Are they telling the truth?

<p>U of C seems to pride itself on the fact that they emphasize thinkers, and read very carefully into the essays. They also say that SAT scores are not as important as those things. How true do you think that really is? I mean, all schools say that type of stuff, but the general trend is that only very high scorers get into good colleges.</p>

<p>This Newsweek article is a little old, but I think it still works about the same.</p>

<p><a href="http://members.cox.net/scfun/sceduc-cl-newsweek.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://members.cox.net/scfun/sceduc-cl-newsweek.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>the general trend is also that high SATers are thinkers...</p>

<p>maybe i am wrong. of course there are exceptions. now, are you a junior or a senior? if you are a senior, it is a bit on the late side to be thinking about this stuff.</p>

<p>idad - thanks for the article!
soanyhows - i think it is very narrow of you to say that the ones that are real "thinkers" are the ones who are superior at verbal syntax and arithmetic skills. As for me, yes, I am a senior, but I just discovered this site now and was interested to see what people thought.</p>

<p>Some of the higher LACs won't even ask for test scores.</p>

<p>They are competitive schools that don't need to see that you know how to take a test.</p>

<p>And the people that apply to these schools and get in usually (coincidentally) have these high numbers, or at least potential for it, without needing to submit it.</p>

<p>I have a friend waitlisted at northwestern with a pretty shoddy SAT (1100 maybe)</p>

<p>Although his situation is different than most because he is going to be a music preformance major. The guitar professor loved him but northwestern (unlike some schools) looks at grades and stuff as well with the music teachers only having a little input into the actual admissions to the college. While he is an IB diploma hopeful, he has a pretty bad downward trend to his grades...but they didnt flat out reject him.</p>