<p>I’m not sure that this is a real shift. 4% of 200 is only 8 students - enrolling 8 more kids who scored under 700 on the SAT math section doesn’t feel like a big change to me. Additionally, the mid-50% range has not shifted at all, which strongly suggests that the bulk of the students have the same sort of scores. It is also the case that this year’s pool was the largest of the last few years.
So, what does this all add up to? Hard to say. I wonder if some of those 600-699 kids were only able to afford one SAT sitting. Or perhaps the SAT was just a hair harder - it would only take a couple of questions to knock a pile of kids down from 700 into the high 600s.
I like the admissions ratio now - I think that a ratio of 1/3 to about 1/5 is just about ideal in terms of general sanity. Above that , the process is arbitrary and below that, quality of candidates begins to weaken. (I have no proof of this - it’s just a gut feel.)</p>