Oh to heck with it - I am doing this now. It looks like the numbers have been updated since last I looked (which was literally a couple weeks ago max for Stanford - now much higher, interesting in its own right). Throwing in average ACT for good measure:
Others you didn’t ask for:
Harvard: 1515/34
Yale 1515/34
Princeton 1515/34
MIT 1540/35
Duke 1525/34
Columbia 1505/34
University of Chicago 1535/34
UCLA 1415/32
Mudd 1530/34
Eta: if I had to hypothesize, my guess is, to the extent any of the changes in scores are outside of the normal variance, it is because they are for the 2021 test- optional admissions cycle. Mainly students with higher scores are submitting them.
Every little bit helps, @mtmind. It would be nice if you let us know where your own definitive observations are coming from, inasmuch as they sound very much like pr releases or promotional literature from the new DEI officer when they are not directly citing such sources. No, I like my testimony to come from real human beings, and then I like to think about what they are saying rather than rush into vituperation and dismissal. Isn’t that what people who value “lived experience” are supposesd to do? Unless, apparently, the experience doesn’t conform to someone’s big idea. No doubt there are parents and students who like the transformations at HW. They haven’t spoken up, but I suppose they exist. As for Bari Weiss, yes, she is hated by many and was forced out by underlings at the NYTimes, so she knows something about cancel culture. But as Che said, one man’s provocateur is another man’s truth teller. I reckon in the new dispensation you are trumpeting here we are all supposed to keep quiet. A U of C education is good for many things but not for training anyone to keep quiet.
I was not attacking HW, per se. I think it is a very good school and it would have meet my child’s needs which is why he applied, twice. I was making a point about most other private schools in LA but probably didn’t make that clear. Also, that the issues around changes in curriculum and CRT were not presented to families.
I haven’t seen those stats and don’t recall them from the data sheet. Thank you for sharing. I will say that during various admissions events they would not answer my question directly about how many Latino students were at HW and that is exactly what I meant by “meager” diversity. Between 60-70% of children in LA are of Hispanic origin and less than 10% of students is not a good look.
I’m sometimes drawn to these UoC threads because of some kind of angle like the Stanford (no affiliation) fencing tie-in linked above. Or the debate about UofC moving from D3 to the B1G.
But mostly, I get a strong feeling that UofC has an inferiority complex when it comes to HYPSMC (C=Cal Tech, not Columbia, which was another wacky thread by itself).
Sure, but those broad generalities might not apply to HW kids. UC schools are tops for publics and they aren’t far from G-Town in overall ranking. If you want to consider Cal-Berkeley and UCLA as “comparable” to G-Town in terms of explaining the healthy number of HW admissions - be my guest. Of course, G-Town’s admissions are still a bit more favorable outside the top-tier GPA range . . .
Not Cal Tech. UChicago isn’t as comparable in terms of undergrad program. But you are not far off base on the inferiority complex. UChicago itself will never stop looking around to compare its philosophical understanding of higher ed to what’s unfolding elsewhere - that sort of introspection is in the DNA of the institution. I think it does rub off on the students and their parents. I certainly noticed this in the top ranked econ and business programs back in the 80’s. UChicago had already won decades-long theory wars with other top schools, and yet it still took seriously the work that was being done elsewhere - and would spend time dissecting that work, showing why it was reasonable or unreasonable. The mantra was “We take [fill in the blank] seriously.” That’s how the school distinguishes itself from others. Is that evidence of an inferiority complex, or some other attribute (perhaps the opposite)? I’d guess the latter, but I can understand how the “too cool for school” types could confuse it for something else.
The numbers above appear to be the following calculation, rather than actual mean SAT:
Using 2019-20 sample:
“Mean SAT” = (25th Math + 25th EBRW + 75th Math + 75th EBRW)/2
IPEDS permits creating variables like this, so it’s easy to do the calculation for all colleges. From high to low, the order is as follows. Stanford is slightly lower than one might expect based on selectivity, but is certainly not “a lower mean SAT score than any elite.”
I agree with this, but I also think U Chicago is “playing along” here by accepting the 3.6-3.8 kids at a high rate, presumably to strengthen its connections with HW (for any number of reasons, including that these “middle GPA” kids will do just fine at the university).
It’s not an easy decision to pick an ED school. For the most qualified applicants from an elite school like HW (3.8+ GPA, top test scores), they are likely to be accepted if they go binding, but many will still want to give HYPS a shot. It’s hard for U Chicago to lure these kids with the perceived (and likely very real) boost of applying ED1, because the cost of giving up the perceived (and also likely very real) R/SCEA boost at HYPS is judged too great. (Ditto the ED bump at, say, Columbia, Penn or even Brown, to pick a few likely overlap schools.) Also, ED acceptance at Chicago means they will never receive a decision from HYPS. So, it does not make much sense for Chicago to “massage” its normal reading procedures for this top group.
However, there is great value for U Chicago in positioning itself as a “go-to” choice for solid, wealthy, and capable HW students who are realistic about their chances for HYPS, and this can explain at least in part what appears to be a preference for HW students in the middle GPA range.
We saw the same pattern at my S21’s prep school, which is not quite as elite as HW but still respectable. There are two private T30-40 universities which are basically auto admit with at least middling grades and scores (3.5+ UW GPA and >1400+ SAT/30+ ACT). And by auto admit, I mean greater than 95% acceptance with those credentials. Similar to what I expect is going on with U Chicago and HW, the institutions are happy to have solid, capable, and wealthy matriculants. In the end, the truly brilliant academic superstars are always a very small percentage at any of these elite holistic schools. Below that group, there is vast range of students who will do just fine.
Anyway, without having intimate knowledge of HW, that is my guess about what is mostly going on with this almost 50% accept rate for the middle GA applicants.
EDIT: sorry this was meant to be a general reply to the thread, not to a specific post by Data10
I am surprised that you are acting as if I haven’t repeatedly indicated that IMO the Harvard analysis does not apply outside the top few schools. Go back and look at our exchanges in context.
Regarding REA, even kids from wealthy schools sometimes behave rationally when they are equipped with the information to make rational decisions, and these unhooked HW kids are being advised by CCs with access to a much deeper data pool than you have seen.
But there is no use arguing about it. My more fundamental point is that you don’t have the any HW data to establish your REA claims. Same goes for your other suppositions about HW.
Believe it or not, most of the HW students are not as caught up on minute differences in rankings or prestige as are the Chicago parents posting here, and the "exceptional” kids (exceptional goes well beyond grades/test scores, by the way) don’t automatically flock to Harvard over schools like Brown, Penn, or other great programs. Many of the most "exceptional kids” at HW do not view Harvard as a top choice because of factors you aren’t even considering.
But again, it is not worth arguing over. Because the data does not back up your claims.
Given that the schools are considering factors beyond grades and test scores, maybe you ought to broaden your understanding of the process beyond the data on grades and test scores From a source you quoted me immediately below the portion you quoted, explaining how rankings for “Extracurricular, Community Employment, Family Commitments:”
Unusual strength in one or more areas. Possible national-level achievement or professional experience. A potential major contributor at Harvard. Truly unusual achievement.
Strong secondary school contribution in one or more areas such as class president, newspaper editor, concertmaster etc. . . .
Have to agree. As a Stanford and UChicago alum I tend to frequent those boards. Chicago boosters whether alums or not are also very defensive which I do not really understand considering the pedigree of the institution (Hell it is the place where the weapon that won the Pacific theater in WWII originated) I had an alum in the building where I lived ask me why I was present at various alumni functions. I told him I was a graduate of two of the professional schools. His response was that he would have gone to professional schools there but he voluntarily chose to go somewhere else (actually the place I currently work) Another alum in my building told me how much more impressive her undergraduate degree was than mine. I really do not get it from the graduates of the institution that has as much intellectual influence on the country and the world as UChicago has.
@mtmind , you are rather too fond of telling all of us here that we don’t know anything and that we are not worthy of your time with us. That’s a good tactic to shut down discussion, and, yes, it comes from the CRT playbook. How boring it is to reduce a discussion to such things. But, let me be equally boring, and ask how it is that you come to be the only one here with the qualifications to speak.
I agree Chicago has positioned itself well with regard to these middle kids, and agree with your take generally. But it is unlikely Chicago prefers kids from the middle of the class. Chicago would prefer to bring in the top of the class early (when Chicago can control yields), but the top of the class (generally) prefers other schools in these rounds, so Chicago takes what it can get.
I quote the post I am replying to for a reason. In the post I replied to, you only mentioned Harvard, and the preceding posts leading to that you specifically mentioned lack of Harvard data. I emphasized Harvard + Harvard data in my reply. In other posts within the thread I have have discussed Brown, MIT, Chicago, and others; why Chicago or Duke may differ from the trend, etc. However, every post in this thread does not simultaneously discuss every college. That particular post replied to your comments about Harvard and not having any Harvard data.
Data will never be perfect, but one can still draw conclusions with imperfect data. The key point that has been repeated over and over about suppositions among HW kids is not REA – it’s scores. I believe that if HW kids average a 33 ACT across the full class, we can assume that applicants to Harvard (or other Ivy Plus colleges) with a top 3.8+ GPA average >33 ACT. Yes, they don’t print ACT score in the linked document, but that does not mean you can ignore all stats and assume HW applicants are similar to the average applicant within the Harvard pool.
Regarding REA, I’ve mentioned the data such as among both the Harvard pool (supported by both lawsuit sample and freshman survey), average REA rate goes up when income goes up. And with a typical >$50k/year cost, HW kids average a high income. Yes, we can’t say with 100% certainty that REA rate is higher, but it’s likely to be true. In any case REA rate isn’t critical for the conclusion, as discussed in the earlier post.
Let’s look at it a different way. You’ve said you think the opposite is true for REA and HW kids are less likely to apply REA than the overall pool. Do you have any data to support such claims? Or data to support any of your conflicting claims?
The portion of quote you excluded that explains the context states, “Regarding HW specifically, If you look at the linked HW stats, note that it’s only the top GPA kids that have the especially high rate of applicants to Harvard. The next tier down is far more likely to apply to slightly less selective schools like Brown, or Penn than Harvard.” This isn’t a matter of opinion since we have the actual numbers. A quote from an earlier post, which I was referring to is below. Harvard was the 2nd most applied to college among kids in the top quarter of the class, but did not rank among the top few for any other GPA/rank tiers. In contrast, Penn and Brown were not among the top most applied to colleges among the top GPA/rank kids, abut were among the top 5 colleges applied to for kids ranked in 55th to 75th percentile.
Please don’t misrepresent my posts. I’ve explained my position numerous times and have specifically mentioned the influence of ECs, LORs, and numerous other missing influential factors in replies to you. This relates to why the vast majority of high stat applicants are rejected in the previously listed stats. High stats alone isn’t enough. However, this doesn’t mean than stats have no influence on decisions or low stats won’t tremendously increase chance of rejection. The point is we have information about stats, but don’t have information about ECs. We know that HW kids in the 3.8-4.0 UW group have higher stats, so we expect higher admit rates than average. If we knew which HW kids had the most desirable ECs (not just being newspaper editor alone), we could include them; but we not have this information.
Regarding being a newspaper editor specifically, the document you quoted listed newspaper editor as an example of one area where a student could potentially have a strong secondary school contribution. It’s far from the only area, and I don’t think that being a newspaper editor alone would be enough for the 2 rating, nor do I think that being a newspaper editor alone is going to have a large influence on the admission decisions, or as large as the non-stat LOR example I made that you happened to ignore in your reply and exclude from the quote. However, this level of detail is not particular relevant , Yes, ECs are influential to admission decisions as is personal rating, LORs, essays, interview, and various other factors that are not published within the HW documentation.
Didn’t say you weren’t worthy of my time. Not trying to shut discussion down.
Yes, such reduction is bad. And irony abounds.
I haven’t questioned your “qualifications to speak.” There is no qualifying standard here, obviously, so speak all you like. I am just responding with what should also be obvious, you (and some others but not all) don’t know much of anything about what is happening at this school, just as I don’t know much of anything about what is happening at your kids’ schools.
For example, above you claimed that other HW parents and students “haven’t spoken up.” How do you know? On what basis do you state this as if it were fact? It is not a rhetorical question. I am curious as to why you would think this?
As for the basis for my observations, surely it is clear from my posts. As I have said, I’m in as good a position to know as the dissident parents. If you can’t figure it out from there, you may want to review Strauss on how to read between the lines.
