Do the kids with 2400 get rejected because...

<p>Below 2000.</p>

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<p>I’m not under the impression that admissions officers connected my CC profile or related activities to my application.</p>

<p>To put it bluntly, most of the time, these 2400 scorers are boring because of reasons stated.</p>

<p>Is that jealousy talking when 2400s are covered under the blanket statement of being ‘boring’?</p>

<p>There is no problem with them getting into colleges what so ever. It is just that not every 2400 can be accepted by HYPS. They are doing fine in all the other schools.</p>

<p>A 2400 shows that you’re intelligent. That’s it. It says nothing about who you are and what you have to offer, aside from good grades. Consequently, there’s so much more that an applicant needs to get into top schools than perfect scores. That’s really why applications are reviewed holistically.</p>

<p>P.S silverturtle, he’s just hating… I find most of your posts quite helpful and informative. I can only applaud your dedication.</p>

<p>There certainly are boring people with very good SATs. Don’t you know someone who spends almost all of his/her time studying? Not necessarily has no social life, but just comes across as a rather cautious, bland person</p>

<p>It shows that you are good at playing the game of SAT. Not that you’re intelligent. There are so many people I know who are intelligent who don’t have 2400. The only kids I know who have 2400 are the ones who prepped for 2 years straight and took over 100 practice tests. They are hardworking, not necessarily smart.</p>

<p>They are intelligent in the sense that they have figured out how to do well on the test, which most people haven’t since a very small percentage of people have a 2400. But honestly, this usually reflects ones intellectual ability outside of the test in most cases.</p>

<p>I too agree… I have found silverT’s posts to be interesting and informative as well… I am new to CC(just found you guys last month) and appreciate all that he/she imparts!</p>

<p>I would probably be considered a bit obsessed(sp?) as well compared to my dtrs classmates parents! Its all relative I guess… but I don’t mind the characterization one bit… the same folks who call me obsessed are also the one’s who are now running around like chickens with their heads cut off iso summer programs for their kids! I was all over summer programs thing last September… no one took my advice back then… they gave me the" women you are nuts" look… now they are calling me asking what they should do! And the answer is in most cases… NOTHING! </p>

<p>We have all of her summers mapped out… and she will begin applying for one program in August for NEXT summer! As not to stress her out with all of her heavy school load come the fall… the other 2 programs app’s won’t be available for download until Sept/October! </p>

<p>I have had the pleasure of chatting with a few adcoms on our recent university visits and they have said favorable things about her path & the programs that she will be applying to for her summers! </p>

<p>I say all this to say… I don’t think its ever too much to plot a path to contendership(was that a word?LOL) Its more than just the scores/grades/EC’s(I have noticed that students here on CC involve themselves in everything and anything just to fill their resume and I am sure the adcoms see through it quite easily!)… … One gentleman I had the pleasure of speaking with has been in his position for 40 years, I am sure he can smell BS before the envelope gets opened!</p>

<p>I also wonder what LORS are really saying about the candidate…remember, most LOR’s are sent in a sealed envelope with no prying eyes to see! Sometimes the opinions that we have of ourselves are quite DIFFERENT from the opinions that others have of us! Students must keep that in mind! </p>

<p>One last note, I read an article last week about SAT prep classes that are offered in China… they are $6,000 USD… these students are able to beat the test so to speak… even though they have VERY little english under their belts… and coupled with the fact that most of these chinese students are able to pay the tuition in one fell swoop… they are very appealing to the american colleges! The problem is… once they get here… they are often times placed on academ. probation b/c they can’t speak the language and the struggle! Adcoms are also very aware of these high priced SAT prep programs that are offered… and this may also skew their opinions with all the forced EC’s…</p>

<p>this is probably like a tufts syndrome,i don’t mean they are the same, but schools like hyps reject them to tell other people that sat isn’t everything and to show how profound their application process is, and the people who get rejected are victims, because there are so few of them that it has little to no negative effect on the schools.</p>

<p>however,the best way to find out why these people get rejected is to ask the admission officers, they won’t tell directly,though</p>

<p>NewhavenCTMom— I heard about these courses in S Korea. You know, guaranteed 800 on the verbal… you just have to study 20 hours a day for 2 months. So the academic probation you were talking about— where is this??? Never heard of it!! That’s unbelievable. Amazing.</p>

<p>Those highly selective colleges that require SAT2s will use a 5 test average, not just the SAT1s, and that is just one variable in a 5 to 10 category rating system for admissions. Most of these colleges have their on rating system that will give you scores in certain categories. So someone with perfect test scores will get, say a 5 out 5 in that category. But you don’t need a perfect score to get that 5. Each school has its cutoffs, and that 5 can be give for a 3500 or whatever the range is that gives you that 5. The same with GPA, class rank, ECs, recommendations, and other criteria. So in itself, that 2400 can mean little for admissions for schools like that.</p>

<p>In reality, such a score coupled with good grades and no outstanding problems in the application will likely get a student into most colleges and with a good shot for merit money. Many school will look at the SAT and give it high priority. Some state school look at number only for a lot of their apps, which include the SAT, gpa and the date of app for rolling admissions. Some schools have programs that have a minimum SAT and gpa for consideration, but once you are in that arena to get the award, those numbers don’t matter–everyone is on equal footing since they all meet the minimum academic requirement. At that point you need to come up with more stuff since the test/gpa is already fulfilled. I was on a scholarship committee that worked that way. The kids were prescreened with SAT and gpa, and we had no idea who had what in that area. the money was awarded on other factors. In that case, a 2400 SAT kid was on a level playing field with the kid with the minimum SAT needed to qualify,</p>

<p>I think this idea of rejected 2400’s being boring robotic students who only study, study, study is silly. Of course some of the 2400’s will be slackers who did poorly in school. But most will be interesting students at the top of their class who, for one reason or other, did not build that fully-balanced portfolio of academics, EC leadership and community service that the HYPSM schools want to see. A lot of smart students come from schools that do not emphasize the soft extras that HYPSM prefers, in large part because most of their graduates enroll in the state college where such activities are irrelevant. The exceptional student from such a school may have the smarts to ace a standardized test without at all having the knowledge of what’s expected of him to be fully competitive in a nationwide competition for limited elite-school admission slots.</p>

<p>The few 2400 students I know did it in their first sitting and got it basically because they are naturally that smart. </p>

<p>One went on to get 800s on the four SAT IIs he took and then just stopped taking tests. He had an unweighted 4.0 in high school, with all AP/Honors classes, and was able to do lots of very interesting ECs (for instance, tutoring non-english speakers in math in their native language) because he didn’t have to spend much time studying, as it all came easy to him. His parents were always 5 steps behind on keeping up with what he was doing.</p>

<p>He was accepted to HYPS and Columbia, every school he applied to. And just graduated from Harvard.</p>

<p>Those are the students everyone is looking for, there just aren’t that many of them.</p>

<p>who said that 2200 was the same as 2400
there’s a big difference between them
I agree that 2300+ and 2400 should be treated almost equally if not the same</p>

<p>I once heard an admissions officer at a highly selective LAC say that “SAT scores are not nearly as important as you think they are, but they’re probably more important than we care to admit.” Colleges aren’t just looking for the very highest SAT scores. They want interesting and accomplished students who will add some depth, dimension, and diversity to their class. And a 2400 is nothing special in the sense that it’s statistically virtually indistinguishable from a 2300; any score in the 2300 to 2400 range is 99th + percentile for SAT-takers. For that matter, it’s barely distinguishable form a 2210; any score in the 2210 to 2290 range is in the 99th percentile. At that level a marginally higher SAT score may give the applicant a slight edge over others with marginally lower scores, but basically when it comes to applicants in the 2210+ band, colleges are probably going to place greater weight on other criteria—grades, rigor of HS curriculum, teacher and GC recs, ECs, essays, socioeconomic and geographic factors contributing to diversity, legacy status, recruited athlete status, etc.</p>

<p>I think it’s unfair to say the 2400-scorers who don’t get into the most selective colleges were judged “boring” or otherwise had some defect or blemish in their applications. It may not be that at all. It’s just that there are tons of highly qualified candidates—roughly 20,000 a year in the 2210+ band as “natural” (single-sitting) best scores, and far more if you count superscores—and the colleges can select only so many of them. The 2400s get selected at a far higher rate than any other group, but even at that level most get rejected; Brown, for example, takes only about 1 in 5 2400s, and the figure is probably lower at HYPS. I suspect most who get rejected at that level are not legacies, not URMs, and not recruited athletes, and come from “overrepresented” groups (white and Asian) and “overrepresented” areas (upper middle class suburbs of major cities in the Northeast and California), and however accomplished and hard-working simply do not present a compelling biography that distinguishes them from the thousands or tens of thousands of other, similarly-credentialed applicants, some of whom will be admitted but most of whom will be rejected.</p>

<p>Silverturtle, you didn’t put on your apps the fact that you have posted a mildly famous, widely-used, and respected SAT guide that you wrote-- at no gain to yourself-- on collegeconfidential? That would have seriously helped. You gave a lot back to this community.</p>

<p>Silverturtle - What is going on with Princeton?</p>

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<p>I’m sure that 1 in 5 figure is low – Brown takes about 20% of those applicants who scored 800 in ANY of the three categories, according to their data page. There is no stat for composite SATs. ACT 36s, however, are separated out with a 32% acceptance rate. That’s a nice 3.5-fold boost for a single achievement, but still a very long way from a guarantee of admission.</p>

<p>[Brown</a> Admission: Facts & Figures](<a href=“Undergraduate Admission | Brown University”>Undergraduate Admission | Brown University)</p>