I’ll make sure to update you all! this is far more input than I thought I would get so thanks everyone. Yes, my gpa is lower than i would like- my school grades on a 7 point scale, with 6.5=4.0. through my first three years my average was a 6.42, and with this years first semester added in, the cumulative gpa is a 6.51. This is a top 10% gpa, but not quite at the level that the elite students at my school are usually at, by comparison, my senior year gpa is a 7.09 so far, putting me in the top 5 or 6 kids)
@falcon1: No, I don’t agree, because all things are never equal, as one student is always going to have a better teacher recommendation, or more a interesting essay, etc. And it’s not like one person is making the decision. Student’s admitted to Harvard college must garner 51% of the full committee’s vote, which is comprised of over 40 Admissions Directors and Professors, and it’s one-person, one-vote. For some applicants – whether they have a 2100 or a 2380 – I imagine the decision is sometimes like herding cats.
@notjoe: I think the admissions decision is relevant to our discussion for future applicants. Based upon their GPA and relative standing in their high school, the OP was advised there was a good chance of being deferred in the SCEA round, but they applied anyway. It will now be interesting to see if the increased SAT score might have helped the OP in the RD round – although we’ll never really know if the OP would have been admitted without retaking the test a 4th time and scoring appreciably better.
The problem is that there is no result that will prove any point of view, as you, yourself, admit. An outright rejection doesn’t mean the 2380 didn’t help. It just means it didn’t help enough. An acceptance doesn’t mean the 2380 put the poster over the top. The poster very well could have been accepted with a 2230 superscore. The poster also reports that his/her first semester, senior year grades apparently are quite good, putting him/her near the top of the class. It may be that it is that factor - improved and improving GPA, that gets him/her admitted.
As we aren’t privy to the rest of a poster’s application, and as we’re not informed of the discussions of the admissions committee, we can only speculate as to why any particular result occurs for any particular applicant.
It’s when you look at results for larger groups that you can tentatively start making some conclusions. Tentatively. The fact that the closer one get to 2400, one is substantially more likely to be admitted suggests that higher is better. But there are alternative explanations. Correlation doesn’t necessarily mean causation.
But in giving advice to these young people, I think the most prudent thing to say is: past a certain point, GPA is significantly more important than test scores, but higher test scores are likely better than lower test scores, even past that magical threshold, wherever it exists, if it exists.
@soccerlover17, good luck on your application. Whether or not you get into Harvard, you appear to be a credible candidate for admission, and you should have some good choices in front of you once all the decisions are in.
I agree with the above.
@gibby You skirted the question by saying no two applications are the same which in theory is true. But I asked the question suppose that they are (or so similar that it’s hard to differentiate them apart if that suits your imagination better), wouldn’t you expect the one with a 2380 to be accepted over the one with a 2100?
Not only are top college mindful of their admissions statistics but AO’s are people just like you and I (I have some close friends who are or were AO’s). If you met two kids and heard that one scored a 2380 or 2400 and the other scored a 2100 or 2120, what would you assume about their intelligence relative to each other? If you had to imagine what schools the two kids went to, what would they be?
I am not saying that this is the right way to judge the kids, I am just saying that we are all subject to subconscious biases and so are AO’s, for better or for worse. It is much easier for them to recommend the 2380 kid for acceptance than the 2100 kid because the burden of proof is more on the 2100 one because their score is below the class average of 2230 or whatever. (I imagine if you take out the hooked kids that class average is a good 30 or 40 points higher.)
Also, I am not saying that SAT scores trump grades, EC’s, or recs. When I gave the advice to OP about sending in the the new score, I had no idea about what their gpa or class rank was. GPA and course rigor are certainly the most important factors and if OP’s are not competitive, no SAT score will save that. The applicant’s complete profile is enhanced by their test scores - not defined by them.
edit
This probably won’t help at Harvard, because they are not a school who worries much about how high their average freshman SAT score is. They don’t have to, because they are Harvard. But most at most of your matches and safeties this score increase will help their institutional goal of increasing this number and will most likely be met with an increase in merit aid. I would say don’t send it to Harvard, but send it to other schools
Your question is theoretical. I too know folks in Admissions and your question NEVER comes up, because there is always small differences in the rest of the application when comparing two students. Things are never “all things being equal.”
The SAT is not an intelligence test, nor does it measure intelligence. There have been studies that show that kids who score higher on the SAT come from families that are wealthier and have the resources to be able to afford test prep. Therefore, I would automatically assume the kid with the 2380 or 2400 was white or asian, from a wealthy family, that the student did a lot of test prep, or took the test multiple times to achieve that score. I’d want to see the kid’s transcript to verify their test score against their grades, as I would expect a student with a 2380 or 2400 would have straight A’s. The kid with a 2100 would also require a second look. Was their GPA in sync their SAT? If they had a high GPA, but a 2100, I might want to see if the student’s parent’s went to college, or look at their zip code to determine if the family might not have had the resources for test prep. I might want to look at the student’s teacher rec’s to see what they say about this student. IMHO, there are MORE questions to be asked of the kid that scored a 2100 than a kid than scored a 2380. And the absolute last thing I would think about would be “intelligence.”
For the record I did obviously do lots of independent test prep, although not with any outside tutor. And my grades are the equivalent of straight A’s, so I would say they are most definitely competitive…at a public school I would have a 4.0, but my school’s system allows for the perfect “7.0” to reflect a sort of A+ grade, and so my 6.51 is only in the top 10% (of course this is the top 10% at a competitive boarding school, with a huge amount of top notch students, so I’m going to hope the admissions committee takes that into consideration)
Well @gibby, I guess you won’t answer the question. That’s okay I’ll answer myself, given two very similar candidates they will choose the one with the 2380 over the 2100.
The second part of your comments, I actually don’t have much disagreement with except the part where you assume all this in depth analysis is going on about the scores (probably should be but it’s not). From what I know, the average time spent on an app is 12 minutes. AO’s become “masters of skimming” to quote a friend. Do they spend more time on the 2380 or the 2100? My money is on the 2380.
If you met two kids on the street and heard their SAT scores were 2380 and 2100, YOU might have all those thoughts running through your head (and I’m not arguing that they are incorrect) but 99% of others wouldn’t, including teachers writing recs, GC’s, interviewers, etc. It’s subconscious bias I’m talking about.
If I remember correctly your son got a perfect score, as did my daughter (first try - one month total prep). It’s no surprise that they are at Harvard and Yale. It may not be an intelligence test but to sit in a room for four hours straight and not get a single question wrong (SAT not ACT where you can get a couple wrong) is no mean feat. That’s probably why only something like .04% do so.
Anyway, I looked at OP’s posting history and saw plugged in their stats in the AI calculator. With a SAT 2230 and a 10% rank (not 10-15% as OP posted), their AI is 216. Using the SAT 2380, the AI climbs to 221 which is right around the average for admitted class I believe. Not great, considering OP is unhooked but certainly better than 216 in terms of competitiveness. I do agree with you that recs, essays and EC’s play an important role in whether OP gets accepted or not, but only after academics.
Lastly, with respect to test prepping etc., I leave you with a question to think about that I had wondered about until I discovered the answer. Why don’t top colleges ask the question on their application (or have their interviewers ask) if the applicant has worked with a private college consultant? This would help get rid of this unequal playing field of polished essays and interview coaching, etc. if kids had to own up to it. Duke even tried this if I recall correctly.
@Falcon1, please don’t leave us hanging; why don’t they ask?
@IxnayBob I’m sorry by “discovered” I meant that I came up with the answer that I think makes sense. I don’t think I should pose my speculation about this on CC except to say if there’s a quick fix and they backed away from it, there has to be a reason. Come to think of it, I think Princeton also asked the question in the mid 2000’s but removed it.
Maybe, if those student’s are two very similar white males from the same high school. But if the 2100 is a URM and the 2380 is not, they might choose the 2100 because they need diversity on their campus. You keep talking “in theory,” but Admissions does not work within a vacuum. It’s not as cut-and-dry as choosing the kid with the higher score – all things being equal, because they never are.
And I’d also like to hear why colleges don’t ask if a student worked with a private college counselor?
My first thought was that it had to do with the revolving door between AOs and private college counsellors, but I would think that the colleges would actively like to discourage that as it diminishes the ranks of experienced AOs. So, I’m still thinking.
I did say two similar unhooked candidates because I agree that a there are circumstances where colleges will have a lower threshold for scores.
I wanted to add that I just saw that OP also submitted a 34 ACT score which changes the situation somewhat - especially if OP took the ACT multiple times as well. There is a fine line between trying to better oneself and being test-obsessed. As I had said, retaking a 2300+ doesn’t make sense but if OP had scores in the 2100’s before the 2210 and then scored a 2380, then that would seem like a significant enough improvement to warrant updating the application. However, with a 34 ACT, (which is pretty close to a 2300 SAT) it can be questioned why would the applicant still be taking the SAT’s in January? I’m not sure what the right thing to do in this situation is. I guess if it were my kid, I probably would still say go ahead and send the 2380 but I probably would have advised them against retaking the SAT in the first place.
Here are some stats for class of 2018 from some top schools that make these stats available (Harvard does not). The stats set forth the admissions rate for various ranges of SAT scores, with as much or as little granularity as the school makes public. Draw your own conclusions.
Princeton:
2300-2400 14.8%, 2100-2290 7.7%
Stanford:
CR 800 13.8%, 700-790 9.7%
M 800 9%, 700-790 7%
W 800 14%, 700-790 8%
MIT:
CR 750-800 13%, 700-740 10%
M 750-800 12%, 700-740 8%
W 750-800 14%, 700-740 9%
Amherst:
CR 750-800 24%, 700-740 15%
M 750-800 20%, 700-740 16%
W 750-800 21%, 700-740 16%
Brown:
CR 800 19.5%, 750-790 13.7%, 700-740 9.8%
M 800 16%, 750-790 11.6%, 700-740 9.6%
W 800 17.7%, 750-790 12.7%, 700-740 9.5%
Based upon the OP’s post history, he took the SAT 4 times, and took the ACT twice scoring a 32 and 34 – that’s kind of test obsessed in my book. What more interesting, the OP applied to UVA early – from the state of OHIO (so UVA is not a state school for them) and was accepted. At the SAME TIME they applied SCEA to Harvard, which is against Harvard’s SCEA rules. Given that the OP goes to a “top 50 boarding school,” his GC should know the rules and should have not have allowed them to do both. See post #42: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/18018780/#Comment_18018780
I think you can apply to any public university @gibby
^^ Well, I guess the rules have changed. When my kids applied to college, the rule was that you could only apply to an in-state public college (not out of state).
@Falcon1 says “given two very similar candidates they will choose the one with the 2380 over the 2100.”
@gibby says “It’s not as cut-and-dry as choosing the kid with the higher score – all things being equal, because they never are.”
I can’t disagree with either position. Perhaps a better question is: For any given applicant who has met the SAT score threshold, does a higher score make them a more attractive applicant than they would otherwise be?
I suspect the answer is yes.