Can a (very) high SAT score make a big difference in elite college admissions?

Applying to College
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<p>^This scoring theory seems credible (although I would personally believe that an 8, 9, or 10 pt applicant has about the same chance of admittance). On what information do you base this theory? - Are you member of adcom? Is this from an adcom posting? or is this just hypothesised from your wealth of experience in the forums?</p>

<p>Although the part were you suggest “if a school is 16% admit rate, a 9 or 10 point applicant has 16% chance” does not seem accurate. Clearly only a percentage of total applicants are 9 or 10 point applicants, and of this sub-set I would suggest the acceptance rate would certainly be higher then the overal admit rate for the school.</p>

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<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/9925771-post27.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/9925771-post27.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>The article he’s describing: <a href=“http://www.infogoaround.org/CollegesChinese/RevealRanking.pdf[/url]”>http://www.infogoaround.org/CollegesChinese/RevealRanking.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Where did you find this information?</p>

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<p>^this data is available on the college search function of College Confidential. I believe its from 1 1/2 admission cycles ago, but is the most current Nat. Center for Educ. Stats data as far as I know.</p>

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<p>These data are accessible at collegedata.com. Put in the name of the school, and under Admissions, is listed the 25/75 taken from CDS for I believe 2009. Or you can get each school’s Common Data Set by googling it. YOu want Section C9.</p>

<p>Here is what I show without looking it all up again. This is the average (midpoint is probably about the same) of the 25/75 of published SAT CR + R.</p>

<p>H: 1485
Y: 1495
P: 1485
S: 1440
M: 1470</p>

<p>shortcut would be to multiply those by 1.5 to get CR+M+W. Doing this you arrive at about 2230 as the approx. midpoint for HYPM, and at 2160 for S (the DI athletic monster must be fed!).</p>

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No, not part of an adcom. Three years ago I read a couple of books on how adcoms operate, tally scores, etc. One was the book on Wesleyan admissions. The other I can’t remember now.</p>

<p>Then there are the adcom members who post here occassionally. One in particular addressing the importance of a perfect SAT, is here: <a href=“http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/apply/standardized_test_requirements/whats_the_big_deal_about_402.shtml[/url]”>http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/apply/standardized_test_requirements/whats_the_big_deal_about_402.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>The 3.8 GPA is at a school that doesn’t weight. 3.8 is probably amongst the top quarter at my school, maybe a little higher than that. But I go to a private school that is a pretty massive feeder school.</p>