<p>
[quote]
Don't fall into the trap that a high SAT score means you are a better person, or even a better student. Was it Alantic magazine that found Shakespeare failing the standardized reading test?
[/quote]
Shakespeare's poor performance on the test may be attributable to his having a severe learning disability, commonly referred to as "being dead".</p>
<p>Be thankful that you are so privileged to be able to attend one of the wonderful institutions of higher learning that the USA has to offer: all 3000+ of them.</p>
<p>
[quote]
? As far as I have ever read, high grades and test scores do not correlate with one's ability to be a good adcom or CEO. In fact, I think that top CEOs tend to have had average grades.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Oh, dear. Then how do we justify all that hard work to our children and why do the schools pay so much attention to those things? Perhaps there's more to life after all. ;)</p>
<p>
[quote]
As far as I have ever read, high grades and test scores do not correlate with one's ability to be a good adcom or CEO. In fact, I think that top CEOs tend to have had average grades.[
[/quote]
And they tend not to be products of Ivy League schools, which for all their elitism, have a tradition of ethical behavior and public service.</p>
<p>Quote:
Don't fall into the trap that a high SAT score means you are a better person, or even a better student. Was it Alantic magazine that found Shakespeare failing the standardized reading test?
Shakespeare's poor performance on the test may be attributable to his having a severe learning disability, commonly referred to as "being dead"."</p>
<p>lol nice one yalebound...I was gonna say something about how English was different then, but that was even better.</p>
<p>"And they tend not to be products of Ivy League schools, which for all their elitism, have a tradition of ethical behavior and public service."</p>
<p>Really? I've know a lot of corrupt public servants and you'd be hard pressed to prove that Ivy Leaguers hold to standards of ethical behavior than anyone else.</p>
<p>and in this day and age, you can also not trust that ECs or essays are the product of the student's own drive, interests or abilities. I think that so much weight on these "intangibles" isn't right either. A list of activities/accomplishments doesn't really tell what a young person is really all about because, at least where we live, half this stuff is pushed by well-meaning, but over involved parents.</p>
<p>hm. I felt like my essays and extracurriculars added something important to my application. Also, I wrote them/did them myself, without the involved-parents-pushing. Yalebound, you act like adcomms reject a higher SAT/GPA person for a lower one all the time. This doesn't make sense - students with the highest SAT/GPA get in at a much higher rate than kids with lower ones, and theres also FEWER of these people. Adcomms accept the people with lower SATs/GPA usually when they find something in the rest of the application that shows that those scores do not accurately represent the student.</p>
<p>plus, some people take SATs poorly - and everyone who thinks this is bull is just arrogantly tricking themselves. I've seen plenty of smart people with great GPAs but low SATs, or with low SATs and GPAs both. I personally took a 140 point jump upward on the SAT2 Writing the second time i took it, with no class or tutoring beforehand. I've lost my faith in standardized testing.</p>
<p>btw, just so you don't write me off as a low gpa/sat guy trying to rationalize his weakness... i'll be attending Amherst next year</p>
<p>
[quote]
btw, just so you don't write me off as a low gpa/sat guy trying to rationalize his weakness... i'll be attending Amherst next year
[/quote]
What were your stats?</p>
<p>Yalebound, I understand your arguments since I USED to share some of your views. I have, however, to admit that my former opinion was ill-founded.</p>
<p>Rather than finding faults in the system and degrading the role of adcoms, candidates are much better off to focus on finding the best ways to present the best image possible. This "best image" cannot be based solely on grades and test scores. All the outrage about the sytem failing to establish a true meritocracy represents a truly hollow message. </p>
<p>The roles of the adcoms is to build a diverse CLASS and not an amalgam of students who seem to have been "produced" from the same molds as the "Stepford Wifes". I do not have to expand on the stereotype: high grades, high test scores, the typical fabricated selection of EC that includes the ubiquitous 7 years of violin or other solitary activities, a sprinkle of volunteerism ... you get the picture. </p>
<p>The real question is not why the adcoms tend to reject the stepford kids but why the rejected group was UNABLE to present a better image? Why are students who beg for a more difficult SAT test unable or unwilling to write compelling essays? Why would someone who can earn an 800 on one of the SAT verbal tests struggle to write a paltry total of 500 words or less? Does the difficulty of writing a personal statement stems from its requirement for an original thought? Most anyone with proper training and coaching can excel on standardized test. It is much harder to excel as a passionate person. Is it really so wrong for adcoms or interviewers to desperately look for some signs of life in addition to passive academic excellence? </p>
<p>When discussing the role of adcoms, outsiders have to speculate on what is really happening inside the ivory towers of admissions. There is one element that is extremely important: adcoms, especially senior officers, have the experience of years of analyzing students and have access to prior data to predict how well a type of students does. They also have access to something none of us have: tens of thousand of applications from all over the world. They see an huge cross-section of students while outisders rely on flawed, misleading, and mostly anedoctal evidence. </p>
<p>The bottom line is that rejected high scorers do not need to go around blaming the "system" for its failure to recognize their unbelievable merits. They can blame the heavy competition since there were BETTER candidates than them: candidates who were better when compared to their peers. Rejected students also can blame themselves and their parents for not having understood the real rules of the games, or more often for having tried to manipulate the system via cynical gamemanship aka the building of the lifeless Stepford kids. In the past, the colleges admitted this type of students in droves, but they have learned and have established different rules. It is easier to create rules than to react to them!</p>
<p>4.0 uw, 1560, 790/790/750</p>
<p>and i'm thankful for rest of the application - it made me more than just numbers</p>
<p>well said, xiggi</p>
<p>You go into a restaurant and order a sandwich. There are lots of great sandwiches there you would like to try. They have two nice slices of bread, equally fine slices of tomato and pieces of lettuce but you only need one. Once in a while you order a burrito, or stuffed pita bread for a little variation. </p>
<p>Adcoms have the same decision process. After they get rid of the sstudents that are missing something essential, or that look a little unlike their vision of a student at their school, they still have a limited consumption of a large collection of students.</p>
<p>Haven't you ever been to a buffet.....something is always left untouched by any individual who is choosing. It doesn't mean that what was left was inferior, there just wasn't any more room.</p>
<p>
[quote]
[I had] 4.0 uw, 1560, 790/790/750, and i'm thankful for rest of the application - it made me more than just numbers
[/quote]
With those numbers you were a lock at Amherst anyway, unless they read some "I saved mankind over my summer vacation" essay and decided to take that person over you because some adcomm said "I'd don't know what it is, I just like that guy who saved mankind"....</p>
<p>Yalebound: Although fire's stats are excellent, they by no means made him/her "a lock at Amherst". It is one of the most selective colleges in that country, and there are many people with similar stats to fire. The adcoms remember that those numbers are not a whole person, and that they just reflect certain aspects of each applicant.</p>
<p>
[quote]
[Amherst]is one of the most selective colleges in that country, and there are many people with similar stats to fire.
[/quote]
Not really. Only about 1,200-1,500 kids nationwide get 1580 or above, and most of them are going to HYP Stanford MIT and Caltech. With that GPA, he's into Amherst unless he's an ax muderer -- no, a convicted ax muderer.</p>
<p>Here are the top 2 classmates of mine stats-wise:
1) 4.0 UW, 1/460, All IB classes, 1590, 36, 3 800's, #1 runner in state + ClassPrez, StudentBody Prez, etc. etc.
2) 4.0 UW, 1/460, All IB classes, 1590, 36, 3 800's, brilliant + numerous ECs/leadership</p>
<p>Both are loved by teachers/faculty since they ace everything and have amazing personalities.</p>
<p>Want to know where they're likely going?
1) Kansas State University
2) Univ of Tulsa</p>
<p>Whattt!? those aren't Ivy League!? what's going on here!? you have to go to an Ivy league school for success? only brilliant ppl go to Yale? oh, okay.</p>
<p>No offense, Yalebound, but you're as elitist as people come. There is something called money that not everyone has, and most people do not want to pay back $160,000 in loans. So, don't speak without knowledge, knowledge of the real world. Thanks.</p>
<p>I'll be honest and say there are many students in my class that are perfectly qualified to go to an Ivy. Several of them have applied to Ivies and if are accepted will most likely attend, but this also because they have money. The best applicants don't have the money to get there at my school. It isn't right. Btw, the 2 ppl above didn't even bother applying to any schools within the Top25, not to mention Ivies. Other classmates with very impressive resumes+stats did apply to Top25/Ivies but only because their families can pay for it. </p>
<p>To get an idea how some ppl do think, let me tell you about one of my friends last year. She was amazing student, person, involved, and so forth but had no interest in a top college. She didn't want to go. Her counselor made her apply to Harvard, filled out her resume (not essays or anything), and mailed it for her. My friend applied to RD to harvard, was accepted, and turned it down. She didn't want to go, not sure why, but I think partly because of the elitist atmosphere present at many Ivies. Now she's at Carleton College.</p>
<p>Don't think I'm some bitter applicant who was rejected by Yale or something, I'll know in April hehe. I'm just saying....</p>
<p>Yalebound: I do not think that you realize that Amherst is as selective as HYP, Stanford, and MIT. For example, the middle 50% SAT scores are 1370-1560 at Princeton and 1320-1540 at Amherst. Although SAT scores are not everything, this data shows that there are not significant differences in the qualifications of students at Amherst and the students at schools that you seem to consider to be more selective. In your posts, you always seem to think that HYP, Stanford, and MIT are better than all other schools.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I do not think that you realize that Amherst is as selective as HYP, Stanford, and MIT. For example, the middle 50% SAT scores are 1370-1560 at Princeton and 1320-1540 at Amherst.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>For comparing individuals, 50 pts either way on the SAT may not mean much. When comparing schools, it means a great deal (statistically significant, in fact highly significant due to large numbers). I admit, I'm impressed by how well Amherst does at the top, but even the 20 points 1540vs1560 means a lot with a class of size 500-1000, and the 1320vs1370 at the bottom is huge. Also, you compare pton to Amherst, but HY are are in a niche above pton at this time in terms of selectivity (1380-1580/1590H) today, which the pton people don't like to hear but it's true. (See NBER revealed preference ranking)</p>
<p>Although HYP median scores are slightly higher than Amherst's, the difference is not significant. As people have been saying earlier in the thread, SAT scores are not what makes a candidate favorable, but rather what makes him or her acceptable for futher evaluation. Someone with a score of 1580 or 1590 is not smarter than someone with a 1540.</p>