admission/40% chance of rejection (BASED ON THIS ALONE!!! Dont start again)</p>
<p>Kid B: Top 5%, SAT 1400
Brown might be a reach for him, these stats would lead me to predict that he/she has about a 20% chance of admisssion/80% chance of rejection (again this is unbeliveably arbitrarily. im just using these numbers as examples, not saying this is what it is)</p>
<p>So what does this tell us? Nothing we dont know, Kid A has a better chance than Kid B of getting admitted to Brown. Its possible that Kid B might make it and Kid A won't, but its not likely, and mo matter the outcome, Brown is still a match for Kid A but a reach for Kid B.</p>
<p>Get it? Good.</p>
<p>BTW I never described the right table to use (if the model was valid). The right table would be the SAT scores of Northwestern applicants by percentile. The wrong table, which the OP used, is the table of SAT scores all all HS students by percentile. But the saying GIGO still applies.</p>
<p>jdelavelle, I understand what you're trying to say, but you way over-estimate chances. A lot of people just don't realize how intense the competition is for the small number of spaces at the elite schools. You depict a valedictoria, SAT 1550, whom you describe as "This kid has a good chance of making it. I would say there is an 60% chance of admission". And from the limited view of HS this person does sound like a god; you may see someone this strong only every few years (if that). Yet in a country with about 3 million HS graduates each year, such numbers are not as rare as you might think.</p>
<p>Brown does not give the figures for the exact person you describe. However they do say that only 35% of valedictorians who applied were accepted, and for those with Verbal or Math SAT scores of 750-800 only 26% were accepted! The competition is much harder than you predicted.</p>
<p>The Brown website is at <a href="http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Admission/gettoknowus/factsandfigures.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Admission/gettoknowus/factsandfigures.html</a></p>
<p>You Do Not Know Who Is In The Pool...
So Stop Wasting Ur Time</p>
<p>
[quote]
The wrong table, which the OP used, is the table of SAT scores all all HS students by percentile
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Please read the table properly. Is 2040 really the median SAT score for all HS students taking the SAT? Is the 6th percentile really the median for all HS graduates? For the last time, the OP scaled the SAT scores/rank of Northwestern Applicants, equating the median score to 500. This is the third post that has failed to read the OP properly.</p>
<p>Also, as concerns Brown, valedictorians and 750+ scorers - I would guess that anyone who fell into both categories would stand a much higher chance of admission. I don't think 60% is unreasonable for a valedictorian with 1550+</p>