<p>"I actually know someone who believes that Harvard automatically wait-lists at best anyone with an SAT score below 1500."</p>
<p>waitlist = deferral</p>
<p>harvard ea only rejected like 100 people and deferred a few thousand this year. deferral is practically rejection except for those special few. this dude i know who scored 1580 on his first try and 1600 on his second try on the SATs with straight As was deferred; this is probably the profile of a good thousand applicants who were also deferred who will eventually probably get rejected.</p>
<p>Dre, I think you got many harsh responses because no one wants to believe that just because you are a URM, a college will let you in with stats way below their norms. The fact is that colleges will give a boost to URMs who have not had the advantages of others, but they do not accept candidates with SAT scores several hundred points below their average on the whole. Certainly there are hooks that are more sure fire--a top athlete, URM, white or Asian, might get into HY or P with an SAT score in the 1200s. Same with a development candidate whose family has given millions. But we are creating a divide when people think URMs at top schools are not held to standards similar to those of the rest of the applicant pool. As someone who has interviewed for Harvatd for more years than I want to admit, I can tell you the fact is they are.</p>
<p>If he got a 1580 on his first try, why did he take it again? And yes, a lot of people got deferred... but a lot people with sub-1500s got accepted, and that was my point.</p>
<p>It bothers me that there is this "soft bigotry of low expectations" as President Bush would put it. Why should anyone, rich or poor, male or female, black, white or purple, be deemed so inferior that standards/expectations should be lowered for them? Also, AA is wrong because it hurts labor productivity. HYP and others should focus on admitting the people who will be the best lawyers, professors, dipomats and especially doctors. I don't care if my doctor is white or arab or asian or whatever, but he/she sure as heck better have been qualified to go to medical school.</p>
<p>the guy was arrogant. i personally don't like him very much b/c he brags constantly. even when he was applying, he was always like "oh, i'm applying to harvard... i'm going to my harvard interview... blah blah blah." but you still gotta give the guy props for his academics.</p>
<p>The movie reference was Dumb and Dumber. I would be pretty ****ed off if the bar was so significantly lower for URMs. I agree with many of the above posts. Admissions officers should chose who will make the best professionals.</p>
<p>"I actually know someone who believes that Harvard automatically wait-lists at best anyone with an SAT score below 1500."</p>
<p>There are plenty of people who erroneously believe the above. This particularly is true of students and parents who are in or from countries where college admissions is strictly a numbers game.</p>
<p>Unfortunately for such people, places like Ivy place a lot of emphasis on ECs, recommendations, essays and uncontrollable factors such as those that will help create well rounded classes representing all kinds of diversity including of religion, region, socioeconomic, etc.</p>
<p>There are plenty of people with 1500 and higher SATs that get outright rejections from Harvard. This typically won't happen during EA (where probably only the rare students who clearly don't qualify for Harvard are rejected). But there are plenty of high stat students who get rejected in April.</p>
<p>this is turning into a tangent like one of the boards at penn (the ivy) taken over by azns. we've got like 10 pages worth of chinese stuff going on there. it'll only mean something to you if you're chinese like me. :-D</p>