Need advice! Ivy league or not?

College Search & Selection
101

@Crewdad, most Ivies now superscore both the ACT and the SAT.

This is how Yale words it, which for the ACT is superscoring said differently -

“Superscoring: When assessing SAT results, admissions officers will focus on your highest individual old or new scores from all test dates. For example, if you took the old SAT twice, your highest Critical Reading, Math and Writing scores will be considered individually. If you took the new SAT twice, your highest Evidence-Based Reading and Writing, Math and Essay scores will be considered individually. If you took both types of SAT, the admissions office will treat them separately and review the best scores on each test. When assessing ACT results, admissions officers focus on the highest ACT Composite and highest Writing score from all test dates, and also consider individual ACT subscores.”

I know Brown policy is worded the same.

102

Digression, but since it has been trotted out:

Wouldn’t SATs be more relevant/ represent a larger proportion of the incoming classes than ACT?

It used to be, at least, that east coast students mostly took the SAT, not the ACT. Unless they were seeking a midwestern public university. Which most weren’t. So ACT was an afterthought for many. Which they may not have put much effort into preparing for. If they even took the test.

And if they did take both they usually only had to submit one or the other. For the east coast schools.

I know it became more murky more recently. Still, my D1 and D2 didn’t even take the ACT. My S did but just as I said as an afterthought with no preparation. His resulting scores weren’t as strong as the SAT so he didn’t submit them.

I think traditionally a much larger proportion of matriculants to east coast schools were evaluated based on submitted SAT scores.

I know that very recently there was uncertainty about the new SAT, and how to prepare for it, which caused more students to shift to ACT. But that’s very recent.

103

I think its funny to see a ranking posted of schools on a given criteria which isn’t the order some people want to see them listed and then providing reasons why they are not in the “right” order.

104

@monydad: more students now take the ACT than the SAT. The trend was strong enough that it pushed the SAT redesign (the trend predates the sat change and in the year or two before new SAT the act had passed the SAT as most popular test).

105

More and more students out here in silicon valley, prepare for the SAT and PSAT and take those, along with the ACT, which they don’t really study for. Then based on which test they do better, they take that one again (if needed). This taking of both and figuring out which to take again is pretty new and has definitely helped ACT since Cal had been a pure SAT state, if you will. The ACT is also seen as easier than the SAT, so if colleges look at 2300 or 35 the same and a 35 is more attainable, they’ll shift to the ACT. In the past, applicants thought that colleges that preferred the SAT would not view the ACT as equivalent.

106

@calmom never said that all is required is a pulse. getting a high score is no easy feat at all. but having a 2270+ SAT (old version) and everything else ok but not too impressive is more or less a virtual guarantee of admission at Vanderbilt. this is not true for the ivies and other 10-15 schools. The common data set of the school shows that GPA is not considered as heavily for example.

107

@chembiodad “most Ivies now superscore both the ACT and the SAT.” Are you sure that is what the Yale statement indicates? It doesn’t read that way to me. It says “focuses on the highest ACT composite” which seems to mean they don’t superscore. Isn’t superscoring when they take each individual subscore and recalculate a higher composite? They only mention “considering” subscores.

In my research I have found only a couple of schools that truly superscore the ACT.

@Penn95 Looks like S18 has finally found a safety school, lol. The Vanderbilt results thread tells a different story though…

108

The ACT is becoming increasingly ore popular. This year Northeastern became a majority ACT school and that was what was reported to USNews etc.

109

Re #103 & 107: thanks, I didn’t know that.

110

Where the idea come from that Ivies “don’t put as much weight on test scores. They put more weight on gpa, extracurriculars, and essays?” That’s a rather bold assertion.

With competition that fierce, every bit matters.

Just being the busiest kid in the class doesn’t show the value of what she’s doing. It’s not accumulating the most hours that matters.

111

I don’t believe that. (and obviously no one is applying with old version SAT)

If Vanderbilt had a 45% admission rate, I’d buy it.

But they are turning away 90% of applicants. Vandy is well known for having some particularly generous aid policies (for one thing, they are one of only a handful of schools that promise to meet 100% of financial need but do not require reporting of noncustodial parent income and assets) – and they also can be quite generous with merit aid for top candidates. So they have plenty of high caliber students applying.

Common data set shows that median range SAT scores to be 700+. See https://virg.vanderbilt.edu/virgweb/CDSC.aspx?year=2016

If you want to make up fake facts and post them online, I’d suggest that you come up with something that isn’t so easily refuted by publicly available data.

There was a time when the stats would have told a different story. When my son was applying to colleges in the year 2000, Vandy had a 55% admit rate and SAT verbal median range of 600-690. Source: https://virg.vanderbilt.edu/virgweb/CDSC.aspx?year=2000

If my son had wanted to apply, I’m sure in those days it would have been a safe bet with his scores & GPA.

In 2005 when my daughter was mailing in applications (yes, we still had the option of paper and postage stamps back on those days) – the admission rate had declined 35%, and median SAT verbal scores had crept up to 630-720. So SAT scores of above 720 (upper 25%) were probably still a major factor in admission, though unlikely to have been determinative given that they were then able to turn away 2/3 of applicants. Source: https://virg.vanderbilt.edu/virgweb/CDSC.aspx?year=2005

But the OP’s daughter will be applying in 2017. The CDS shows us that 79.4% of this years’ matriculating class had CR scores reading scores in the 700-800 range, and 82.6% had math scores at that level. For the Vandy ad com, the OP daughter’s “crazy high” scores are what they would consider “average”.

Vandy says that SAT scores are “very important” - which would strongly suggest that if the question were turned around – what is the likelihood of rejection for someone whose scores are NOT high end – then your opinion would have some weight. I would think that it would be tough for kids with weaker scores to make the cut.

But the concept that the high scores are a ticket in simply can’t be true given the numbers, and it would be a mistake if the OP and her daugher are under the mistaken assumption that she has a high likelihood of admission in today’s admission environment simply based on her scores.

*Kudos to Vanderbilt for posting Common Data Sets online going back to 1999, with a set of online forms that can be easily and automatically navigated through drop down lists. If I were to rank colleges based on the degree to which they make CDS data easily available on their web sites, Vandy clearly is #1.

112

^ And it’s holistic.
So the accomplishments summarized are just the bones, not the whole that a top college will consider.

Frankly, at this point, rather than make college suggestions to OP, she and her D need a better read on what her targets do look for. What really makes a compelling match to each college, not just her laurels in her own high school.

This isn’t just resesrching what the student wants or likes.

113

As I stated earlier, it takes more than very high test scores and GPA to get in to Vanderbilt. Students from our HS with 35’s on the ACT graduating at the very top of the class with outstanding activities etc were waitlisted. Just 6-7 years ago students from our northeast HS who fit this profile were given large merit awards. Vanderbilt has a 10% admissions rate unless you apply ED. Being from an over-represented state makes it even harder.

I agree it’s now time to get back to the OPs daughter.

114

@planner03, Brown made it clear that they evaluate one’s best subscores and I think Yale is saying the same thing, so I don’t think it matters whether they ever recalculate a composite.

115

@Chembiodad

Sure it does. Some Ivies superscore ACTs for admission but none that I know of report the supercored composite to US News, etc. As I said, the ranking is misleading. Truth in advertising. :slight_smile:

https://www.brown.edu/admission/undergraduate/do-you-accept-score-choice-or-do-you-super-score-standardized-testing

https://college.harvard.edu/does-harvard-superscore-test-results

https://meetezra.admissions.cornell.edu/index-simple.php?responseId=1551&type=2

116

@catmom but i haven’t made up any fake facts…all i am saying is that Vanderbilt gives more focus on SATs than many higher ranked schools that are seen as harder to get in. If you look at the Vanderbilt CDS, you see that the GPA averages are quite lower than the ivies/top 10-15 schools while the SAT scores are as good or even slightly better in some cases. This shows that Vanderbilt places an extra focus on SAT scores, primarily because of the weight they have on USNews rankings.

117

What I’m getting is that your D doesn’t want a highly competitive environment and likes aesthetically pleasing campuses. Nothing wrong with those criteria. Someone mentioned Rice upthread. I thought that it and Wash U. were among the loveliest campuses we visited.They both seem to have very collaborative environments and happy students.

Large publics might give your D the type of environment she seeks. UVA in particular is a lovely campus. If she doesn’t mind smaller LACs, there are many beautiful campuses with great student bodies.

118

@chembiodad we were discussing superscoring in the context of how colleges report ACT scores, so whether or not they recalculate a composite is really all that matters. The reported scores seem to be best composites, not superscores.

S has a higher superscored ACT than his best composite, so I did the research to see if it was beneficial to send both scores since ACT charges to send each test date. As @crewdad points out, I found almost no schools that superscore. Sure, the “look” at all scores, but that has always been the case.

119

I was pointing out that the Ivies, Berkeley, Vanderbilt, etc., don’t create or report a superscored composite.

Many schools superscore, including the LACs frequently mentioned on CC. The superscored composite is reported to US News, etc. The ACT ranking linked upthread is misleading

The full list can be downloaded at https://www.princetonreview.com/college-advice/colleges-superscore-act

120

Penn95, no it doesn’t show extra focus on the scores.

Can we please realize the CDS is not a recipe? It’s not a hierarchy of wants. It’s not policed, there is no standardization. If one line item is ranked Very Important and another is Important or Considered, it doesn’t mean one trumps. Eg, at V, lousy LoRs are a risk, even with the stats. The fact that H calls most of it “Considered” does not means they’re any less interested in the various factors and the whole they form.

And it reflects matriculated kids. That is, after the admitted kids made their decisions. Most of us think it’s a pretty safe bet the most top performing kids may choose H over V, but there are many factors, including regional preference, that might draw an admitted kid to one or another. V has about a 50% yield, while H has about 85%. That difference is very likely reflected in the stat figures for actual matriculants. There’s little to glean about how adcoms decide.