Are the decision threads accurate?

<p>Like the ones on CC do you think they match up to the average stats of the people who get into those school or do you think they are higher or lower than the average stats of the people who get in?</p>

<p>I’d say they are higher. If you have a CC account, it’s likely that you are very serious about going to college, and have probably worked hard in high school in hopes of being accepted into your top school. And most people on CC’s top schools are the Ivies, Stanford, Duke, etc.</p>

<p>If you see people on the decision threads talking about how they got accepted into a non-“elite” school, then it’s probably because they were aiming for a much more selective school in the first place. Know what I mean?</p>

<p>There’s still a wide variety of accepted and rejected posts though so it’s accurate. In fact you’ll see many with high stats getting rejected- proof that stats are only one part of your application. The average scores don’t mean very much.</p>

<p>If I recall correctly, the average SAT score of the CCers who were accepted to UChicago this year, as per the official decisions thread in the UChicago subforum, was around 2300. As competitive as UChi has been becoming in recent years, the average SAT score of its incoming freshmen this year is certainly going to be below 2300.</p>

<p>I think this statistical bias exists in most other decisions threads as well.</p>

<p>I would say that they are often vaguely accurate, but not specifically accurate. Most people make their predictions off of a college’s admit rate, where the OP’s SAT score and GPA fall in the middle 50 % of the college, and how they feel about the OP’s ECs. With only minor research, a kid could find the former two for themselves. It’s nice to hear personalized validation for 4 years of work – even in the form of a chance thread – but I submit that just looking at a college guide will give you a more reasonable estimate of your chances.</p>

<p>Of course, that’s just assuming that the person replying knows a competent amount about colleges. In the scenario of another kid replying just to get a chance-back, an unfortunate amount of misinformation gets propagated. </p>

<p>This isn’t to say that everyone responding is misinformed, but to say that a kid looking for chances has to take responses with a huge grain of salt. It’s a fun game, but nothing to take too seriously.</p>

<p>Most people on CC will say that the subjective parts of their app are “good” or “awesome” so I don’t think they really are a completely accurate measure, because not everyone is going to be wowing adcoms with their essays. A lot of people get rejected with high stats, it seems, but I don’t know how that compares to the overall applicant pool.</p>

<p>The consensus on CC seems to be that if you are unhooked without stats in the top 75%, you will have a very difficult time getting admitted, but this seems a bit extreme.</p>

<p>to answer this question you’ld have to assume that everyone on decision threads are telling the truth…</p>

<p>@stressdoutt oh yeah I forgot there are actual humans behind these screens.</p>

<p>Well the stats of accepted students may be high, but also bear in mind that there are stats of rejected students, so you can see the situation from both ends of the spectrum. Sure a lot of people with high scores got accepted, but a lot of people with high scores also got rejected, so I don’t know if it’s possible to quantify it with the “average” stats of the school.</p>