<p>I want to get into UPenn. Given that it's an Ivy, I found this nifty tool and was playing around with it. This tool, if it is accurate, sheds some light on how test scores are used. I did some various configurations. The link says the average Ivy applicant has an AI of 200 and the accepted student average is around 211.</p>
<p>I got these results:</p>
<p>Verbal: 600
Math: 700
SAT IIs: 730, 720, 660 (my actual scores, the last one is ick)
Class size: 430
Rank: 12 (lenient with this, as mine is better, but I'm not sure) AI: 204
8
Verbal: 700
Everything else, same as above AI: 209</p>
<p>My desired by October:
Verbal: 750
Math: 800
Everything same as first AI: 216.5</p>
<p>Same as the one before
Rank: 23/430 AI: 216</p>
<p>It seems that test scores aren't worth as much. Even more so rank isn't worth much, as seen in the last. Anyone, any insights at all? Do you think that the Ivies actually use such a system?</p>
<p>This tool is fun to play around with but not much more than that. To put it in perspective, I was an 8 (226 points), and I still got 2 rejections and 2 waitlists from the Ivies (YP and Brown + Columbia, respectively). Once you are in ballpark (between the 25th and 75th percentile), worry about something else!</p>
<p>You are correct in that a change in class rank affects the AI score more so than a jump in any one test subject score. Beyond that, I wouldn't read too much into it. </p>
<p>My understanding is that the Ivies do use the AI, but not actively for the general applicant pool. It is meant to be (if Hernandez's info is still accurate) a tool for assuring that recruited athletes are not TOO far below the standards of the class. Sure, it still has correlation (very very very very very few 1's, 2's, 3's, or even 4's are going to be accepted), but beyond that it really doesn't mean much. </p>
<p>Of course, I still crunched stats with it incessantly, but that was just me feeding my minor OCD :).</p>
<p>^^I don't think Michellle Hernandez said that in her book. She said AI was used for calculating academic for athletes but she emphasized with the advent of computers, any college can easily calculate AI for any student. She certainly thought it was important enough for other students, otherwise why would she devote a whole chapter to AI. Furthermore, she explained in details how to calculate AI with/without knowing your school rank. In addition, she included several appendices for the AI calculation. AI is a big part of the A for Admission book.
That said, I believe the AI is just a rough estimate for each reader, a quick number to give adcom an idea about a student academic numbers before an adcom read the file thoughrougly.</p>
<p>That book is also getting old, and admission to the very top schools is less numbers based each year (frankly because, as it seems, more people have outstanding numbers, so differentiation has to be on something else)</p>
<p>Put simply: Your AI can keep you out, but good GPA and SAT scores alone won't earn you a seat at HYPSM or SWAP</p>
<p>I simply meant that technically, the AI is only actively used for athletes. As she points out, it doesn't matter whether or not Ivies actively calculate and use the AI--they most certainly evaluate an applicants strength largely on basis of their academic achievement and test scores, so whether or not they have a score attached to your application is immaterial. </p>
<p>AI certainly is a significant portion of "A is for Admission", which I know well since I own the book and have read it multiple times (10+, I'm sorry to admit) over the past 3 years. However, I would caution anyone reading that book not to overestimate their chances based on her analysis of academic 7's, 8's, and 9's, for example, whom she states in her book are virtually guaranteed admission to Ivies and the like (she says 90%+ acceptance rate for 8's and 9's). Sure, your admission chances are better than applicants with lower AI scores, but not in the 90% range....not anywhere near it. The book isn't old in the grand scheme of things, but at 7 years old, this advice is basically out of date in the college admissions game. Again, I was an 8, and there is no way in my mind that my extras and personal qualities could possibly be qualified as bad enough to knock me out of the supposed 90% who could expect admission. THIS IS OUT OF DATE! I never thought my chances were that high, but while I think the book is a fine read, I don't want anybody to get overly confident about their chances based on this book.</p>
<p>So I was bored and played around with that calculator. The highest realistic score is 240, for someone with 5 SAT's of 800 and a rank of 1 out of at least 295. If there's only 294 people in your class, you only can manage a 239. That's a bit of incentive to convince that possible dropout to stay the course.</p>
<p>The highest score the calculator will give is 278, which requires 999's on all 5 SAT portions and a rank of first out of at least 295. Any SAT higher than 999 will actually reduce your academic index, but I tried class sizes has high as 6 trillion with no such effect. I guess that the lesson here is that admissions computers are more likely to believe that your class size is a thousand times as large as the population of the planet than they are to believe that you exceeded the maximum possible SAT score by 200 points. Lies of less than 200 points are perfectly acceptable.</p>
<p>More boredom, and hence more playing with the calculator.</p>
<p>The lowest realistic score is a 60, with 5 SAT's of 200 and a last place rank out of 228. If that describes you, the spontaneous combustion of one of your classmates will raise your score to 62.</p>
<p>The lowest score the calculator will give is a 20, for a student with a score of 0 on 5 SAT's and a last place rank out of 228, again the reduction of class size by a single person raises the score to 22.</p>
<p>So in summary, the calculator's range is from 60-240 for applicants from this planet, or 20-278 for applicants from the twilight zone. Note that interdimensional applicants are considered in a separate pool from domestic applicants, and the competition is more rigorous, especially for those interdimensional applicants who request financial aid. These applicants still, however, receive a boost if they apply Early Decision.</p>
<p>AI is really only a factor at state schools, there's so much variability within the middle fifty of a given school (up to a hundred points) that a finite calculation such as the above wouldn't be useful in seperating applicants with similar scores. The extra 20 points wouldn't make a difference.</p>
<p>My school doesnt rank and we dont do gpa out of 4.0 but what would you say a 98 average is out of 4 (the highest you can get at our school is about a 100 assuming you get straight A+'s and about half your classes are honors/APs and the other half are electives and required classes. Its weird, i know)</p>
<p>The factors that comprise AI are important but AI itself is not important. So, thus, having a high AI can only help you, but guarantees you nothing.</p>
<p>It appears that "unranking" is a tremendous advantage. If I plug in my son's numbers (guessing at his rank as about top 3%) it ranks him as a 7. If I use percentages - top 10, top 20 or top 25 - his AI ranking drops to 6 and then 5. But if I just put in his GPA (over 4.3) his AI ranking jumps to a 9. I guess that's why his school is going to do away with class ranking.</p>