IPEDS 2018 SAT ACT Scores Top 100, Engineering reporting schools

College Search & Selection
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UCs weight SAT/ACT scores less relative to HS GPA than many other colleges.

For example, UCLA and USC is often considered comparably difficult to get into, but their frosh profiles show UCLA with higher HS GPA but lower SAT/ACT scores than USC.

http://www.admission.ucla.edu/Prospect/Adm_fr/Frosh_Prof19.htm
http://admission.usc.edu/wp-content/uploads/Freshman-Profile-2019.pdf

For unbalanced (in terms of HS GPA and SAT/ACT score) applicants within the general ballpark of UCLA and USC admission, those with higher HS GPA may be more likely to be admitted to UCLA, but those with higher SAT/ACT scores may be more likely to be admitted to USC.

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@ucbalumnus . . . sorry, for getting back to you so late as I didn’t want my posting here on CC to creep into my Christmas Eve eve and Christmas Day.

Undoubtedly, what you say is true, and it is after all evident in my addition of uwgpa to the list and comparing the two stats for each of the CA colleges, re, your mention of UCLA and USC.

UC absolutely does deemphasize the tests to place more emphasis on uw, UC, and fully weighted gpa for some majors (the arts is the exception), but when it does eventually remove the requirement of reporting the ACT and SAT, it’s still going to have to state something like, “It is highly recommended that the applicant take and report either or both of the tests on her/his application for certain majors.” Either this, or the UC will have to emphasize subject tests significantly or place its own testing in lieu of the two boards, probably with more specificity (as in the subject tests), which I think is its aim, and I think there will still have to be an English-test requirement for all students.

With that in mind, let me list UCLA’s admission numbers for its three geographic cohorts, and their combined totals to show what I meant in the comparison of oos and in-state students (of UCLA and UCB not maxing out its CA-student scores):

Geographic Cohort…CA…OOS…International…Total
Applications…69,607…23,137…18,578…111,322
Acceptances…8,354…3,806…1,560…13,720
Acceptance Rate…12.0%…16.5%…8.4%…12.3%
Enrolled Students…4,433…948…539…5,920
Yield…53.0%…24.9%…34.6%…43.2%

It’s pretty clear that according to these numbers that if UCLA (and UCB also) wanted to max out its CA student scores, it could be done as shown by this data: lower acceptance rate for in-state students and significantly higher yield; in addition to full-pay status for most non-residents and no-tuition pay-status for some in-state students. Students with high gpa and SAT will produce a lower yield, but there’s a sufficient pool of CA students to increase board scores. (Edit: Especially, considering that UCLA doesn’t recycle applicants, as UCB does for CS majors in L&S instead of Engineering.)

Of course, both UCs make concessions towards higher standards for in-staters for economic and racial diversity, and this is the chief reason why neither maxes out its ACT and SAT scores. Of the UCs, UCM followed by UCR, then UCSB, then UCLA and UCSD, have tried to bring up the percentage of first-generation Latina/o students the most, sacrificing, SAT and ACT medians and means. This is why UCLA’s SAT median trails UCB’s by ~ 20 points – there are more bad high schools in LA county than the Bay, which implies that wrt eligibility in-a-local-context UCLA has the greater burden to admitting more of the “at risk” students (not really they’re actually very good students but don’t quite have the scores).

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By the way, @ucbalumnus , here is the CDS for UCB for 2018; the University hasn’t yet released 2019 . . . https://opa.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/uc_berkeley_cds_2018-19.xlsx

UCB’s admission website posts only those admitted, so its SAT and ACT numbers would drop a bit for the enrolled class; this is why, whenever I can, I’d rather refer to a college’s CDS.

In its CDS, the numbers are as follows:

Component………….………25th……………….75th
EBRW……………………………640……………….740
Math……………………….……660……………….790
Added Components…1,300……….……1,530

The midpoint, approximate median of these would be 1,415, based on Greymeer’s averaging of the two component scores. However, 52.0% of the frosh score ≥ 700 on the EBRW and 65.2% score ≥ 700 on the math component. So this would probably infer that the true median is 1,420 or possibly 1,430. And as I stated before, it’s not really legitimate to add component scores to obtain what an individual’s (or the average of the two persons’ scores right above and right below the 50th) score would be right at the 50th percentile (median), because of the mixing and matching of component scores of what could be different persons, and I think this is manifest in the differences between the UCLA Admissions website and its CDS.

UCLA’s 2018 CDS manifests these numbers:

Component………….………25th……………….75th
EBRW……………………….……630……………….740
Math……………………….……640……………….780
Added Components…1,270………………1,520

The midpoint, approximate median would be 1,395 according to Greymeer’s calculations. However, 51.2% and 58.6% of the frosh scored ≥ 700 on the EBRW and Math, respectively.This suggests strongly that the true median is ≥ 1,400, probably 1,410.

In UCLA’s 2019 CDS it manifests these numbers:

Component………….………25th……………….75th
EBRW……………………………640……………….740
Math………………………….….640……………….790
Added Components…1,280………………1,530

Again, this would suggest a midpoint of 1,405, actually the first time this midpoint has been > 1,400. Those scoring ≥ 700 for the EBRW were 50.6% and for the Math, 59.0%, a bit of a drop of percentages at the approximate median. However, it still suggests a 1,410 true median.

What’s interesting to me is that the EBRW and Math scores for effectively all colleges tends to reverse itself for those who score ≥ 600 but < 700, with the EBRW being higher. I think this could infer that they’ve switched taking boards to try to boost their Math scores, and with respect to both UCLA and UCB, some these could be extraneous lower scores. Also, the boost of superscoring for both could add 20-30 points overall.

The mean uwgpa for UCLA was 3.89 and 3.90 for 2018 and 2019, per CDS. The median for each referenced year was ~ 3.93-3.94 and ~ 3.95-3.96, based on the UCLA admissions website which shows that a 3.92 descended to the 38th percentile in 2018, and a 3.94 to the 39th in 2019.

I would expect UCB’s to be about the same because the mean uwgpas are effectively identical.