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What you are missing is the fact that the colleges have the power to manipulate the statistics, and they have a particular incentive to do so with regard to SAT scores because of the impact of those scores on US News rankings.
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<p>If you imply that the colleges misreport data on their CDS, I don't believe it. That would be fraud. On the other hand I do believe they try to manage their yield for instance by using a waitlist or taking many kids ED. </p>
<p>In regards to the Gatekeepers, I am familiar with Steinberg's book. Issued in 2002, it is starting to get old like many of the guides. I found the various Howard's Greene guides or the College Admission Mystique by Bill Mayher to be more useful. As far behind the scenes expose, The Price of Admission by Golden or the Chosen by Karabel are more informative. I probably have three shelves full of college guide books of varying utility.</p>
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Also, keep in mind they are working primarily with medians, not averages ...
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I am not that stupid, my training is in mathematics. My entire analysis uses a median scores and percentiles, never averages, which would be useless.</p>
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It gets more complicated, because the colleges report the test scores separately, now with 3 separate tests.
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Thanks. I hadn't noticed. If you reread post #198 among others I cover that issue. I hold a single sitting 2200+ 99th percentile cutoff as reported by the CollegeBoard as equivalent to 2250 multiple sitting combined score, which does allow for some score to exceed 750 and another to dip below.</p>
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I wouldn't be suprised if on some Monday morning the admissions director gets a report from the number cruncher telling him that the school is running great on the CR scores...
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I really don't think it happens that way. For most top schools I know, students or assistants working in admission crunch through the numbers (SAT scores, GPA, rank..) and these stats are available to the admins before they look at the details of the file. While they seek to balance a class, I frankly don't think they are going to try to balance individual scores. If they want some kids strong in math they will take kids with good scores on the SAT II Math or qualified for the AIME. That is what these scores are for. </p>
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I suspect that the total number of admitted kids with at least one score below the 25th mark would probably be more like 30-35%
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That is very possible. My point is that if even a single subscore drops below the 25th percentile the chances of admission drop considerably. That data is reported by each college. </p>
<p>While you raise interesting issues, they were clearly considered in my conclusions. I am pretty sure the data is solid.</p>