<p>The question is often asked about the inclinations of various institutions to evaluate applications based on the statistical profile vs a more holistic approach. I think it is clear that nearly all of the top privates exercise a holistic admissions process that is not slavishly devoted to an applicant's class rank or his/her standardized test scores. </p>
<p>There are many examples of frequently quoted admissions statistics that reflect a class that values more than these metrics. One is the numbers of Top 10% students in an incoming freshmen class. Consider the quality of the applicant pools and the selectivity of Top 20 private college. Relative to their reputations and the statistical profile of some of their competitor schools, many of these colleges appear to assign a relatively low admissions weighting to class rank, eg,</p>
<p>91% Stanford
87% Cornell
85% Northwestern
83% U Chicago
82% Johns Hopkins
80% Vanderbilt</p>
<p>There are many other private colleges, all along the selectivity spectrum that display a similarly low level of zeal to Top 10% ranking numbers.</p>
<p>The same is also true for standardized test measurements. While this is a frequently used metric for comparing student body strength and is considered by many (including me) as the single best data point for making comparisons among colleges, there is certainly not a USNWR rankings-driven fervor on the part of these colleges to enrolling the highest scoring students. For example consider the following admissions data provided by U Penn. </p>
<p>For applicants supplying CR scores:
70% of those scoring 750 or higher were rejected
88% of those scoring 700-740 were rejected
Only 55% of enrolled students scored at 700 or higher</p>
<p>For applicants supplying Math scores:
77% of those scoring 750 or higher were rejected
82% of those scoring 700-740 were rejected
Only 67% of enrolled students scored at 700 or higher</p>
<p>Or consider the absolute levels for standardized test scores at an outstanding and highly selective college like Stanford. Clearly, they are not selecting a class exclusively on the numbers.</p>
<p>Mid-point of 25/75 SAT is 1445 which is 50 points behind Harvard/Yale and 5 points behind Wash U/Columbia.<br>
Mid-point of 25/75 ACT is 31 which is 1.5 points behind U Penn and Notre Dame and equal to Emory and Tufts</p>
<p>I also believe that this is the case for the vast majority of the highly selective privates that are commonly discussed here on CC. They could all have classes with higher (and sometimes much higher) standardized test scores or Top 10% students, but their admissions counselors have chosen to evaluate and admit on other factors as well. </p>
<p>So, the conclusion is that numbers are important and will sometimes be critical to a student's application, but at many top private schools, there is a broader context in which top students are evaluated.</p>