<p>I've noticed discrepancies in how selective colleges say they are, and the grades of students that have been accepted. For example, my friend got into University of Michigan with a 3.4 gpa, 1900 sat, and a normal amount of extracurriculars. Another friend of mine got into Syracuse with a 3.1 gpa, 1700 sat, and a normal amount of extracurriculars as well. These scores seem to be lower than average for their national rankings of 28 and 62. Are colleges truly as selective as they seem? Does a student with lower than average scores still have a good shot of getting in to more prestigious universities?</p>
<p>cmon, do the math.</p>
<p>Lots of schools have different admission buckets (such as by division or major) with different levels of selectivity.</p>
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Getting into a college, no. Getting into certain colleges, yes.</p>
<p>It depends on state residency. Also, GPA 3.4 at certain HS with rigor curriculum may be as good as 4.0 in other schools. In addition, it depends on when did your friend got into those schools. The UMich admission 25th percentile SAT went up around a hundred point in the last few years (2040 for this year) and that of ACT also went up 2 points (30 for this year). So whatever score/GPA that was possible for admission to UMich may not work anymore.
Finally, I would not be surprised to see someone with 3.4/1900 accepted while another one with 3.9/2300 rejected even within the same year as scores and GPA are not the only consideration. The intended major field, legacy, URM, etc all these would affect the admission decision.
When the statistics shows a 25th percentile SAT at 2040, you know the number of students got admitted with SAT 1900 would be rare even if that is possible.</p>
<p>Unless all admitted students have identical stats, then some will have stats above the average and some will have stats below the average. Problem for applicants w subpar stats is that there are a lot more of them than high stats ones, and there are a limited number of slots.</p>