Black SAT Scores?

Applying to College
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<p>The following page shows SAT percentiles by race:
<a href="http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/SAT-Percentile-Ranks-By-Gender-Ethnicity-2013.pdf"&gt;http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/SAT-Percentile-Ranks-By-Gender-Ethnicity-2013.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>What I want to know is if anyone has any estimates (personal or based on data) on the number of African Americans in the "99+" range (2200+ SAT for the purposes of this question), and what the acceptance rate for these African Americans would be at an Ivy or equally high-caliber school (MIT, Stanford, etc.)</p>

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<p>You presume way too much. You presume a goodly number of this batch are applying to HYMS et al. And then none of them keep stats on something as explosive as you seem to imply. Finally, it’s not as these students gather together to fill out a database afterward.</p>

<p>Suffice it to say, EVERY student in the 99th percentile is highly coveted</p>

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<p>As T26E4 states above, any applicant in the 99th percentile is likely going to be a competitive applicant, regardless of race or ethnicity. </p>

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<p>I’ll state my questions for you more plainly:</p>

<p>How many African Americans have SAT scores of 2200 or higher?
What is the acceptance rate of African Americans with SAT scores of 2200 or higher at Ivy League schools and other schools of equal caliber?</p>

<p>I don’t find anything “explosive” about them. They’re legitimate questions that deserve answers. I’m not presuming or implying anything outside of what I explicitly state. I know there isn’t much data on this, hence why I am asking for your own personal estimates, which could be based on actual statistics or complete guesswork.</p>

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<p>I think your hope for black students’ SAT scores linked to accept rates is going to be difficult if not impossible to find. You have the CB stats above. A VERY rough estimate would be that 650s (approximating 1950), across the board are 98th percentile: roughly 4200 kids. If 700s (roughly 2100) is 99th percentile, you’re likely looking at a number less than 2,100.</p>

<p>Here’s something that may be of use:</p>

<p><a href=“Black First-Year Students at the Nation’s Leading Research Universities : The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education”>http://www.jbhe.com/2013/11/jbhe-annual-survey-black-first-year-students-at-nations-leading-research-universities/&lt;/a&gt;
(make sure you read the note about methodology and the self-identification of African heritage info. I THINK these numbers omit international students of African heritage, however)</p>

<p>But ultimately there’s no breakdown of what their scores were.</p>

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<p>In addition to the above, see this article with 2005 data: <a href=“The Widening Racial Scoring Gap on the SAT College Admissions Test”>http://www.jbhe.com/features/49_college_admissions-test.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>LOL: I stole my link from one of Gibby’s posts elsewhere! All attribution to him</p>

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<p>^^ Thank you, but when I found you posted the link, I found another one that may be helpful to the OP!</p>

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<p>While College Board doesn’t report combined scores of that nature, they do report the percentile ranks of each section here:</p>

<p><a href=“http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/SAT-Percentile-Ranks-by-Gender-Ethnicity-2012.pdf”>http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/SAT-Percentile-Ranks-by-Gender-Ethnicity-2012.pdf&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/SAT-Percentile-Ranks-by-Gender-Ethnicity-2013.pdf”>http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/SAT-Percentile-Ranks-by-Gender-Ethnicity-2013.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>The 99th percentile for each section begins somewhere between a 650 and a 700 for African Americans. It’s not possible to tell from that how many are in the 2200+ range, and the College Board - as far as I can tell - doesn’t release statistics on the percentile ranks of combined scores for each ethnic group. It would be a very small number indeed, probably less than 0.5% of African American test takers. There were 210,151 African American SAT takers in 2013. 1% of that would be 2,101 and 0.5% would be about 1,051.</p>

<p>As was already stated, a 2200+ student would be very competitive anywhere they applied (assuming an otherwise great application), regardless of race. But since schools don’t release general acceptance rate figures by SAT score range, why would you think this information exists about African American students?</p>

<p>23,295 students were accepted to the Ivy League schools. The percentage of students who are African American at Ivy League schools is about 7% across the board, so out of the applicants that would be about 1,603. Even if we assume that a national parity number (~13%) of people who were accepted to Ivies were black that would be about 3,028. A low estimate would be around 5%, which is about 1,165. These are just the 8 Ivy Leagues, but if we take the 1,603 number and assume that only half of one percent (so 1,051) scored above a 2200 on the SAT, that’s more than enough room for all of the 2200+ scorers at the Ivy Leagues - they’d have to dip lower in the SAT percentile rank ranges to get all of their African American accepted students. So African American students with a 2200+ to just the 8 Ivy Leagues, assuming that they are competing only with each other (which is a kind of absurd assumption), would be competing with fewer people than actually get slots, making the competition pretty good for them overall.</p>

<p>Even if we take the high estimate of 2,101 (which is WAY too high, since we know that 1% of African Americans don’t get a 2200 on the SAT), the 1,603 only leaves out about 500 black kids. There’s more than enough space at places like Swarthmore, Amherst, MIT, Stanford, Rice, etc., for them.</p>

<p>This math makes a LOT of assumptions, btw - it’s just a thought exercise.</p>

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<p>My D (black) was accepted to Penn, class of 2018, with a 2150 SAT (660 CR, 720 M, 770 W.) She was denied at both Yale and Brown, if that at all helps your inquiry. </p>

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<p>So why is our new poster asking? OP says he/she is not presuming anything, but each time this sort of detail arises, it does lead to explosive assumptions. The acceptances to the elites are not solely about stats, nor about race, legacy or etc. There has to be a show of other strengths and attributes. Athletes, imo, are fair game.</p>

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<p><a href=“He's all-Ivy — accepted to all 8 Ivy League colleges”>http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/03/31/ivy-league-admissions-college-university/7119531/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>@Julliet wrote:

Based upon the above article. and the link from JBHE which I posted earlier, 1% of African Americans do score about that.</p>

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<p>Thank you to everyone who answered my questions! The links are also very helpful.</p>

<p>@lookingforward I was merely asking out of curiosity. Every once in a while someone will come along and ask questions just for the sake of knowing their answers. As far as I’m concerned, any individual accepted to an elite college, regardless of race, gender, color, code, or creed, deserves to be there for whatever reason (intelligence, overcoming obstacles, showing great character, working hard to become an exceptional athlete, etc.) and I have never argued against that, nor will I ever argue against it.</p>

<p>@juillet I appreciate the detail and time you put into your post. There was a lot of good information in there. But to answer your question, I must say again that I did not expect this information to be made available to the public by any official source, which is why I was just asking for everyone’s estimates, which, again, could be based on a patchwork quilt of data that is available or basic opinion (of which you seemed to take the former approach).</p>

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<p>We know the 99th %ile for total test-taker population breaks about 2220. We see from looking at the general SAT data tables that a balanced 2250 score of 750/750/750 places one in 98th %ile in all 3 subsections. If AA population is similar, then a balanced score that places them in 98th %ile for AA in all 3 subsections might be close to their 99th %ile composite break. That would be about 650/650/650 = 1950 .</p>

<p>gibby, if an article says a student scored in the top 1%, that does not extrapolate to mean he is on the lower edge of that 1%. Clearly his score is well within that top 1%, almost surely in 99th+.</p>

<p>Here are average SAT scores of Harvard freshmen by race. AA = 2107, W = 2233, Asian/Indian = 2299.
<a href=“The Harvard Crimson | Class of 2017”>http://features.thecrimson.com/2013/frosh-survey/admissions.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;