@TTdd16, but the student was a recruited athlete. Bottom line – odds are good that outliers on the low end for grades and/or test scores are hooked. Athlete, donor relative, URM, amazing/world class EC accomplishment, very famous person.
This feels like a lot of conversation without facts to support it.
“Super-hook’s” are generally known. Child of an actor, best shot-putter in California…these are known. Legacy isn’t that valuable anymore. The one thing folks may not know would be a large donation history or a major donor sponsoring the student. We had an option (unused) to have a family friend who had recently given $10M+ to a school write a recommendation. I can see that helping, but I’m not sure the level needed for Ivy overrides.
The other possibility mentioned is data. It’s difficult to think that the data is wrong, as Naviance is used for a lot of administration by the high schools. The more likely scenario is that the test is an outlier. It’s possible that the studen took the SAT, did poorly, and focused on the ACT (where they performed better). If you sort on the SAT, you’ll see the low score and falsely assume that score means anything. It may never have been submitted anywhere. I would look at the other test scattergram for the GPA, and see if you can “match” the admitted student.
@intparent, yes, I’m totally clear that this student is hooked. The question becomes whether a hook–in this case as a recruit with not-extraordinary athletic talent–trumps an extremely weak academic record: hundreds of points lower than the norm for the SAT (no @EyeVeee, he didn’t take the ACT) and poor grades. Perhaps I’m naive, but I would expect an Ivy to maintain higher standards. You certainly have to wonder whether he’ll be able to perform satisfactorily in college when he did so poorly in high school (again, his GPA would place him in the bottom third of his class and perhaps even bottom quarter.)
Well, it will become clear once they get there. I don’t think it matters what the hook is. The initial question asked by the OP is why there are low outliers, and should they count on the data. The answer is that the outliers are probably hooked, so if you aren’t, ignore those dots.
You will likely see fewer and fewer of these “outliers” in the future, because more and more schools are going “test-optional”. Schools will simply let the outliers know that they should apply without submitting test scores.
So you will see fewer outliers – not because they’ve gone away, but because they’ve become invisible.
^ They will still be visible in Naviance.
Re: #24
Outliers (in terms of low test scores) may become more visible on high school Naviance plots if test optional becomes more common.