<p>Hey everyone!</p>
<p>I was just considering something.. why is that even if a student meets the average SAT/ACT score for a specific school, some people on CC still think they have little to no chance?</p>
<p>For example, Stanford's average SAT score is 2150. I'm sure I've seen tons of people who have posted that had that score, wanted to go to Stanford, and have had their chance predictions turn out dismal.</p>
<p>Is this because most of the people scoring lower than the average are URMs, legacies, or athletes? I don't mean to offend anyone, I was just curious about this phenomenon.</p>
<p>Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>That's a good question. Part of me thinks I should have applied to Brown, Yale, Columbia, Harvard, and Yale.</p>
<p>I think if people meet the average score, they still have a chance at getting in. If they don't by a large margin, I think they have less than stellar chances. I think it's somewhat unfair to some of the OPs to say they have 'No chance!' when it's clear about half the class probably had lower then the average SAT/ACT score.</p>
<p>Somebody once told me that there were more students with perfect SAT scores than there were seats for freshmen at Harvard. The same is true for class rank: for every high school, there's a valedictorian, and there are probably more high schools in the country than there are seats open at perhaps the top 30 or so colleges in the nation.</p>
<p>(This is true fuzzy math I'm doing here :-P)</p>
<p>From my and my peers' experience, know that just because your scores and your grades may be in the range for a school does not mean you're in. Don't think that your 700's and 800's will automatically make you sparkle as an applicant-- especially if you're considering a school like Stanford, where many applicants will have similarly sparkling grades and scores. The great thing, though, is that the contrapositive is also true-- if your scores and grades are not in the range of a school you're looking at, it does not mean you can't get in.</p>
<p>This should come as a relief to you. It means that college admissions is not conducted by robot or computer but rather by real people reading what you have to say about you and what your teachers have to say about you. When people on this site evaluate you, they're trying to get a read in to who you are beyond your test scores. The admissions officers reading your files may or may not agree with the people who post on this site-- it's their take on you that matters at the end of the day.</p>