Admission decisions correlation with SAT II scores?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
1

I’ve been looking at the SCEA Decisions thread and have noticed one interesting trend – the importance of high SAT II scores in the humanities vs. SAT II scores in Math/Science (Note: in pulling these stats together, I’ve taken out international and URM students).

What remains is a very small sample size, but high SAT II Math/Science scores don’t seem to make a difference for gaining admission; high SAT II humanities scores do.

I counted 11 people who had a score of 770 or higher on an SAT II Literature, History, or Language test. Of those 11, 9 were accepted. Here’s the breakdown:
US History 800 2 of 3 accepted
World History 800 2 of 3 accepted (deferred student ranked 88 in class of 413)
Spanish 790 accepted
US History 780 accepted
Literature 780 accepted
US History 770 accepted
Literature 770 accepted

There weren’t many high SAT IIs in the humanities among those deferred. In addition to the 2 counted above, I saw the following high SAT IIs for deferred students:
US History 760
Literature 760 (student had 3.78 GPA)
US History 740
Literature 730 2 of 2

Now look at the Math/Science SAT II scores of deferred students:
Bio 800, Math II 770, Chem 780, Phys 790
Math II: 800, Chemistry: 790
Physics (800), Math II (800)
Math II (800), Chemistry (760)
790 Math II
760 Biology
Math II 800
Math II 780, Bio M 760
Math II (800), Physics (800)
780 Math II
Math I (790), Math II (800), Chem (770)

Note: some of the accepted students also had high Math and/or Science SAT IIs, but the deferred students with high Math/Science SAT IIs did not have high humanities SAT II scores.

Pretty interesting.

2

One factor you might want to consider: Unlike other colleges, Harvard does not require the TOEFL for international students. So, Admissions looks more closely (and I imagine puts more emphasis) on an international student’s SAT CR and W scores, as well their SAT Subject test scores in the humanities, trying to gauge an international student’s English proficiency. Those international student’s with high SAT Subject Test scores in the humanities would seem to be more proficient than those with lower scores, and therefore would struggle less with the reading and writing work load on Harvard campus.

3

I went back and looked at the Class of 2019 SCEA Decision thread and again found a very high correlation between scores on Lit/History SAT IIs and admission.

800 World History 2 of 2 accepted
800 US History 2 of 3 (deferred had 3.75 GPA)
800 Latin 0 of 1
790 Literature 1 of 1
790 US History 0 of 1
790 World History 1 of 1
780 World History 1 of 1
780 US History 1 of 2
780 Literature 1 of 1
770 Literature 1 of 1
770 World History 1 of 3

So then I went and looked at the College Board’s tables for college-bound seniors from the high school Class of 2015 that took SAT Subject tests. Here are the numbers that scored 800 on each subject test (excluding language, which are kind of screwy, based on the number of native speakers that take them):

Lit: 566 (1% of 56,594)
Bio E: 620 (2% of 31,027)
Math 1: 653 (1% of 65,319)
World: 666 (4% of 16,657)
Bio M: 1,690 (2% of 31,027)
USH: 2,109 (3% of 70,298)
Chem: 6,620 (9% of 73,551)
Physics: 7,071 (12% of 58,921)
Math 2: 27,507 (19% of 144,772)

So there were more 800s on the Math 2 than on all other SAT II Subject Tests combined. More people scored 800 on the Chemistry SAT II and on the Physics SAT II than scored 800 on the Lit, US History, and World History tests combined.

Obviously, , if a student wants to go into the sciences or engineering, he or she is going to take Math 2 and at least one of the other sciences. But it seems to me that a student wishing to pursue a non-STEM track could really distinguish himself with a high Lit or History SAT II score. Until looking at these numbers, I kind of assumed that all Subject Tests were viewed equally.

But now I see how an 800 Lit or World History score is more than ten times less common than an 800 Chemistry or Physics score.

4

@baltimoreguy - we seem to be interested in similar topics!

I agree with your views, with one small qualification: have a look at Latin, a language in which there are few if any native speakers and which is really a humanities discipline. Fewer than 3,000 people took the test and 5% scored 800. If you were one of them, you were in very select company (140 or so worldwide, I guess).

5

I think you are missing the forest for the trees if you looked at the 2020 results thread. Last I looked at it (this morning), of the 23 acceptances that were posted 21 of the kids were URM, direct legacy (or some form of legacy like sibling legacy), first generation/low income (2), or low income int’l from an underrepresented area (2). In other words, and what most of us veteran posters have said all along, if you are unhooked, getting in SCEA is extremely difficult. The above doesn’t even mention all the recruited athletes that are accepted early which could be as much as 230 in any given year. 918 admits. Not counting overlaps 200+ atlhletes, 200+ legacies, 180-200 URMs, 90-100 int’l, 25-50 developmental, political or celebrity admits. Doing the math, there’s not many seats left for the unhooked white or Asian applicant. Since we know that 24.2 % of the admits were Asian that means there were 222 Asian admits this year). Without adjusting for overlaps adding all the above is more than 918 admits right there. Where are the spots for an unhooked white middle class kid? It’s hard to see.

6

Well, I’m definitely not a veteran poster, but I do know personally three unhooked kids who just got into Harvard (one white, two Asian). Not middle class relative to America as a whole (they go to prep school), but middle class in their community. Not recruited athletes, legacies, development cases or celebrity kids, and of course not URMs.

I think your thesis is directionally correct, but I don’t believe there are as many athletes taking SCEA spaces as you suggest (Brown just disclosed they accepted ~160 in their early round, and I think all the Ivies have around the same number of permitted recruits - if Brown’s number is representative, there must be a bunch more accepted In the RD round). Also, I would be very surprised if a significant number of recruited athletes weren’t URMs (when was the last time Harvard’s sports teams were entirely white? Mid-20th century, I’d guess), and surely some recruited athletes are legacies (golf? crew? squash?). Definitely not all legacies apply early, and some number of them are accepted RD, which means your slots earmarked for legacies may be high. So there is some room for unhooked candidates.

I don’t disagree that it’s very hard for unhooked white kids and Asians to get in SCEA, but I don’t think we can say definitively how much harder than getting in RD, which is also very difficult, of course.

7

Harvard has more athletes than Brown and the numbers I’ve seen are as high as 230 recruits in a freshman class. Even if it’s closer to 200, it’s still a very large number. The legacy early number I think I backed into using this year’s freshman survey but I don’t recall anymore since I made the post three months ago. I agree that there is an overlap between athletes, URM’s, and legacies etc. which I acknowledged. I was just giving a worse case scenario (no overlaps) to illustrate how many slots could potentially be taken up.

Not surprising that you may know two unhooked accepted Asians (Asians were 24.2% of the acceptances) or that you know a white unhooked student who was accepted. It doesn’t change my thesis that the number of slots for white unhooked middle class kids is pretty small relative to the number of applications they receive.

Lastly, I am not making the case at all that it is harder for these groups to get in early than RD. I am just making the point that it is much harder to get in early than the 16.4% (now 14.8%) early acceptance rate would suggest. Kids should not feel bad or become discouraged from applying to other top schools if they are deferred because there are far fewer slots available than they realize.

8

I completely agree with your last sentence, @Falcon1 - it’s certainly harder for unhooked applicants than the overall SCEA acceptance rate would suggest. The fact, though, that 24.2% of the acceptances went to Asians is encouraging - after all, how many of them do you think were hooked? I’m guessing a small minority. I don’t think Harvard has any reason to favor an unhooked Asian over an unhooked white kid, so I would think that any acceptances that went to unhooked Asians could have gone to whites if the Harvard adcoms liked their applications better.

9

@Falcon1 I think we’re talking about 2 different things. The conventional wisdom I’ve always heard is that all SAT IIs are viewed equally - an 800 on one is as good as an 800 on another. But seeing all the deferred 800 Math 2 scores got me wondering, which is when I started poking around in the numbers. Seeing that there are only 2% as many 800 Literature scores as there are Math 2 800s makes me think they have to be viewed as a bit more distinctive. And the self-reported stats on the SCEA Decision thread seem to bear that out, in a very limited sample size. Later today, I’ll see if I can go back through the 2019 and 2018 Regular Decision thread and see how it holds up.

@DeepBlue86 great point about the Latin SAT II. I think it is definitely a “humanities” subject, like Lit and History. I think the other language SAT II results get skewed by so many native speakers taking them.

10

I think that’s right, @baltimoreguy . Latin has a smaller percentage of scorers in the 700-800 range than any other language, and I would guess that’s because of the absence of native speakers.

I’m particularly interested in Latin because it feels like the three “national assessments” (SAT II, AP and National Latin Exams) differ greatly in structure and material covered, so I wonder which is the most meaningful in the context of college admissions.

11

So, I’ve now combined the RD 2018 and 2019 decisions with the SCEA decisions from 2019 and 2020. I’ve included every single person who posted in a “Results” thread with an SAT II of 770 or above in Literature, US History, World History, or Latin. The results are below and - to me - are really surprising. A high score in an SAT Humanities test seems to correlate very highly with Harvard admission. Of the 11 students who reported scoring a 770 or above in Lit, 8 were accepted.

I’ve put a quote at the bottom from Harvard’s head of Admissions that appeared in the NY Times a few years ago. He said that Subject tests are more predictive of college grades than are high school grades. He also says ACT and SAT Writing have similar predictive power to the subject tests. If I have time, I might go back through and see how those Writing scores correlate with Admission.

800
Latin 0 of 2 (1 rejected student was homeschooled)
Literature 0 of 1 (accepted by Stanford and Yale)
US History 7 of 10 accepted (1 rejected student was homeschooled)
World History 5 of 6 accepted (deferred student ranked 88 in class of 413)

790
Literature 2 of 3 (rejected student was homeschooled)
US History 2 of 6 (1 rejected student was homeschooled)
World History 1 of 1

780
Literature 2 of 3
US History 4 of 5
World History 1 of 2

770
Literature 4 of 4
US History 2 of 6
World History 2 of 4

2009 quote from Harvard’s Dean of Admissions:
"Our studies consistently demonstrate that standardized tests are helpful in predicting Harvard grades. Of course many other factors are important too, including high school grades, teacher and counselor recommendations, and intangible personal qualities that are reflected throughout the application.

We have found that the best predictors at Harvard are Advanced Placement tests and International Baccalaureate Exams, closely followed by the College Board subject tests. High school grades are next in predictive power, followed by the SAT and ACT. The writing tests of the SAT and ACT have predictive power similar to the subject tests."

12

I was just pointing out there is undoubtedly a much stronger relationship between having a legacy or URM hook and acceptance than a high humanities SAT II score. However, you may have a point. The problem is we don’t have enough data to make any real inferences and it’s tough to know what the self-selected pool of people who post their results on CC is like.

Perhaps, getting a high humanities SAT II score is because the person writes and/or speaks well or is extremely well read and thus an interesting person in the classroom or in interviews and this is reflected in their recommendations and interview write-up. Also, these kids might be able to write more creative and well-written essays. The old correlation does not mean causation might be at work here.

Nevertheless, you present an interesting question. You can add my daughter to your list. She was a STEM kid with perfect science and math SAT II scores and a 780 or 790 in Lit.

13

One wonders, @baltimoreguy , why last year Harvard made subject tests optional if they have such predictive power (http://chronicle.com/blogs/headcount/harvard-u-will-loosen-subject-test-requirement/38399) . I would guess it’s because those who don’t submit them are going to be admitted for things other than testing prowess or not at all. Those who submit them would do well to consider what you’ve figured out.

14

Could there simply be a correlation between language arts/humanities skills as reflected in SAT II scores and the ability to write well, which may come across in essays? I’m much more inclined to believe that well written essays positively influence decisions than SAT II scores, and I suspect the latter is likely to be correlation rather than causation.

15

^^ I had edited my post to include a comment about the essays which you probably didn’t see. I strongly agree about the essays.

Also, what we are not seeing is what Nassim Taleb calls the “silent evidence” which are all the kids who had high humanities test scores but were rejected. There may be some reason that they are less inclined to post there results on CC. We also know that Asians tend to post more often on CC and they are in a hugely competitive pool. Since, for whatever reason, many of these kids are in STEM fields, we don’t see too many humanities scores.

16

I agree with everyone’s observations about the essays, and this made me wonder whether strength in the humanities makes it easier for the adcoms to make a selectively favorable judgment about an applicant.

What I mean is, for STEM-focused candidates, it seems to me that the criteria are somewhat more objective and the candidates are therefore more easily rankable. Harvard and its peer schools are only going to accept so many STEM types, and the relatively large number of them, together with the fact that the standardized tests are masterable, means that top math/science scores are table stakes. If you got some national recognition (e.g., Intel, some national math prize, etc.) or interned in some prestigious lab, your qualifications are clear, as is where you stand relative to other candidates. So it’s relatively straightforward for the adcoms to isolate their top draft picks of those who are being admitted as part of the STEM-focused portion of the class. If your primary focus is STEM, unless you’re at the tippy-top, you’re going to have to have some additional hook or other differentiating attribute to get you over the hump.

For non-STEM scholars, on the other hand, there are more ways to differentiate oneself - and it enables a candidate to bypass, at least partially, an objective ranking (assuming your stats put you within range). You might be a budding author, poet or playwright, in a range of possible languages. You might be a future historian of any of many countries and cultures. You might be a campaigner for human rights, or a future politician or journalist. The list goes on and on…and if you’re able to write a compelling essay, and your recommenders attest appropriately to your talent, you could be seen as a rare jewel by adcoms (who, I would guess, generally weren’t STEM majors). For the admissions committee at a place like Harvard (as opposed to MIT or Caltech) it’s easier, I think, for non-STEM candidates to be able to present a personal story that is both compelling and differentiated.

17

Great point about the “silent evidence.” This thread really is more about the question, “Do College Admissions Offices View All SAT II Results Equally?” than it is about Harvard - I’m just using the info supplied on CC by Harvard applicants to try to answer it.

It was looking over the Results thread and seeing deferrals with student after student posting 800 Math 2 scores that made me wonder. And now I realize that there are roughly 49 applicants with an 800 Math 2 score for every 1 with an 800 Literature score.

18

@baltimoreguy were there any students who were 800 Literature AND 800 Math2?

Another analysis would be to see if a non-4.0 GPA + a high humanities SATII = acceptance. That would show the SATII being able to compensate for a few B+/A- grades.

19

Suddenly, I’m wondering what I was thinking when I took the Lit. SAT II without prep.

20

Sorry @whatthewhat, I just stopped paying attention to Math 2 800s because there were so many of them. It’s a good question but I don’t know the answer.

Did a quick look at last year’s Yale RD Results thread. It was about 50-50 for acceptances/deferrals for people with humanities SAT IIs of 770 or greater. Those are still really good odds, but it seems like Harvard might weight the Subject tests a little more heavily (as their Admissions Dean alluded to in the NYT article).