@uclaparent9 Of course. But look at the list in post #5. Many top tier schools have more than 10% of their entering class that is outside the top ten percent of their high school class. CMU has 20 percent. This is an indication that they are accepting some of their class with higher test scores and lower grades. And as hebegebe pointed out, this tends to be confirmed by the Naviance stats available to each of us.
@GraceDad well, every school says that, I think, not just Notre Dame. But Notre Dame accepts 5 times more of their class outside of the top 10% than Chicago or MIT does. Who are those students? Some are athletes, but others likely are high test scorers who will bring up the school’s SAT averages for rankings purposes. To be fair, I listed Notre Dame based only on anecdotal stories I have heard.