<p>Harvard has been criticized in the past for taking "risks" in the admissions process by accepting low stat, hooked applicants that have done phenomonal things in their community like reforming the entire state education system, despite their 1200 SAT score.</p>
<p>Can the same be said for Yale, or is their admissions process more stat driven? PR rated Yale second hardest to get into, behind MIT. Harvard was third.</p>
<p>(1) You are putting way too much stock in supposed rankings of admissions difficulty... small differences are insignificant. All of these schools are pretty much equally difficult to get into...
(2) All of the top schools claim that they have no SAT cut-off... and that they will evaluate candidates as a whole package. I'm sure that at all of the top schools, there will be a small handful of low SAT scorers who have achieved extra-phenomenal things... I have NEVER heard anyone critisize Harvard, or Stanford, or Yale or any top school for this...
(3) Take the case of your hypothetical 1200 scorer who reformed an entire state educational system: I think any top school would take a "risk" on such a candidate... proven ability and achievements via real-life accomplishments trump an artificial, arbitrary standardized test.</p>
<p>Most of what you hear on this point is anecdotal and not too reliable. </p>
<p>To establish a pattern at each school, I suppose, you'd have to (1) compare the admission rate for those in various SAT bands, (2) know the number of applicants each school had in each of those bands vs. the number of admits, and also (3) know what the admits in the lower bands brought to the table.</p>
<p>Although I have some hazy understanding of the situation at Harvard with respect to (1) and (2), I suspect that at most elites the "risks" being taken primarily involve recruited athletes and/or URMs, with the "economically disadvantaged" as an emerging group of "recruits" who may receive a thumb on the scale. Of course, the "economically disadvantaged" may also be recruited athletes and/or URMs.</p>
<p>PR's "rankings" are virtually worthless, since the basis for them is not disclosed.</p>
<p>Like them or not, the USNews rankings are based on specific criteria, which are disclosed. In the case of "selectivity" the USNews rankings are based on the admit rate, the SAT median and the percentage of admits in the top 10% of their high school class.</p>
<p>Applying these criteria, based on stats for the class of 2009, Harvard was ranked #1 in selectivity in the 2006 USNews "America's Best Colleges". For the class of 2010, Harvard seems to have improved its comparative ranking in each of these categories: the admit rate dropped to am all-time low 9.1%.</p>
<p>I've been looking around for those very same "admit bands" that you're referring tofor a while now, Byerly. The only school that I found with those statistics is UPenn. </p>
<p>Verbal
Score Percent
Admitted
750-800 30%
700-740 24%
650-690 20%
600-640 17%
550-590 10%
500-540 6%
< 500 2%
ACT only 21%</p>
<p>Math
Score Percent
Admitted
750-800 26%
700-740 22%
650-690 18%
600-640 17%
550-590 10%
500-540 6%
< 500 0%
ACT only 21%</p>
<p>The link is :</p>
<p>I was a little surprised by this. I was definitely anticipating admit rates in the high 50%'s for the very top band. A possible confounding factor could be that these are individual Verbal and Math scores. If we were looking at combined scores then the highest band (1500-1600) would likely have a much higher admit rate than the 25-30% range.</p>
<p>Here is a link to some BROWN stats:</p>
<p>Brown's stats seem very similar to UPenn's. I found their huge emphasis on class rank disturbing though. 800 of 2400 admitted ranked in top 5?? Is class rank really that big of a deal??</p>
<p>For extensive though slightly dated analysis - see "The Early Admissions Game" and the "Revealed Preference" paper.</p>
<br>
<p>If we were looking at combined scores then the highest band (1500-1600) would likely have a much higher admit rate than the 25-30% range.</p>
<br>
<p>Yes, that's probably true, but it's also true that 1500-1600 scorers are much more likely than other applicants to have excellent grades. These numbers are useful, though, just to drive home the point that scores alone just won't cut it at a school like Penn (a point that a surprising number of families miss).</p>
<p>Well, I'm operating on the assumption that "all other things being equal". Namely, GPA 3.9+, Rank in the top 10-15%, decent Essays/Recs, and SAT II/AP scores commiserate with SAT I scores.</p>
<p>Oh, and Byerly, where would I find those papers?</p>
<p>Here's a link to the "Revealed Preferences" study:</p>
<p>The "Early Admissions Game" is a book published by Harvard University Press. Check online to get it cheap.</p>
<p>That was a very interesting paper. I skipped most of the technical jargon but did pick up on the basic premise which is just genius.</p>
<p>So, I guess my question is, why haven't the ranking list people picked up on this? It seems to me like a much better way of measuring desirability/selectivity than crude admit rate alone.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that the "Revealed Preference" rankings are revealing, and tell us the true academic "pecking order" - as long as you acknowledge that there is a close correlation between the quality of a school and its desirability in the eyes of the top applicants.</p>
<p>The commercial rankers don't use this data because it is hard to get ... most colleges consider their cross-admit numbers to be highly confidential and sensitive. The authors of the study spent considerable time and money interviewing a huge cross-section of applicants to obtain the raw data.</p>
<p>Robert Morse, director of research for USNews, concedes that there is a lot to be said for cross-admit numbers in the ranking of elites - particularly those with overlapping applicant pools. The trouble is, USNews has neither the time, the money nor the degree of cooperation necessary to gather such data for all the 1,400 schools that it ranks; it is dependent on numbers voluntarily supplied by the schools or reported to a few government agencies.</p>
<p>Yeah, I figured that it had something to do with lack of resources/money. </p>
<p>On another note, I'm really surprised by Princeton's admissions policies. I always thought of Princeton as one of the holy trinity. It's clear to me now that they're not. After all, if Princeton adcoms themselves don't think Princeton can compete with Harvard, Yale and Stanford, then Princeton must not be all that...</p>
<p>oh, right, and Princeton's 11% acceptance rate is just a fluke. ;)</p>
<p>Princeton is trying to change its approach under the new Admissions Director, Rapelye.</p>
<p>Her predecessor, the legendary Freddie Hargadon, concentrated on what is delicately called the "Princeton type" - ie, those likely to enroll if admitted and not defect to Harvard, MIT, Stanford, etc.</p>
<p>His approach "worked" to the extent that the Princeton yield rate rose steadily - helped by filling half the class via binding ED.</p>
<p>The new administration has announced its intention, now, to go head to head with HYSM for the top students, and has shown a willingness to pay the price: ie, a yield rate that has plummetted in the last two years. The Princeton President has declared, famously, that she wants more of the "green-haired people" that Princeton used to shun.</p>
<p>does H still use the "Z-list" to sneak in unqualified legacies?</p>
<p>No school could top Freddie's Princeton in devotion to legacies - all of whom, we must assume, were qualified!</p>
<p>what were the respective legacy percentages at HYP in the hargadon era? surely they should bear out your put-down, no?</p>
<p>More research than I'm up for at the moment, but as of last year the legacy percentage was roughly similar at HYP.</p>