<p>Woot! I'm a 4. Is this thing accurate? I'm in bad shape if it is. I mean, I have a 22/356 rank, 700W, 660M, 700R and that gives me a 4. Well, what do you think? What are you ranked?</p>
<p>(You can find it on the main CC site)</p>
<p>shark_bite...don't use your rank...instead put in your gpa...and see if that helps..</p>
<p>hahaha, i don't know my rank, so i used GPA and i got 9 out of 9, which is most definitely not true...</p>
<p>3/9?? hmm i dont like that too much. oh well i still got into my number 1 regardless.</p>
<p>That Academic Index thing is full of crap anyway.</p>
<p>5/9... but I didn't apply to any Ivies anyway.</p>
<p>haha, it told me i'm an academic 7. yeah right. when i'm on CC i feel like i'm an academic negative 7.</p>
<p>Your Academic Index: 216
AI Rank*: 6 out of 9 -----> 9 out of 9 because I'm hispanic
based on the following data:</p>
<p>SAT I Verbal: 700 SAT I Math: 760</p>
<p>SAT II No. 1: 780 SAT II No. 2: 750 SAT II No. 3: 610 (left halfway through hist because nature called and i wasn't sitting on a toilet.)
Rank is 14 in a class of 448</p>
<p>Score one for the hispanic =D</p>
<p>P.S. - I'm making fun of those that feel affirmative action guarentees any applicant a chance to get into ivies.</p>
<p>4/9, 210. poo. </p>
<p>cr: 760 math: 650</p>
<p>SAT IIs: 750 literature and 660 math 2. </p>
<p>it must be my rank, 14/600. </p>
<p>bah.</p>
<p>Nope, actually the scale is kinda like an exponential curve. You see little change until you get to the VERY high stats. The difference between 5 and 9 is like the difference between 1 and a 2.</p>
<p>I think the calculator is relatively accurate if you know your exact rank and class size. But with the GPA, it gets really goofy.</p>
<p>weird, a drop in a class rank of 2 brought me from 9 to 8... i mean, come on! its two ranks!</p>
<p>I'm an adult and the fact the CC has the AI on its website really ticks me off. "A is for Admissions" by Michelle Hernandez was written in 1997 and she made a big deal out of the AI. The book has also been criticized because she breaks adcoms into two groups: First, the recent graduates of ivy league schools who "although they are not experienced in admissions, they know the caliber of students who are accepted into highly selective colleges because of their firsthand experience with their supertalented classmates." Secondly, the "lifers" who she disdains because they did not graduate from ivies, as she did. In warning applicants about the "lifers", she says "What I am trying to say without shocking you too much is that the very best of the applicants will often be brighter than many of those who will be evaluating them." Be sure to sure small easy to understand words in your essays, guys. She also says "many admissions officers are not expert readers", and "most of them are not scholars or intellectuals" and so "oftentimes subtle points are overlooked even though they can be crucial to understanding a student's academic potential". Adcoms also can "feel threatened or jealous of [the applicants]".</p>
<p>The AI was conceived and is used primarily for athletes in order to insure that they are not accepted if they fall below a certain minimum academic level. It is pretty simple minded. There are three inputs: SAT I (verbal and math) scores, three SAT II scores, and a class rank score. If the SAT I scores are better than the SAT II scores, then the SAT II scores are ignored. The class rank is a table lookup. One table is used if an absolute rank is given and another table is used if only the gpa is available. The way that the class rank score is computed penalizes applicants from smaller class sizes. </p>
<p>In "What it Really Takes to Get Into the Ivy League" written by Chuck Hughes and published in 2003, he writes:</p>
<p>"The AI is most often applied in the evaluation of athletes, and in some cases will act as a minimum set of academic standards for the handful of cases each year that are on the academic edge for admission." </p>
<p>"the Ivy League uses the numeric AI formula to help compare student-athletes" academic credentials to the general student body within each school."</p>
<p>"Every student admitted to an Ivy League university has a calculated AI, though in nonathletic cases it is rarely looked at as part of the admissions decision-making process. Each year, the AI average is calculated for each of the Ivy schools, and this average becomes the baseline for athletic admissions for each school. The average AI for all athletes admitted to each of the Ivy institutions must fall within one standard deviation of the entire admitted class from the previous year, and only a handful of athletes each year can be admitted with an AI greater than 2.5 of a standard deviation from the class AI average."</p>
<p>where is this?</p>
<p>9 out of 9.</p>
<p>Well, I guess it's 50% accurate (admission process is about 50% grades/rank/SATs, right?).</p>
<p>yep the other 50% is luck</p>
<p>2/9 I don't care that much really, I got into my number choice regardless.</p>
<p>The AI Calculator is merely ONE way to get a rough idea of one's academic competitiveness - we try to make it clear that a low or high ranking isn't by any means a confident prediction of actual likelihood of admission in any particular school. It's got lots of flaws, most notably that nonacademic criteria like ECs and leadership aren't factored in at all.</p>
<p>The main value, I'd say, is that it can provide a very quick reality check for students who lack good HS counseling. When a trusted teacher with no Ivy admissions experience tells a student, "You are a great candidate, you'll get in everywhere you apply", calculating an AI can give the student some idea of whether they are highly competitive with other applicants or somewhere in the pack of "really good but not incredible standout" applicants. I wouldn't use it for much more than that.</p>
<p>Here's the link, by the way: Academic</a> Index Calculator.</p>
<p>I think the CC site gives alot of credibility to the AI, and doesn't explain its true unimportance. Specific quotes from the site are:
[quote]
"Ivy League colleges use a tool called the Academic Index to summarize the academic performance of applicants. Originally developed as a means of establishing common standards for student-athlete applicants, the Academic Index (AI) has become a sort of shorthand for ranking students. ... the AI does provide a quick snapshot to harried college admissions staff members. ... Perhaps the only major surprise in the Academic Index is the key role of the SAT II scores. ... the Academic Index is a fact of life in Ivy League admissions, so applicants should understand it and, if possible, maxiimize their own AI."
[/quote]
The quote about the SAT II's being a big component of the AI is also wrong since they are completely ignored if the SAT I scores are better than the SAT II scores.</p>
<p>I find this CC site to be really misleading.</p>
<p>The rank thing doesn't work well. My school doesn't rank, so I just put in my GPA and SATs. It gave me a 9/9. But when I put in that I'm in the top 10% (which is true), it gave me a 6.</p>