OP: the course of this thread is strange. You wish to resurrect the topic of low outlier SAT/ACT admits to top schools, you say due to curiosity. Then you bounce around and assert that regardless of scores, candidates must display something the colleges really desire – while waiting for inspiring stories. To what end? In EVERY SINGLE freshman class there are people who are statistically, the bottom. What’s so strange or curious about this fact? I still don’t know what you are hoping to derive from this as you’ve answered it yourself – some people will be admitted despite having lower scores due to some other valued factor by the college. This is surprising news?
^^ It can all be explained by this one quote from him.
“The SAT tests how well you take the SAT, nothing more.”
Apparently, this person has substantial deep-seated insecurity. Either that or they don’t know that the SAT started life as an…test of intelligence and they are in denial over the continued correlation to IQ.
@JustOneDad * “Apparently, this person has substantial deep-seated insecurity” * No I don’t. And whatever the SAT started it’s life as, it does not truly test intelligence today. Knowing English grammar (for the Writing section), having good vocabulary (Reading) and solving wordy Math problems does not a genius make. It seems to me like you got a high SAT score and are rather proud of it, which is why you turn hostile whenever someone mentions the possibility of it not being correlated to IQ levels. It is not my fault you feel like you have to prove SAT scores truly measure intelligence levels to satisfy your inflated ego.
@T26E4 I started this thread out of curiosity of the stories behind people’s acceptances to the Ivies despite low scores. I never said it was surprising news, all I did was ask people to share their stories and stats if they got into Ivies with low SAT score. If in the process this helps any person surfing this site with an amazing application but bad Standardized test score for whatever reason, then so much the better. What I don’t understand is why people are making a melodrama out of this.
SAT scores continue to have a VERY high correlation to measures of general IQ.
@JustOneDad Ok, fine, they do. PM me with your facts/opinions/ instead of writing on the thread please 
At a certain point, the SAT’s are too low to support success at Ivy League schools, which is why you see admissions statistics the way they are.
It would be more helpful to applicants with low SAT scores to encourage them to move on and find a better match as opposed to encouraging what is not only a false hope, but may lead to an even unhappier situation in the future.
Sorry to interrupt but does anyone know if college ad coms place more importance on different sections of the SAT depending on the applicant’s major? For example, I am applying to the top Ivys with a 680 CR but 800 math and 790 Writing and my major is Biological Sciences.
@HPClee please start your own thread. Don’t hijack.
@HPClee There are about a dozen threads already about lopsided SAT scores. Use the search bar.
There is a Duke study where they look at how much different components of the application contribute to academic success at Duke in a challenging STEM major by finding the regression coefficients of the admissions officers ratings of those sections. In short, they looked at how much test scores add to the prediction beyond the other sections of the application. They found that test scores had a smaller magnitude regression component than all sections of the application except for how admissions officers rated personality (students with worse personality ratings had a slightly greater chance of sticking with the major), suggesting test scores added little to prediction of academic success beyond the other areas of the application. However, they did find that test scores alone were more significantly correlated with success in college since they are correlated with other section of the application that had a greater influences. For example, students with higher scores were more likely to be better prepared by taking a more challenging HS curriculum.
The Duke study is far from the only one to come to this conclusion. The Heil study found that students with significantly lower scores than average for the college had a similar grad rate, after filtering for differences in high school grades, high school course rigor, and income, among other things. The Bates test optional study found no notable difference between GPA and grad rate among test score submitters and test score non-submitters at test optional colleges, even though the non-submitters had significantly lower test scores than the submitters. In fact all studies I am aware of that filtered for a measure of both HS grades and HS course rigor found test scores added little to the prediction of academic success.
As far as low score admittances, one can find many examples. In my opinion, the most successful CC student poster may have been MrTubbs. He was admitted to ivies, but chose Stanford instead. At Stanford, he completed a co-terminal masters with honors, received the highest award given to Stanford students (Dinkelspeil), and went on to be the youngest ever elected official of his home town during his graduation year. He has had numerous amazing accomplishments since then. However, he only had a 24/25 math/science ACT, which converts to a score in the 500s on those sections. Of course CC is a poor reflection of the overall applicant pool. The lowest stat acceptances are unlikely to post on CC. For example, another impressive everything except for her 1750 superscored SAT applicant also became an honors coterminal masters graduate at Stanford. She finished her bachelors+master in 4 years. She describes her background and test scores at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8fHUSgpMBg . While in Stanford and beyond she also made amazing strides towards improving her community.
As to why admissions stats are high, looking at the scores of existing students gives you little information about how much test scores influence acceptance decisions since the admission pool may be loaded with top stat students (if top stat students apply, top stat students will be accepted), and top scores are correlated with numerous other areas of the app. For example, suppose a particular highly selective college tries to find students with top grades at a high course rigor who have great LORs, strong passions for life and career as evidenced by out of classroom activities that are impressive on a state+ level, and seem like they are going to make the campus a better place and make an impact on the world beyond. The vast majority of students that meet this description are going to have high SAT scores, so the average SAT score is expected to be high regardless of weighting. The more interesting question would be what happens to the few, rare applicants who meets the description well, but do not have a high SAT score?
@Data10 Thank you for your input! Can you provide a link to the Duke study? And I have heard about the study that Bates and other Test-Optional colleges conducted, but I didn’t realize Duke did one too (usually it’s Princeton that does them lol).
The reality is, if you have to actively search for examples of kids with your stats that got accepted to Ivies, you probably will be rejected. Kids that get in with SAT scores below 2200 are generally hooked (URM, first gen, etc) or recruited. The average white kid from New England can’t expect to have a reasonable shot with an 1800 unless he/she is absolutely exceptional in some aspect. If you were that exceptional, you would most likely know.
@Qwerty568 Are you talking to me? What gives you the idea that I’m searching for kids with “my stats”? I have not posted them anywhere. I vaguely referred to them in other threads, but no where have I ever actually stated them. In case you haven’t noticed, I started this thread way after the deadline for most Ivies( which was in January, I think), so I can’t possibly use any information posted here to “further” my own admission goals as you seem to believe.
*The average white kid from New England can’t expect to have a reasonable shot with an 1800 unless he/she is absolutely exceptional in some aspect *
I don’t judge people’s exceptional-ity based on what colleges they get in. And I don’t live in America, so…
- If you were that exceptional, you would most likely know. *
I most certainly would. And do
I know a girl who was #1 tennis player in the country. She had a 3.6 GPA and a 1500 SAT. She got accepted into Princeton, Harvard, and Stanford. She’s know at Stanford.
^^so the moral of the story is…one needs to know the context and the extenuating circumstances related to the low GPA or test scores…there’s usually always a very significant “backstory”…
…this student was the no. 1 tennis player in the country.
- "so the moral of the story is…one needs to know the context and the extenuating circumstances related to the low GPA or test scores…there’s usually always a very significant “backstory”… "*
@gravitas2 When it comes to college admissions, yes, there is usually a backstory/talent/ something that differentiates that one applicant from other applicants.
@InfinityMan No, I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to any kid who reads this and gets false hope. Behind every kid that gets into the Ivies with a sub 2000 test score is a story. A good one. The average kid shouldn’t think that because the tennis superstar from post 34 got into Princeton, Harvard, and Stanford with a 1500 means that they could get in with a 1500.
Students may apply based on outliers, but decisions aren’t made based on them.
- “Students may apply based on outliers, but decisions aren’t made based on them”*
@JustOneDad I actually agree with this, to an extent. Decisions are not based solely on outliers, but neither are they based on test scores only.
@Qwerty568 Average kids reading this post would not think that, unless they’re simple - not average. No one would apply to the ivies with an “average” everything just because they read a post on the internet.