How can I best use this data to identify schools for my D?
Can I assume if D’s scores are above the 75% percentile then it is a safety school (obviously excluding the elite schools with low acceptance rates).
And anything in between the 25% and 75% percentile is a possibility?
Any insight on how to bet utilize this data.
If you D’s stat is above the admission median, her chance should be above the admission rate of that school. Nevertheless, this does not really apply to public colleges as the state residence would change the stat significantly. The CDS does not dissect the stat for OOS and in-state students. Nevertheless, you would still get some idea if a school is totally out of reach or not.
A couple of things to note about the CDS: the 2016-17 CDS contains Old SAT scores.
Many schools have not yet published their 2017-18 CDS. The 2017-18 CDS contains New SAT scores, with any Old scores being first converted to New using College Board’s 2016 concordance table and then mixed in. The accuracy of that table is questionable. If a school had a substantial number of applicants submitting Old scores (vs new) for their class of 2021, their SAT scores reported in the 2017-18 CDS might be inflated.
If your child is a junior, I’d keep an eye out for data from the Class of 2022 when it becomes available, probably on colleges’ individual websites in the summer/fall. (For most schools, CDS 2018-19 will be published too late, but many do post updated score ranges on their admissions websites.)
I think it is worth noting that the SAT range for specific schools within a university may differ.
Rutgers New Brunswick SAT Range for the School of Arts & Sciences is 1250 -1430, however, the School of Engineering range is much higher at 1350 - 1500.
A number of schools have already posted the 2017-2018 CDSs – about half of the ones we’re looking at – so I’d just search the CDS page for schools you’re potentially interested in, and/or Google “2017-2018 [or 2017-18] common data set” to get a variety of pages. As @evergreen5 notes, the validity of both the 2016-17 and the 2017-18 scores is probably slightly shaky, as schools were required to not concord to new scores in 2016-17, but I’m not sure all schools followed that guidance, and similar (albeit flipped) issues might be at play in the 2017-18 scores.
Relative to finding the proper schools, I have generally read that “scores at/above 75th percentile + 50%+ acceptance rate = safety,” but I’ve seen a variety of percentages in place of 50% (60%? 70%) and no good explanation of why that percentage is the magic number.
^For the 2016-17 CDS (class of 2020), scores are exclusively Old, as the New test didn’t debut until March of the applicants’ senior year (2016), when admission decisions were already being announced. Exceptions would be schools with summer application deadlines.
I also wonder about safeties and acceptance rates. @DCNatFan , also look at the high school’s Naviance data, which may provide more clues.
Thanks for all great responses. Confusing but helpful.
@evergreen5 I know that, but I think some schools concorded the old scores and reported the new scores (for example, a number of schools don’t report the writing score in the 16-17 reports, only the CR, which doesn’t make sense). So even though very few schools (and probably no schools in the selective arena) had new SAT scores in the 16-17 application process, I’m not 100% convinced that they reported the scores properly in the CDS 6-12 months later.
Also, CDS has enrolled freshmen stat which is slightly different from the admission stat.