Which is true. Just because Harvard could fill its class with perfect stat kids does not mean that it wants to. But my point @roethlisburger was that stats are not the be-all and end-all for college admissions. Every year, we see people with 4.0/36/1600 stats rejected from Harvard and its peers, while students with lower stats get accepted.
This is eye opening.
I have one of these kids, a rising senior, with a perfect 36 ACT (with 36 on all subsections), 4.0UW GPA and nearly two handfuls of AP classes with 5’s on the tests through junior year. She is not applying to Harvard, or any other Ivy league school, though she does have some super selective places on her list.
What this reinforces to me is just what everyone else is saying - the odds may be better, but are still not a slam dunk. It’s most likely that these scores keep an app in the “to be considered” pile but it’s the other things that earn the “yes” just like it is for most other applicants.
To be honest, our main concern is “match”and “safety”schools - how to find the schools with less selective admissions that won’t dismiss her out of hand to preserve their yield? We’re putting s lot of thought into finding schools that will be a good fit even if they are less selective, but will they see that?
Everyone thinks having the “perfect” kid makes this easy, and I can assure you it does not.
A school where she meets automatic admission criteria and which is affordable can be a safety.
For matches and likelies, check whether they consider “level of applicant’s interest” (see the common data set section C7, or the admissions tab for that college on collegedata.com). If so, then she needs to show interest beyond applying (e.g. having a visit recorded, open all college emails with a reader that displays images, carefully write the “why [this college]?” essay to note things specific to that college, etc.). And if such a college is her clear first choice and is affordable, she can apply ED if offered, since applying ED is the clearest indication of interest that there is.
We are doing these things. Schools that track interest have been visited, toured and e-mails opened and read. Without hijacking this thread, she is also a potential recruited athlete (DIII) and any ED/EA application will go for the school that rises to the top of the list for both academics and her sport. But we’ve seen that not work for other teammates so we know that even with coach support and a positive preread there are no guarantees.
Until we have that first “yes” in hand I think this is just part of the process. But it’s scary nonetheless.
“In 2018, number of ACT 36C has gone up to 2760 (talking about score inflation and growing ACT popularity)”
Not scoring inflation - huge increase in popularity for the ACT since 2013.
Historically, the percentage of test takers scoring 36 doubles each approximately 4-5 years. However, the rate has increased to almost doubling in the past 2 years. Specific numbers are below.
2017 – 0.14%
2016 – 0.11%
2015 – 0.08%
2013 – 0.06%
2008 – 0.03%
2003 – 0.017%
1998 – 0.007%
an increase in popularity doesnt account for an increase in 36s. The ACT has become much more popular because it is 1) it is easier than the SAT, 2) many schools allow the ACT to count toward subject tests as well because of the “science” section. (not sure how they finagled that) and 3)it is much easier to get accommodations with the ACT than with College Board.
To the extent that it is mostly the most selective colleges that want SAT subject tests, with some of them allowing the ACT instead of the SAT subject tests, perhaps the rise in top-end ACT scores can be attributed to the increased popularity *among students aiming for the most selective colleges/i. Of course, as noted before, the coarser scale of the ACT and the way that the composite is an average rather than a sum means that, for a top-end standardized test taker who finds them to be of equal difficulty generally, earning a maximum score is easier on the ACT than the SAT which has a finer scale (note that 36 ACT has concordance with 1570-1600 SAT).
@ucbalumnus yes:
“perhaps the rise in top-end ACT scores can be attributed to the increased popularity among students aiming for the most selective colleges (i.e. those who mostly do well in standardized testing)…” because it is easier to get a 36 and thus easier to get a 36 that also fulfills subject tests…
Also, all 4.0s are not created equal. I know a ton of kids with 3.8, 3.9, 4.0 that did pretty miserably on the SAT and MUCH better on the ACT. If a student has a 4.0 you want the test that paints your grades in the best light. There are also a ton of kids with double time for the ACT. You wont see accommodation data teased out but if you have twice as much time on an easier test…
In terms of intellectual challenge, SAT probably still remains slightly more difficult than ACT, although the “g loading” of the SAT is nothing like what to used to be back prior to 2005 (and especially prior to the recentering in 1995). SAT has two-step questions in reading and vocabulary in context, although analogies and straight vocabulary (the best indications of intellectual ability for native English speakers) are no more… Writing questions are a tiny bit more subtle and are not quite as rules-based as ACT English. SAT math still has a tiny bit of logic challenge, but not much, and is pretty trivial. Because it is so easy, as @Data10 has noted, a mere careless error can drop your score dramatically. This is done purposely in the test design to help the weaker kids (because careless errors are assumed random, and 1 question wrong means a whole lot more to a “true” 800+ potential kid than to a 650 kid). ACT is “wide but shallow” on math, and allows calculator on every question which helps the weaker ability kids a bit. Slight benefit on ACT math for kids who are good at geometry, although most other topics are simply algorithmic and require no conceptual understanding.
All in all, as many people have said, SAT/ACT scores are not a good measure of individual intelligence, although smarter kids will typically do better. Diligence and conscientiousness can see a modest ability kid do quite well on either. However, it is difficult for a very high intelligence kid to do poorly on either, even without extraordinary diligence or preparation beyond some exposure to the formats. For higher intelligence kids, I’d say the SAT offers the best chance to shine, while for lower ones I’d say ACT is the better bet. This is consistent with the observation of @Center. High GPA is associated with diligence and conscientiousness, and so should favor ACT for those who are a little weaker on pure intelligence, and vice versa for SAT. Just my two cents…
Schools like Harvard are trying to build an interesting class.
Focus on individual scores is relevant only in how that relates to assembling that mix of interests and talents. And “character” counts because that also contributes to the group.
People who consider a person with a score of 790 more admissible than a person with a score of 740 have a view of intelligence that is hierarchical. That just isn’t really valid. There are many kinds of intelligence (Howard Gardner is next door to Admissions) and Harvard wants them all.
That said you have to be able to do the work.
Hard work, diligence and character do not necessarily to equate to intelligence. Character is not measurable–we have lots of serial killers which are mostly white males for what its worth. A 790 is not necessarily more admissible that a 740 but metrics should and do matter. Why does someone’s track time or baseball skill or pole vault distance matter but not the SAT? The elite schools do not just want academic grinds they also want talent. That is the murky area. AND back to the original post --that there really arent that many perfect SAT/ACT and perfect GPA applicants: I think that is proof of massive grade inflation. Clearly there are thousands of 4.0s and there are not 1000s of 1600s and 36s.
Absolutely true. People who look into the question why people succeed also explore attributes like conscientiousness, time preference, and other behavioral characteristics as explanatory variables for success. Only some of these seem to be positively correlated with intelligence, and even then only weakly.
The idea that there are “multiple intelligences,” though, really has no empirical basis, and is generally not taken seriously except in the context of popularizers. A century of data with literally millions of subjects on thousands of tasks demonstrates that Spearman’s original 1904 hypothesis - there is a single, underlying mental process that explains what we think of as intelligence - is in fact correct.
Perhaps ironically, the currently popular and faddish Jordan Peterson has a short lecture excerpt on the fad of “multiple intelligences” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QeRB-XbM2s.
The classic paper on the importance of intelligence to everyday life, and its role as the best single explanatory variable for life outcomes (although not the only one, of course, as noted above), is Gottfredson (1997): https://www1.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1997whygmatters.pdf.
@SatchelSF so in summary --debunking the “I am a bad test taker” answer to high grades and low standardized test scores. I do believe in the whole theory of emotional intelligence–meaning that smart doesnt mean successful.
Of course, @Center. But the emotional intelligence is not intelligence. Good interpersonal skills, for instance, will help anyone to do better. And poor ones will hurt anyone. That is true at every level of the intelligence distribution. However, being an exceptionally good “people person” will not let someone who is average in intelligence become a particle physicist, or even a doctor. Conversely, poor interpersonal skills could restrict someone who is smart enough to be a doctor or particle physicist from achieving any success in either field. In all cases, that’s just the way it is.
The art I guess for any person lies in the ability to harness the unique combination of intelligence and what is termed “trait characteristics” that that person actually has. Given her unique endowment, through hard work each person can be successful at some thing, but it does not follow that she can be successful at any particular thing.
It’s nice that answering short and simple multiple choice algebra/geometry questions on the SAT without careless error is correlated with intelligence, but the important part for Harvard admissions is the degree of predictive ability in the criteria that is important to Harvard, particularly academic success in Harvard. The SAT questions do not in any way resemble the tests Harvard students will experience and as such have weak (but more than 0) predictive ability, beyond the rest of the application. Harvard has said their internal studies found that the pre-2008 math and CR SAT scores were less predictive of academic grades at Harvard than all other core academic stats in the application – less predictive than AP/IB scores, less predictive than HS grades, less predictive than SAT subject scores, and less predictive than the SAT writing section. Instead of relying on SAT scores to determine whether more rigorous/accelerated course sequences are appropriate for particular students, Harvard requires that all incoming freshman take Harvard’s own math and writing placement exams, which are quite different from SAT type questions.
We had actually believed above was true!
Every elite school says character and the ability to overcome obstacles are priority factors in admission. And many applicants with “intelligence” in music, art, theater (and sports of course), and other endeavors get into Harvard. “Multiple intelligences” is just a handy way to discuss talents. Harvard admissions themselves mentioned that Howard Gardner’s office was next door- on their website a few years ago.
Oh-and Harvard likes to see itself on resumes of extremely successful people who also tend to donate 
If you want to talk about schools where metrics matter, look at large state U’s, where they cannot afford the time to look as deeply. This is really all dancing on the head of a pin and not that relevant to actual results.
As for the original post, it does not follow that because there is a lower than expected percentage of students at Harvard with perfect stats, that Harvard could not fill a class with them. I have no idea honestly if they could fill a class, but the two aren’t necessarily related. There may be many many applicants with perfect scores who were rejected.
@compmom - the point is that there are not enough perfect stats kids in the entire applicant pool to even fill half the accepted students at Harvard. Consider that in the year I linked there were fewer than 1000 applicants who could present even a perfect standardized test score, and that’s even including the ACT, whose lack of granularity cannot distinguish between say four perfect 36s on the sections or some combination of lesser scores that round up to “perfect”. And then how many of those perfect scorers also have perfect 4.0 GPA? Perfect SAT2? All 5s on APs?
They accept over 2000, so it’s impossible. It’s just a small point, offered to counter the meme that you see here so often. It’s not the most important point.
Harvard is looking for many things. But to say the SAT for instance is not important is silly. The admit rate as shown for a perfect is literally twice the rate of just 50 points lower, as shown in the first post. Therefore, the score is either important in and of itself or is positively correlated with other things Harvard is looking for. The argument for irrelevancy of scores to Harvard will be won when and if Harvard starts refusing to accept SAT or ACT scores. Not just making them test optional so the less capable applicants can opt out, but a blanket acknowledgement that they don’t count by refusing to consider them.
(Actually the SAT is unimportant in and of itself. Schools are just using the scores as rough, imperfect proxies for intelligence. IQ tests would work better but requiring them would be impractical for many reasons.)
Is there a reason you are so interested in this? Perfect scores is not an achievement that Harvard is looking for, specifically, as a determining factor.
The point of the “Harvard could fill…” is that Harvard doesn’t want a class of students whose achievement is perfect scores. It wants a mix of kids who will cross-pollinate, grow and go forth, so to speak.
Last post for me on this one.