Middle 50% scores

<p>I don't understand how middle 50% scores work. If the middle 50% scores are 610 - 760, does that mean that 610 was in the 25 percentile and 760 was in the 75 percentile, and the average was 685?</p>

<p>yea i think that's how it works</p>

<p>yeah 25% of people got better than 760! o.o</p>

<p>25% got lower than 610... :(</p>

<p>but at any college you're gonna find kids with amazing SATs and kids with dismal SATs so 25-75% gives you a good idea of where you fit in</p>

<p>I don't get it. </p>

<p>so... Say there were 100 kids in the enrolling class.
Line them up in the order of their SAT/ACT score from lowest to highest.
Middle 50% would mean from the kid #26 to the kid #75 ????????? </p>

<p>OR... line the SCORES up from the lowest to the highest.
Score #25 - #75 is the middle 50%???
someone help!</p>

<p>Let's be honest here.</p>

<p>What the hell are you asking starbucks? The middle 50%. The lower score out of the range is the 25th percentile and the higher score out of the range is the 75th percentile. Simple, very, very simple. There's no need to line kids up.</p>

<p>okay. i will be honest back.
I STILL DON'T GET IT. </p>

<p>because you know how sometimes SCORES OVERLAP.
Say thirty students get 800, one kid gets 700, and only one kid gets 600. The middle percentile is STILL 650-750, right??????? (tell me if i'm wrong) If it is like that, then it completely disregards the fact that WAY more students got around 800 than like low 600.
gahhhhh</p>

<p>Oh okay, I can at least see where you're coming from now. But no, that's not right.</p>

<p>It would look like this</p>

<p>800, 800, 800, 800, 800, 800 and so on, then 700, 600. Add up the 30-800's, 700 and 600 and the average score is 790. It's a very small sample so it's hard to put together a middle 50% with this one, but the 75% percentile for this group of students is still an 800, so the middle 50% would be 7XX-800. </p>

<p>For example, Harvard's middle 50% in CR is 700-800. Which is absurd because that means AT LEAST 25% of their students got an 800 in CR.</p>

<p>ooooooohhhhhhhhhhh....
oh my god, i love you, thank you so much.</p>

<p>No for that example with 30 800 and a 600 and 700, the middle 50% would be 800-800. It is simply the first and third quartiles of scores. Also if the range was 610-760, it does not mean that the average was 685. That's not how statistics work...</p>

<p>"I don't get it.</p>

<p>so... Say there were 100 kids in the enrolling class.
Line them up in the order of their SAT/ACT score from lowest to highest.
Middle 50% would mean from the kid #26 to the kid #75 ?????????</p>

<p>OR... line the SCORES up from the lowest to the highest.
Score #25 - #75 is the middle 50%???
someone help!"</p>

<p>If the use percentiles in their calculations, then it should be 26th to 76th. If they use quartiles then it would be something like 25.5-75.5.</p>

<p>Statistics work better with large samples.</p>

<p>The bottom line is that even being in the lower 25% you have a chance to get in.</p>

<p>^ THe bottom 25% consists largely of scholarship (or highly recruited) athletes and URMs. If one is in the bottom 25% and neither of those two things, it is virtually impossible to get accepted.</p>

<p>Write very good essays. You never know what they are looking for. Your chances go up from 0 to 25% just by applying. Not a bad gamble.</p>

<p>The other side to this is that the more people that apply that have a marginal chance of being accepted, the more the school can pump up its chest and flaunt their minuscule acceptance rate.</p>

<p>quartiles are based on the mean, not the median, so even if there were 100 students and the 25th kid had a 600, the 25% quartile could still be 700</p>

<p>It IS an idea of listing the students in order, and averaging scores has absolutely nothing to do with showing the interquartile range of scores. You can't determine the average (mean) score from the interquartile range with certainty. </p>

<p>Common</a> Data Set 2008-09 </p>

<p>(See definitions for how score percentiles are reported for admission tests.)</p>