<p>I suspect that Haon's writings are aimed to combat some of the anti-Williams sentiment that is so prevalent on these boards.</p>
<p>Again, of the admissions staff that I have encountered throughout my admittedly brief post-college experience, Williams' certainly ranks in the bottom half. They're not exactly what I would call the best sales people. </p>
<p>I have no idea why they told your son to re-take a 1460. There is no doubt in my mind that Williams is very score focused, and I think this is a result of two major factors. First, as ID pointed out schools like to maintain high SAT scores for academic prestige reasons. People tend to link high SAT scores with better students and better schools. </p>
<p>Secondly, Williams has refined this academic point system to ensure that only X number of recruited athletes within certain parameters are admitted. They only want to admit 10 low-band admits per year (academic 6's and 7's). Coaches do NOT have the ability to admit whomever they want within certain parameters. It seems that Williams has developed these psuedo-quotas for everyone ranging from varsity athletes to musicians to legacies to african americans. These substrata of students must fit neatly into the academic categories established by the admissions offices. For example, they might decide that they will only accept X number of legacies with academic scores of 3 or below. I have no doubt that the athletics debate was the primary impetus behind this rigid academic classification system.</p>
<p>JrPar, it appears that your son would fit the qualifications of an academic 3. He would have to compete with other legacies who also happen to be academic 3's. (I'm sure most are accepted, but some probably aren't.) If he bumped his score up to a 1520, he would be an academic 2, and the admissions office would have no problem admitting him. </p>
<p>The admissions office also may have told him to re-take the SAT because with higher scores he may have had more options from which to choose. They may have thought of their advice as charitable.Though I'm inclined to believe the former explanation rather than the latter to be true.</p>
<p>"Can't we all just get along???!!!!!!"</p>