- Is it true that there isn’t much of a difference once I reach a certain score?</p>
<p>There are two schools of thought on this issue. There are some who hold that there is a threshold score (2100 and 2250 are often thrown around as that number) beyond which score increases do not affect admissions decisions. The other school (to which I belong) believes that higher scores causally correlate with higher chances across the entire score range. Yet consider this College Confidential post from MIT admissions officer Chris Peterson:</p>
<p>Quote:
There is no difference, for our process, between someone with a 750 and an 800 on the Math SAT II. Literally no difference. Once your standardized scores are sufficient to predict success at MIT - to show that you are academically qualified for MIT - they have reached the limit of usefulness, and we move on to other things.
Is this true, though? I don’t think so, at least with respect to every top college except MIT. Why? Two reasons: one, because, logically, SAT scores positively correlate with ability across the entire score range; and two, because all the data support the idea that scores causally correlate with admissions chances across the entire score range. Here is a sampling of some of that data (all of these can be found the schools’ Web sites:</p>
<pre><code>At Stanford, applicants with 800 on the Critical Reading section of the SAT are 64% more likely to be admitted than applicants with 700-790.
At Stanford, applicants with 800 on the Writing section are 58% more likely to be admitted than those with 700-790.
At Princeton, applicants with 2300-2400 on the SAT are 130% more likely to be admitted than applicants with 2100-2290.
At Dartmouth, applicants with 800 on the Critical Reading section of the SAT are 122% more likely to be admitted than applicants with 700-790.
At Dartmouth, applicants with 800 on the Math section of the SAT are 68% more likely to be admitted than applicants with 700-790.
At Dartmouth, applicants with 800 on the Writing section of the SAT are 118% more likely to be admitted than applicants with 700-790.
At Brown, applicants with 800 on the Critical Reading section of the SAT are 39% more likely to be admitted than applicants with 750-790.
At Brown, applicants with 800 on the Math section of the SAT are 28% more likely to be admitted than applicants with 750-790.
At Brown, applicants with 800 on the Writing section of the SAT are 46% more likely to be admitted than applicants with 750-790.
At Brown, applicants with 36 on the ACT are 119% more likely to be admitted than applicants with 33-35 and 273% more likely to be admitted than applicants with 29-32.
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<p>There is no merely correlational explanation for these data; it is illogical that higher scorers’ applications tend to be so much stronger otherwise that the correlation is fully explained away by these confounding variables. Consider, moreover, the results of an analysis that I conducted just over a year ago of the Yale SCEA 2013 results thread on CC:</p>
<pre><code>Total sample size: 148
Asian sample size: 58
Average SAT score for an Asian acceptee (17 were accepted): 2347
White sample size: 52
Average SAT score for a White acceptee (16 were accepted): 2353
The acceptance rate over various ranges for Whites and Asians:
2310-2400: 47% (29/62)
2210-2300: 10% (3/30)
600-2200: 0% (0/16)
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<p>It is, however, important to note that I have no way of confirming the claims of those in the original results thread, nor should we immediately dismiss the issues of self-selection among the posters and the less-than-ideal sample size. Nonetheless, the results are compelling; there is no reason to believe that low-scoring acceptees would be more reluctant to post than low-scoring rejectees.</p>
<p>In totality, these data strongly suggest that the difference threshold facilitated by the metric (i.e., 10 points) dictates the difference threshold for discrimination among scores at the admissions end. At the very least, if there is a threshold for consideration, it is very high.