Exactly. Those answers can also vary by program/dept/school within a college/uni, and just to stay with the Cornell example, enough people have heard in admissions presentations that they do in fact track interest and it can help applicants (but the CDS says not considered).
I would not use any secondary source for this info. It may be old. Or it may just be wrong.
A very common error. But again, just because everyone makes that error doe not mean it’s less wrong. 
This is what they say about their sources.
Here. https://admission.princeton.edu/how-apply/admission-statistics Princeton is the other tippy top that has reported percentage of admits and etc, off and on, over the years.
8% of 4.0 unweighted gpa kids got accepted. Sorry, but that means 92% got rejected. We know stats are a significant factor, but you can see they are NO guarantee. Nor are they are they less important, just because 92% got rejected; there are only so many spaces.
Understand what holistic means, in practice. Understand how important it is to truly understand a college, nt just your own hs status, dreams, and wants. You need to nail any Why Us. Be looking over your shoulder, lol.
About the numbers from Big Future in post #17:
Brown 1410-1570 - not quite matches adding the 25th section scores and 75th from CDS for class of 2021 (from NCES; has a 705)
Columbia 1450-1580 - can’t figure out where this comes from, but matches a Compass Prep list (at least one other college in that list is definitely wrong; might just be old)
Cornell 1390-1550 - this matches adding the 25th section scores and 75th from CDS for class of 2021 (NCES)
Dartmouth 1430-1560 - this matches adding the 25th section scores and 75th from CDS for class of 2021 (NCES)
Duke 1490-1560 - this matches the class profile admitted for class of 2022
Harvard 1460-1580 - this matches adding the 25th section scores and 75th from CDS for class of 2021 (NCES)
MIT 1490-1570 - this matches adding the 25th section scores and 75th from CDS for class of 2021 (NCES)
Princeton 1430-1570 - this matches adding the 25th section scores and 75th from CDS for class of 2021 (NCES)
UPenn 1420-1560 - this matches adding the 25th section scores and 75th from CDS for class of 2021 (NCES)
Stanford 1420-1570 this matches adding the 25th section scores and 75th from CDS for class of 2022 (Stanford website)
Yale 1420-1590 - this matches adding the 25th section scores and 75th from CDS for class of 2021 (Yale website; curiously, the 25th and 75th section scores from the 2017-18 CDS do not match the NCES data for fall of 2017)
@lookingforward To your point, the bullet point list (Very Important, Important, Considered, etc.) from the College Board survey can vary considerably from what they say in the “A Note From the College” text box. For example Cornell:
If I was applying to Cornell, I think I would pay close attention to that “preparation and background for specific programs” comment. (I actually did apply to Cornell back in the day and was rejected, but I think I probably did no research at all about the school.)
Here’s the old format for Stanford, from the class starting fall 2016. Hope it’s enlightening for anyone who hasn’t seen things like this. https://admission.stanford.edu/apply/selection/profile16.html Anyone can search for this stuff.
So 18% of applicants had an 800M and only 8% of those got admitted, but they form a large part of the class. Even larger, those with 700-799. This is not that “Stanford cares noticeably less” about scores. It’s that Stanford, with 44k apps for roughly 2100 admit letters, cares about the entire picture one presents.
Just because someone is tops in their own hs doesn’t mean they get it. You can certainly blow it. Meanwhile, some kid with a 750 might be right behind you, presenting the “whole” they want to see, the sorts of activities, challenges and impact, the thinking and perspective. The energy to NOT look at any of this simplistically or superficially.
Same goes for all the top/tippy top holistic colleges. They care about stats, but also more than stats.
@damon30, that “preparation and background” is critical. Some posters claim that, unless a college admits to specific programs (college of engn, school of music, whatever,) it doesn’t matter. But it does. Academic and activities. And thinking. The level of one’s thinking drives a lot of choices. Or not.
@lookingforward That data is very interesting, I wonder why Stanford (and other schools) stopped doing it. Maybe because it is getting increasingly competitive and the admissions office doesn’t want to discourage applicants?
There are only 300-600 students a year who get a 1600 on the SAT (I think the number is more like 2800 for a 36 on the ACT). Even if all of them went HYPSM (and they don’t), that is only 80 or so 1600’s per school, nowhere near 25% of anyone’s class. Stanford alone seems to have had more than 7000 applicants in 2016 who scored 800 on the Math section and 4400 with 800 in EBWR, but there can’t be much overlap between those groups according to the numbers.
“8% of 4.0 unweighted gpa kids got accepted. Sorry, but that means 92% got rejected. We know stats are a significant factor, but you can see they are NO guarantee”
Who keeps saying it’s a guarantee? You’re the only that says these generalizations only to knock them down later in your post. Anyway 8% is low but the 1380-1490 is 4.5%, meaning that the 1500-1600 has almost double the chance of getting in.
“Meanwhile, some kid with a 750 might be right behind you, presenting the “whole” they want to see, the sorts of activities, challenges and impact, the thinking and perspective.”
The flaw in this logic is simple, you keep assuming that the 800 kid is incapable of thinking like the 750 kid, that the 800 kid is relying only on the test scores and has only done that in high school while the 750 kid is holistically getting in. That’s not the case, 1600/36 kids do real well in college admissions, better than the 1500/34 kids. The numbers show that. You seem to encourage purposely not getting a perfect score on these tests, because then colleges will see you holistically, as a human being. If you get a 1600 or 36, well then you might be a test taking robot that colleges don’t want. Again, not the case, there are ton of 1600/36s walking on Stanford, Harvard, Yale, MIT, Princeton et al. They don’t really accept any 1200s who think they can change the world and have the holistic app.
In some ways yes. If you look at a schools CDS profile, it will show you the percentage of martriculates that fall into a certain subset of test scores. For instance, WashU doesn’t have any students that scored below a 600 on each section unlike all of the others mentioned.
Also, Umich seems to one of the few to release the latest CDS and it seems to be 1330-1510(non-concorded), and a 30-34. Either the highest or second highest for a public school.
Theloniousmonk, I said “no guarantee,” on my own. Ok? Strong stats are important, but no guarantee. Holistic. No matter if that’s an 800, 750, or 700 (though that’s creeping low for a tippy top.)
No guarantee of your chances, no guarantee of the excellence of your record or application. Not sure why this is the 2nd time recently you ding me for saying something that is not a direct repsonse to a question (as if someone had asked for guarantees?) OP started trying to understand what seems to be an indicator of importance of scores. The links show top scores are…no guarantee.
It’s probably the 2nd highest public, like it was last year. Using a weighted average based on percent submitting SAT and ACT, and an average of 25th and 75th, the highest scoring public colleges are below. Note that the SAT and ACT order are not consistent with each other. I’d expect this largely relates to in state vs out of state preference and varying ACT/SAT participation by state, which is another factor that can distort estimate score preference by SAT scores ranges.
2017-18 Highest Test Score Publics
- GeorgiaTech: 30-34 ACT, 670-730 EBRW, 680-770 Math
2 (tie). Michigan: 30-33 ACT, 660-730 EBRW, 670-770 Math
2 (tie). Berkeley*: 29-34 ACT, 650-750 EBRW, 650-780 Math - Virginia: 29-33 ACT, 660-740 EBRW, 650-760 Math
- William and Mary: 29-33 ACT, 660-740 EBRW, 640-740 Math
*Berkeley reports stats differently in IPEDS and CDS, using CDS… lower with IPEDS
2018-19 Highest Test Score Publics
- GeorgiaTech: 30-34 ACT, 640-730 EBRW, 690-790 Math
- Michigan: 30-34 ACT, 660-730 EBRW, 670-780 Math
3 (tie). Berkeley*: 29-35 ACT, 660-750 EBRW, 670-750 Math
3 (tie). Virginia: 30-34 ACT, 660-730 EBRW, 670-770 Math - William and Mary: 30-33 ACT, 660-730 EBRW, 650-760 Math
*Berkeley is “enrollment estimate as of 08/2018” and may be inaccurate
Why is UCB’s 25th lower than the others like that?
@emorynavy #17 said the second data set for Berkeley was a projection and might be off while the first data set was apparently reported differently so they might have messed it up.
Wouldn’t the most likely answer be that the figure represents the scores attained by the students who attend Berkeley?
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=Berkeley&s=all&id=110635#admsns
For perspective
2018-2019
Emory: 31-34, 660-730 EBRW, 690-790 Math
UCLA: 28-34, 640-740 EBRW, 630-780 Math
Williams: 32-35, 710-760 EBRW, 700-790 Math
CMC: 31-34, 670-730 EBRW, 680-770 Math
Cornell: 32-34, 680-750 EBRW, 710-790 Math
@merc81
Well yea, I was wondering why it was a bit lower.
Also what you posted is for 2017-2018 , not 2018-2019.
UCs have a reputation for more heavily weighting gpa than test scores, yes? An additional weirdness for UCB: The UCB 2017-2018 CDS for class of 2021 (enrolled fall 2017) has EBRW 650-750, math 650-780, while what should be the exact same data (enrolled fall 2017) at NCES is EBRW 630-720, math 630-760. What am I missing?
Not sure what the difference could be… but some ideas…UCB may have updated the CDS multiple times, which IPEDS may not reflect. Or UCB’s CDS could be incorrect.