how off is USNews?

<p>how can harvard have 25th-75th percentile SAT scores of 1400-1580? doesn't that mean 25% scored less than 1400? that's insane!</p>

<p>it's not off...</p>

<p>lol dude...legacy, URM, nice EC's, passionate essays</p>

<p>its the whole application, SAT scores are one part</p>

<p>GPA as well. That's probably the most important part, lol.</p>

<p>black male from my school got in with a 1350 and 20ish / 400 rank</p>

<p>quite disgraceful...</p>

<p>An unhooked applicant needs to be near the top of the 50% range for the school to be a match and at the middle of the 50% range for the school to be a reach. The range is pulled down significantly by statistically lower scores from URM's, legacies, athletes, development cases, VIP's, and ED applicants.</p>

<p>In addition, at schools accepting low percentages of applicants, you need to consider that. For example, Harvard is only accepting 10% of the applicants. It should be obvious that they aren't denying the other 90% because they are below the 50% SAT range. They are denying 90% of the applicants with 1500's.</p>

<p>The low end are usually made up of Athletes, VIPs, and Development. Some of the URM's will be at the low end (although there'll be plenty at the high end).</p>

<p>Also, I'd bet that the applicant pool itself is more competitive score-wise than the final class. Oh, and look at "top 10%"... notice something?</p>

<p>that means 25 percent are 1580 and above which is insane.</p>

<p>insane, numberone? Absolutely not. Not when 60% of applicants with perfect SATs get rejected.</p>

<p>I started a new thread on this at:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?p=1662404#post1662404%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?p=1662404#post1662404&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>A2wolves i didnt put GPA because 4.0 doesnt mean much at harvard</p>

<p>i am not surprised 25% have 1580+, it's the 25% below 1400 that surprises me, but now i think of it, it might make sense, b/c 25% is only about 400, that's not too many. damn, so SAT scores don't mean much lol, there goes 2 years wasted ha ha</p>

<p>pretty much reborn, they use SAT scores to put things in context. If you have 1500+, the exact score doesnt really matter. I'm sure the rejection proportion is similar for 1580's and 1600's. I would say if you have 1400+ (not being a URM) then they wont reject you BECAUSE of your SAT scores.</p>

<p>Yes, but a 3.7 or less means a lot.</p>

<p>You have to have the good grades. That's the first requirement.</p>

<p>@1337hax0r</p>

<p>The rejection proportion for 1500's and 1600's probably is not close at all. The difference between a 750/750 or 700/800 and a straight 800/800 is significant.</p>

<p>It is not disgraceful that a black male with a 1350 SAT got in. You don't know much more about him. I know people who got 1350s or so, then studied a lot and took the SAT a few more times and pulled their scores up a few hundred points. Did they get "smarter"? Of course not.</p>

<p>sonatax please reread my post carefully, thanks :)</p>

<p>"it's not off..."</p>

<p>harvey mudd
barnard</p>

<p>Of course, the SAT is not the whole application. Other factors that may shed more light on the applicant are considered.</p>

<p>look at the percentage of white applicants with under 1400 SAT that are accepted...</p>

<p>i seem to recall it being around 1-2%
.. all athletes / legacies.</p>