<p>^^ It’s part of Harvard’s Common Data Set. See section C9: <a href=“http://www.provost.harvard.edu/institutional_research/CDS_2011-2012_Final.pdf[/url]”>http://www.provost.harvard.edu/institutional_research/CDS_2011-2012_Final.pdf</a>. A 2100 SAT or 31 ACT is Harvard’s 25th percentile, meaning that 25% of admitted Harvard students had those scores or below.</p>
<p>efeens44,</p>
<p>There are any number of sites that report median SAT scores for colleges.</p>
<p>Here’s the College Board page that shows Harvard’s median 50% SAT scores:</p>
<p><a href=“BigFuture College Search”>BigFuture College Search;
<p>As you can see, they report CR 700 - 800, M 710 - 790, W 710 - 800. That means that the middle 50% of their admitted students scored between 700 and 800 on the Critical Reading subtest, etc. That means that 25% of admitted students scored below a 700 on CR, below M 710 and below W 710, or in other words, roughly speaking, 25% of admitted students scored below a 2120.</p>
<p>Here’s another website with similar data:</p>
<p>[Harvard</a> University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Reviews, Rankings, Comparisons.](<a href=“http://colleges.findthebest.com/l/1929/Harvard-University]Harvard”>http://colleges.findthebest.com/l/1929/Harvard-University)</p>
<p>They have the median 50% at CR 690 - 790, M 700 - 800, W 690 - 790, for a composite of approximately 2080 with a median of 2230. In other words, half the admitted students score below a 2230, and 25% score below roughly a 2080.</p>
<p>I don’t think one can conclude what the 25 percentile for the sat composite is by looking at the subsections.
That would not account for the literature major who gets a 680 in math and 800 on the other two sections or the math major who gets a 680 in writing and 800 in the other two sections</p>
<p>I doubt that the lower 25 percent of composite got the lowest scores in each of the sections.</p>
<p>collegedad2013,</p>
<p>You’re correct, which is why I said “roughly” or “approximately.” It’s statistically sloppy, but I don’t think it’s too wild a guess, in that most sites report a median overall score for Harvard of around 2230, give or take, and that happens to be just about the sum of the mid-point of all three subscore ranges provided.</p>
<p>But how do those sites get that data if it is not something Harvard reports?</p>
<p>My guess is that they look at the composite and make some assumptions.</p>
<p>If the 25th% is 2100,the notion that it’s common or even remotley likely that an unhooked applicant with a score <2100 has any real chance is folly.I didn’t say impossible just not darn likely.I know that many claim the holistic approach mean scores aren’t all that. That’s the politicaly correct thing to say, but it’s baloney for an unhooked applicant at Tier 1 schools.</p>
<p>Recruited athletes and developmental admits (aka super rich people) and legacies also populate the bottom 25 percent so be careful assuming a regular kid is someone with a lower test score.</p>
<p>^ I’m not defining a “regular” kid. Any unhooked kid( NON URM,Athlete,legacy,developmental etc) with SAT score in the bottom 25th percentile has an extremely slim chance of admittance.</p>
<p>^I think everyone has a slim chance but I spoke with an admissions representative who said that a recruited athlete is allowed 2 standard deviations below the mean scores. I don’t know how many points that is but it’s less.</p>
<p>^ A buddy of mine’s son is at Yale(football).The coach has certain amount of slots for kids on a 1-5 scale re:score wise.I wonder if any normal kids get any rythem in the bottom percentiles??</p>
<p>I would reiterate that “normal” doesn’t mean the same thing as “average.”</p>
<p>Madaboutx: By Ivy League rules, recruited athletes cannot be 1 (not 2) standard deviation away from the rest of a student body. See: <a href=“Before Athletic Recruiting in the Ivy League, Some Math - The New York Times”>Before Athletic Recruiting in the Ivy League, Some Math - The New York Times. Also see: <a href=“http://www.tier1athletics.org/category/ivy-league-academics/[/url]”>http://www.tier1athletics.org/category/ivy-league-academics/</a></p>
<p>Well I think you are extraordinary student :)</p>
<p>collegedad2013,</p>
<p>I understand what you’re saying. However, I’ll just point out that it’s statistically more likely for someone to have subtest scores of 680, 740, 720 than 680, 800, 800. Without going into significant detail, it’s part of the nature of intelligence/aptitude testing.</p>
<p>gibby,</p>
<p>One standard deviation still covers a lot of ground. If the 25/75 percentile scores are ranging from 690/790 to 700/800 with a median of around 740 or thereabouts, a subtest score one standard deviation lower than the median would be even lower than that. WAG: 660 - 670 or so? That would suggest that a full SAT score one standard deviation below Harvard’s median would be sub-2100.</p>
<p>That being said, you raise an interesting point, which is that even though athletes may have, overall, lower median academic credentials, the bottom of what are acceptable academic results for athletes is significantly higher than what may be acceptable for students who are not athletes. I know that one year, someone from my sons’ school was accepted at Harvard with an SAT of 1800 (or, at least that’s what Naviance reports). Probably not an athlete (which is sort of ironic, since their school’s most well-known claim to fame is its sports program).</p>
<p>notjoe, you are dead wrong about the 680-800-800. In fact, I know several kids who got exactly that score, and one of my kids was 700-800-800. </p>
<p>With Harvard’s 25-75 spreads, it’s almost statistically impossible that there aren’t SOME students with 2100 or lower composite SATs, but it won’t be anywhere near 25% of the students.</p>
<p>Also, the fact that 700 on a particular test is the 25th percentile does not mean that 25% of the students scored less than that. If 26% of the students had that score, it would still be the 25th percentile, and no one would have scored less. Of course, some people did score lower, I’m sure, but it could easily be 15%, not 25%, and “lower” might mean 680-690.</p>
<p>@jhs </p>
<p>agree - I think those studes that are below the 2100 are the exceptionally hooked - the recruited athlete, the professional juggler, the world class musician. This isn’t a comment about intelligence, it may be much more that they just may not have spent the time to prep.</p>
<p>For the non-hooked, I would expect two pools of people:
- the all-around person who would have consistency in their SAT section scores - but few of them get in with 690-690-690 since they are non-hooked
- the expert (for lack of a better name) - the USAMO person, the author, the biologist , the polical science person - there I wouldn’t be surprised with two really high scores and one much lower score.</p>
<p>While this is Harvard thread, I would like to point out that Princeton’s admission data show that ~6.7% of admitted students have an SAT score of less than 2100.</p>
<p>[Princeton</a> University | Admission Statistics](<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/admission/applyingforadmission/admission_statistics/]Princeton”>http://www.princeton.edu/admission/applyingforadmission/admission_statistics/)</p>
<p>JHS,</p>
<p>“notjoe, you are dead wrong about the 680-800-800. In fact, I know several kids who got exactly that score, and one of my kids was 700-800-800.”</p>
<p>I didn’t say there aren’t any kids like this. I said that they’re statistically more unusual than students whose scores come out more closely together. With 1.6 million kids taking the SAT, you should be able to find plenty of students who score 680, 800, 800. But 680, 740, 720 would be more common.</p>
<p>“Also, the fact that 700 on a particular test is the 25th percentile does not mean that 25% of the students scored less than that. If 26% of the students had that score, it would still be the 25th percentile,…”</p>
<p>That’s true and that actually happens at the top of the scale (the 75th percentile is 790 on two of the subtests and 800 on the other, but obviously, since there is no score above 800, that’s what’s happening there).</p>
<p>However, while it’s possible, it doesn’t actually appear to be what’s happening in the bottom quartile.</p>
<p>Harvard reports that in 2011, about 73.5% of admitted students scored 700 - 800 on CR. About 22.5% scored 600 - 699. It is theoretically possible that an overwhelming majority of that group - between 600 - 699 - scored at or very near to 690. But about 4% scored below 600. Which looks more like the left tail of an approximately normal distribution. Thus, with about 26.5% of students scoring below 700, and 4% of scores below 600, I’d say it’s likely that roughly 25% (give or take a percent or two) scored below 690.</p>
<p>The reported M and W distributions are similar, although M’s medians are a little higher.</p>
<p>MeIsHM,</p>
<p>Are you looking at the table labeled, “PERCENTAGE OF APPLICANTS ACCEPTED BY SAT RANGE”? If so, I think that’s actually showing the percentage of students who apply with an SAT score in a given range who get accepted. It’s not saying, for example, that 18.7% of accepted students have an SAT between 2300 and 2400, but rather that 18.7% of applicants with those SAT scores were accepted.</p>
<p>So, it’s not that 6.7% of admitted students have 2100 or less, but rather that the admission rate for students with 2100 or less is 6.7%. Interestingly, that isn’t far off the total admission rate of 7.9%.</p>