<p>What can be inferred by data such as these? :</p>
<p>Admitted students SAT middle 50% = 1290 - 1460 and ACT 28 - 32
Enrolled students SAT middle 50% = 1230 - 1390 and ACT 27 - 31</p>
<p>This is the first time I've seen a comparison and I'm trying to figure out what to do with it.</p>
<p>Admitted students are students who were given letters of acceptance.
Enrolled students are students who were given letters of acceptance AND decided to go to that college.</p>
<p>The admitted student score will usually be higher, as there are students who are admitted, but choose to enroll in a “better” school on the hierarchy.</p>
<p>At top schools the two groups are very close. The big differences come when a significant number of applicants are using the school as a safety.</p>
<p>A lot of people, prospective students and parents alike, fail to notice the difference. And frankly, the difference, as hmom5 mentioned, is not usually very large at just-below-the-top schools. </p>
<p>The Common Data Set reports Enrolled students’ stats. In the spring, the admissions blogs report Admitted students stats. Both are useful for different reasons. If you want to estimate your chances at being admitted, the admitted scores may be helpful. If you want to use test scores as a measure of whether your fellow students are your peers (I’m not condoning this), then you want to look at CDS data, not the admissions blogs.</p>
<p>I read a cc thread once in which a rabid fan of one east coast school ranted on about how the students were smarter than those at a certain southern school because the mid-50 range was higher. As it turns out, the poster was using admitted student data for one school and enrolled student data for the other. As it turned out, the enrolled student data gave the advantage to the other school.</p>
<p>Yes, people can be silly.</p>