Anyone who got accepted without AMAZING test scores?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Stanford University
1

<p>Hey guys,</p>

<p>I was wondering if anyone would be willing to share their application experience and for those who got accepted, were any of you accepted without 2200+ SAT? or 32+ ACT? It's just that I feel like my EC's and academic performance are my strong point and I'm sure there are other ppl out there who do very well in school but just seem to struggle with these standardized tests. I'm a straight A student, unfortunately 2040 on my SAT, so I want to know, and I'm sure others would like to know, how you guys got in with below exceptional scores.</p>

<p>Thank you!</p>

2

<p>Plenty, but they’re usually superstar athletes or winners of national contests and such.</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/stanford-university/433076-accepted-1700-sat-score.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/stanford-university/433076-accepted-1700-sat-score.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>If you haven’t seen it yet.</p>

3

<p>Plenty of people get in with scores below 2200 on the SAT. However, most of the people who are accepted with scores below the middle-50th-percentile range are recruited athletes or URMs.</p>

4

<p>+1 to above posters.</p>

5

<p>I got accepted with a 2030 sat score, didn’t take the act though and my sat 2s were all in like 650-720 range</p>

6

<p>^Being from Alaska is something of a hook at schools that like to have all 50 states represented.</p>

7

<p>Pickle, do you mind posting some of your stats? Other than the fact that you’re from Alaska, I’m sure you had some other good things on your app. I was born in China, and came to the US when I was seven. Does this do me any good? or does it put me with all the other Asians and get AA’ed? also, what exactly is a hook? and what constitutes a good one? </p>

<p>Thanks for all your responses, appreciate it</p>

8

<p>you will probably be viewed as a domestic asian american so that won’t help you at all. being a native american is a good one</p>

9

<p>I have a friend who got in with an 1830. I don’t know much about the rest of his application; it never came up. He got into MIT as well. I was surprised.</p>

10

<p>He coulda had a high ACT…or a recuited athlete.</p>

11

<p>I think as long as your GPA and ECs are up there, you’ll at least have a shot. After all, there’s a significant amount of risk for people with stellar scores, to begin with - so even those without the scores have a reasonable chance.</p>

12

<p>Well from Alaska is huge, I had really good recommendations including one from a Harvard Professor, I was a multi-state placer for wrestling (will not be wrestling next year so that wasn’t for recruiting), as well as lettering in basketball, cross country, and baseball. I have been a commercial fisherman my whole life, Student Government all 4 years of high school, small school (14 kids graduating class), went to national leadership conference (6 from each state selected by the states athletic/activity association), I had a 4.0 and took hardest classes the school offered, went to the Harvard Summer School Program last year and received A’s in both the classes I took, like I said before regular SAT was 2030 and SAT 2s I had in the range of 650-720 in Math 1 and Math 2 and in Literature. So it is possible to get in with low test grades but I do have the fishing which I wrote my personal essay on and other things. Basically if you want to get in be involved in as much as possible and try to focus/excel in at least one thing that you love.</p>

13

<p>Absolutely- (significant) family largess to the school, amazing athletic prowess will offset a multitude of academic shortcomings.</p>

14

<p>Accepted </p>

<p>From Texas</p>

<p>SAT: 1970
ACT: 29</p>

<p>GPA: weighted 4.1</p>

<p>no honors, AP or IB classes of any sort available at school</p>

<p>not an athlete or the winner of any important event
not rich but Stanford doesn’t know how much money you make when you apply</p>

15

<p>^Colleges can often deduce from various aspects of an application (location and quality of school, parental information, etc.) whether a student is low income. And haven’t you posted elsewhere in these threads that you are a URM? These factors, especially together, will make top colleges more forgiving about standardized test scores and curricular rigor. Well-off students (with more opportunities for effective college prep and all the other advantages associated with being well-off) and non-URMs who present with stats like yours usually won’t get as close a look.</p>

16

<p>accepted with 2070 SAT
sat II
math 2 790
chem 750
gpa 4.32 on a capped 4.32 scale
uw 4.00
class rank 1/568
ap’s
euro 3
span lang 3
us history 4
eng lang 3
chemistry 4
calculus ab 5
us gov 5
statistics 5
calculus bc 5
ab subscore 5
eng lit 3</p>

<p>ec’s theatre/musical theatre since i was 7
travelball softball coach for 2 years
lead alto sax in both wind ensemble and adv jazz band
played alto sax since 5th grade
piano for ten years
improv team
student gov</p>

<p>job
doing ALL the yard work (said it just to make them laugh)</p>

<p>essays
about persistance and passion
one was about how i want to work at disneyland as an imagineer (it showed them my knowledge of everything disney and how i have a vision)
another one i talked about an internship kinda thing that i did at uc davis called the young scholars program
in all of them i showed my quirky and whimsical side as well as my dedication.</p>

<p>so yeah you can get in with less than a 2070 i just think it has to do with making yourself standout like i also talked about how my community service was coaching softball. who do you know that coaches softball for community service??? most people volunteer at the hospital so i showed how i was different than everyone else. and make sure your essays show how you can bring diversity and “intellectual vitality” as it states in the prompt. don’t try and show how smart you are but rather how different you can be!!!</p>