<p>I'm finishing up my junior year, so I'm pretty much finalizing where I'm applying to. I browse through the U.S. News and World Report statistics that has whatever information the colleges want to report. One thing I look at is the middle 50% of standardized test scores, but I'm a little confused about how to use that information.</p>
<p>As I am interpreting it, the middle 50% of SAT or ACT scores means that 25% of people accepted have a score lower than the bottom of that range and 25% of people accepted have a score lower than the top of that range. The thing that is confusing me is that for many top schools, they seem very low...</p>
<p>I'm a B+ average, mostly AP kid, got a 30 on the ACT, 50th in a class of 360. Ive never had any illusions of getting into a Yale or a Stanford with those kinds of stats, just would never even get on my radar. Places like those are competitive for valedictorians and perfect SAT scorers But when I browse through these middle 50% scores, they seem way lower than they should be. </p>
<p>The middle 50% of ACT scores at Yale is 30-34, at Stanford and Dartmouth are 29-33 and 29-34 respectively. Cornell is 28-32</p>
<p>If I based my hopes on those statistics, it would imply that I would at least have a small chance of getting into schools like those if I had a good hook or something. But that doesnt seem logical when you overlook those statistics. </p>
<p>Can someone explain why those scores seem lower to me than they should me? Am I misreading the statistics? Are the lower scores mostly underrepresented minorities (I am a white male) or sports recruits? Someone help me out here! </p>
<p>THe reason that the stats are suprisingly low is becasue of the athletes, legacys, URMs that the college cater to. For a “normal” applicant (one without any special status like the ones I listed previously) the middle 50% is probably misleading, you would need a score closer to, or above, the 75% to have a good shot of getting in.</p>
<p>At the schools you mention 40% or more have hooks as phade notes. These kids can have significantly lower stats. When you look at the top of the 50th percentile, let’s use Yale, it tells you that at least 25% have 790 or 800 on each SAT section. when schools break this out further you most often see that it is more than 25%.</p>
<p>So in reality, when lookig at where you fit, a non hooked student should be eyeballing that 75th percentile figure rather than the full range when assessing his chances by the time you factor in everything including geographical representation. In your case these colleges all get a ton of qualified apps from MA making yours a particularly competitive pool.</p>
<p>Where’s the PROOF that URMs are lowering the overall test score averages at elite schools? The URMs posting on CC are in the top end of the 75% range for the top schools. I personally know white non-legacies, non-athletes who have gotten into colleges with test scores in the bottom 25% of the schools that admitted them. To assume URMs make up the bottom 25% and only whites (and, i suppose, Asians) are in the top 25% is to stereotype all URMs, without a scintilla of proof.</p>
<p>This stereotyping has to stop. Already there are white people, mostly Republicans, accusing Judge Sonia Sotomayor of being an “affirmative action” admit to Yale Law School. Let me see now…Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, 2nd in her class at Princeton. Yeah, right, she needed affirmative action to get in. She was MORE qualified than the white males sitting next to her at Yale.</p>
<p>Lame, man. Lame. Stop ASSUMING things about URMs.</p>
<p>Do I have PROOF that URMs generally lower the average SAT score for a college? No, for two reasons. 1) I really don’t care about this issue that much, it is pretty much generally understood that affirmative action gives minority students a little extra leeway with regards to SAT scores 2) Colleges don’t really release this type of data willingly. </p>
<p>I think I will continue to hold my beliefs about URMs until I am presented with credible data that forces me to reevaluate them. Until then, chill out, I’m not talking about Sotomayor and I’m not trying to put down minorities… I was just answering his question.</p>
<p>URMs almost always as a whole lower test scores. That is not to say that no matter what every URM will, but on average the do.</p>
<p>I know an african american female at my school who got into UIUC with a full ride with good grades (3.8 GPA) but a 20 ACT score. UIUCs Average is like 29-30, and full rides are reserved for the tippy top students academically or URMs</p>
<p>A good place to get the facts on admissions to elite schools and how race effects it is a book by a Wall Street Journal writer called ‘The Price Of Admission.’ Golden won a Pulitzer for this work.</p>
<p>OP - In phade’s post #2, replace “URMs” with “developmental and other hooked admits” and you get the same result. BTW, at top schools it’s possible to get wait-listed with stats above the 90th percentile of admitted freshmen. That’s why they’re called “reaches for everyone.”</p>
<p>That said, if a school appeals to you then by all means apply. Who knows, you may be exactly what they’re looking for!</p>
<p>Also Plainsman, no one EVER said that URMs made up the entire bottom 25%.</p>
<p>And I would like to point out that the middle 50% at these schools doesn’t seem unusually low as it does broad. A full quarter of applicants to Yale are getting above a 34 on the ACT which puts them in the 99th percentile. That seems pretty high to me.</p>
<p>Actually a 32+ puts you in the 99th percentile. However around 20000 kids achieve these scores or higher so those 20000 kids all apply to the same schools.</p>
<p>I guess it just seems hard for me to believe that 25% of those accepted to Yale have an ACT score lower than 29. If that’s true, then my score of a 30 would be a reach, but my application would be at least somewhat competitive if I did some extraordinary things outside of school, or something like that. That just seems hard to believe. </p>
<p>Bright kids have to be a dime a dozen in the world. It just seems to me that a 30 ACT application to Yale wouldn’t even be seriously glanced over. Even at Duke, the acceptance rate for valedictorians is 43%. That’s incredible.</p>
<p>Should I take away from this that smart kids are a dime a dozen at Ivies are a dime a dozen, and they do care about the big picture a lot more than one might think? That they’d be more interested in the high school kid who organized that national drive for cell phones for soldiers but might have a 29 on the ACT, then they would one of the tens of thousands of valedictorians who did nothing in high school but study?</p>
<p>Honestly, what I would take away is that they need 17% athletes, 8 plus percent blacks, 8 plus percent Hispanics, a few percent Native Americans, 2 kids from N. Dakota, 2 from Alaska, 3 percent wealthy development kids, some staff kids to keep their top prof parent and that some of the most brilliant math student internationals don’t speak English yet so scored a 22 on that section.</p>
<p>How about saying that many of the kids in the bottom 25th percentile come from lower socio-economic status families – including many who are first-generation college. It is also true that many black and hispanic kids come from low-income families – but there are plenty of poor whites, too, who get a boost. </p>
<p>And I would argue that, at least at the top schools, most legacies have very high stats. Being a legacy is a hook, but does not make up for a deficit in SATs or GPA.</p>
Thats how it should be, but I’ve never heard that that is how it is.
Edit: Yeah, now that I’m thinking about it I don’t even see how that would be possible. Most of the top schools, which is what we are talking about, have need blind admissions and seperate offices of admission and offices of financial aid. The admissions people don’t see what the families income is so how could they give the kid a boost based on it? No, I think its much safer to assume that, currently, affirmative action is based almost entirely on race, which is unfortunate.</p>