<p>boneh3ad makes great points. I’d only add two caveats.</p>
<p>At schools like UiUC and Purdue, look at SAT ranges for engineers, not general admits. You may have to contact the school to get that information.</p>
<p>At selective schools that also have scholarship athletic programs like Stanford and Northwestern, use the 75 percentile as the mean for unhooked applicants (athlete, wrote a book, went to the Olympics, etc.). The athletes at those schools are considered at the lower ranges, but they can’t admit many others with those scores without risking a decrease in their selectivity ranking.</p>