Hello,
The college counselor at my high school said that there are some colleges, such as Boston University, which emphasize on SAT scores and that students with high scores can get in even if their grades are weaker than the average. However, I find this hard to believe.
Does anyone have any experience / knowledge on whether this is true or not? Also if this is true, does anyone know other colleges which do this?
I heard this is also done at Vanderbilt, but I’m unsure if that is true.
Definitely not true at Vandy, based on my kid’s experience. Not sure what you mean by a high score, but he had a 35 ACT/1540 SAT, 10.5 AP classes amongst other things but not a super unweighted GPA, and he got rejected. This was for 2018. We hard heard about USC emphasizing scores as well, but he got rejected from there as well. He did apply for CS at both places, which probably would be tougher than all other majors to get in.
Regarding USC, you can compare the frosh profiles of USC and UCLA. USC is higher in test scores, while UCLA is higher in HS GPA (both include unweighted HS GPA in their profiles to compare).
But applying to CS would make it harder.
That certainly wasn’t the impression we got from the info session we attended at BU.
I’ve read here on CC that WashU really emphasizes very high SAT/ACT scores. Not sure how solid this info is, however.
@AlmostThere2018 my impression of WashU is that a high SAT is expected - a lower one can scupper your chances , but a high one will not offset low grades. The middle 50% SAT in their admitted students this year is 1470-1570, so one could say a high SAT score is actually normal there, or alternatively that you’d need above 1570 SAT to really stand out. OP’s sat score as reported in another thread is 1520.
Generally schools want to see both high test scores and strong grades. One doesn’t make up for the other.
When trying to establish a college list of reach/target/safety schools, use the weaker link in your application.
You can look at the Common Data Set in section C7 to see what a school emphasizes for admittance.
Usually Big State schools mostly look at GPA/SAT/ACT/course difficulty.
Having a lower GPA relative to SAT says that you either have some learning issues or do not put much emphasis on schoolwork. Colleges want students who can succeed…if you are not doing well in HS, college is that much more difficult. Figure out why your gpa doesn’ t match your SAT.
You can get some idea by looking at scattergrams and reviewing how scores compare to other colleges with similar selectivity. For example if you look at Vanderbilt scattergrams, it almost looks like there is a wall at their 75th percentile score of 35 ACT. Students with a 34 are often rejected, but few are rejected with a 35, even if GPA is lower
Vanderbilt also seems to have notably higher score average than one would expect based on selectivity. Some examples from the most recent class are below. Vanderbilt has scores on par or slightly above HYPS, even though it is less selective.
Vanderbilt – 750/800 Math, 700/760 English, ACT 33-35
Princeton – 730/790 Math, 700/770 English, ACT 32-35
Stanford – 720/800 Math, 700/770 English, ACT 32-35
Emory – 700/790 Math, 690/750 English, ACT 31-35
Vanderbilt also sponsors national merit scholarships, and has more NMS students than any of the above, when including the sponsored ones. It also has had scores increase rapidly while becoming more selective, to a greater extend than the vast majority of other colleges with comparable increases in selectivity. All of this suggests a greater emphasis on scores than most other highly selective, holistic colleges.
Some state flagships like the high scores from oos students with high potential. Though you have to have a solid if not elite gpa and record to go along with it. The emphasis being on the scores which was your question.
The scores above for Emory correspond to those announced for admitted applicants, and therefore do not equal, nor necessarily strongly approximate, the scores for attending students.
@merc81
The scores @Data10 posted for Stanford are also admit stats like Emory’s, which doesn’t matter much as enrolled stats for both schools have historically not dropped much from admit stats.
Also the fact Vandy has higher enrolled stats than Stanfords admit stats solidifys his point.
However, Emory’s middle-range ACT for attending students as included on its CDS (30-33, though for the previous year) appears substantially different from the range for admitted students posted above (31-35). I’d be more likely to attribute the difference to Emory’s yield (~27%) than to year-to-year variation.
@merc81
The enrolled Range for Emory for the class of 2021 is based on an Admitted class if 30-34, this year it increased to 31-35 for admitted, one can assume the enrolled will increase as well. Also, Emory’s SAT range is higher than its ACT range at 1350-1520 for the enrolled class of 2021.
Lastly, percentile ranges can be misleading, as Emory’s avg enrolled ACT is a 32 and 1427 SAT, as indicated by US news. Meaning Emory’s distribution is more tightly bunched together compared to other schools.
Based on those figures, that’s a fair assumption, @emorynavy.
The other notable thing about Emory is that high scores will not compensate for lower GPA’s with them. A high SAT or ACT needs to be accompanied by an equally high GPA. Their motto is that a high GPA can compensate for a lower test score but a high test score will never compensate for a low GPA. They firmly believe that GPA is the best indicator of academic success.
The Stanford scores were for “enrolled students” in the class of 2022, as listed at https://admission.stanford.edu/apply/selection/profile.html . Emory’s were for admitted, which explains why the 75th percentile ACT was as high as Vanderbilt and HYPS. An updated list is below using Emory’s enrolled for previous year in CDS.
Vanderbilt – 750/800 Math, 700/760 English, ACT 33-35
Princeton – 730/790 Math, 700/770 English, ACT 32-35
Stanford – 720/800 Math, 700/770 English, ACT 32-35
Cornell – 710/790 Math, 680/750 English, ACT 32-34
Emory – 680/780 Math, 670/740 English, ACT 30-33 (previous year)
@Data10
Again year old data for Emory up to date for everyone else.
Last year Stanford was a 1390-1540
Last year Emory a 1350-1520
Again Emory not much lower than the other, about where it should be.
@emorynavy , where are you getting your figures from? Data10 is probably getting this from the Emory Univ website.
http://opb.emory.edu/documents/data/Emory-Common-Data-Set-2017-2018.pdf
This has been clearly stated as the latest one.
Here is the corresponding Stanford one for 2017-18. I see a big gap between the two!
https://ucomm.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2018/06/stanford-cds-2017.pdf
@emorynavy Data 10 is pulling straight from the CDS and is correct. Also you can’t combine the english and math scores to come up with the middle 50% which it appears you have done.