<p>Once you get to a certain level, SAT scores stop mattering. Most of my friends who got into top schools were solid, not amazing, students: SAT scores below 2300, straight As, not necessarily the most APs, but lots of solid extracurriculars, awards, and recognition. Colleges always seem to go for the predictable types. Why they would deliberately eschew interesting, passionate, smart people is beyond me. Thankfully, I am headed to a good enough school.</p>
<p>yeah thats all that matters. i was rejected by harvard, mit...and amerst. amherst rejected me when williams accepted me :-/ dont they both look for exactly the same thing? btw mallomar congrats on duke! are you going for sure?</p>
<p>You guys are free to check out my stats profile for a taste of what my app was...and yeah I got a 2400 on a single sitting :(....</p>
<p>I got rejected by Princeton, MIT (I was like ***??), and Stanford (used a wrong form for one rec so I guess it was deserved), as well as Olin (wasn't that big of a deal for me).</p>
<p>Thing is, I only really had a Junior Year score, and never bothered to take it again until senior year January when I got my 2400, so that might have been one of the reasons. Still, I got into Amherst as an early write (had nothing to do with my 2400 though, since this was just a few days after I sent them my scores, so couldn't possibly have affected my early write status) and Caltech (Early Action, again without my 2400 to help me. This was why I was like "***" when MIT rejected me.)</p>
<p>I was also waitlisted by Harvard and Yale.</p>
<p>I'm an Asian middle class male if that matters at all.</p>
<p>I also sent them some humor articles I wrote about how to treat girls by slapping them (it was obviously a satire), along with some other less politically incorrect ones, which might have affected my statuses....maybe like Mallomar said, colleges don't like the unpredictable types...I was about to get my hustle on too...now all I can do is sell Ritalin to Techies (joke).</p>
<p>a lot of people w/ perfect scores on SAT are just nerds who study all day and do nothing else, so colleges don't want them</p>
<p>If I was a guidance counselor the main thing I would suggest to people trying to get into good schools is to play at least one sport. Sports involved a huge time commitment, it makes you seem well rounded if you have the gades to go with it, and also provided demonstration of leadership skills if you are a captain. I maintain to this day that my 10 seasons of varsity sports with two captain positions was the main reason I got into my top choice schools, especially when I wrote about them in schools essays. It gives them an impression that you do more than study all day.</p>
<p>^ the only problem with that is if you aren't very good at sports! I go to a top private school with about 1000 kids, we have PGs who play on a lot of our varsity teams, and we have a lot of really good athletes. I did do sports, a team sport, one season for three years ( I was no stud, that is for sure!) and then club sports which I enjoyed.
And paulfoerster.... that is funny..... my mother would tell you I didn't study ENOUGH!</p>
<p>"Once you get to a certain level, SAT scores stop mattering. Most of my friends who got into top schools were solid, not amazing, students: SAT scores below 2300, straight As, not necessarily the most APs, but lots of solid extracurriculars, awards, and recognition. Colleges always seem to go for the predictable types. Why they would deliberately eschew interesting, passionate, smart people is beyond me. Thankfully, I am headed to a good enough school."</p>
<p>Actually, colleges ARE looking for interesting, passionate, smart people. What is not clear is whether kids who get 2400 necessarily have these qualities, which is one of the reasons they are not an automatic admit. You said your friends who got in have straight As and good SATs, which means they have strong academics (may not be the best, but still strong), and have solid ECs. Wouldn't that make them smart AND interesting (don't know about passionate)?</p>