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<p>How demonstrative of your implicit principled objection to the contribution of anecdotal information. For what it’s worth (not much), I, too, have been in a similar situation many times.</p>
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Of course. The question is: how high is that mark?</p>
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<p>Yes, you repeatedly bring this up. I am not sure why, however, as no one has argued with the fact and it does not serve to refute the assertion that people with higher scores have higher chances. Even if one could show that there are more 2200-2300ers at top schools than 2300-2400ers (which there very well may be), it would not prove that either group has an advantange or even that the scores are treated equally; there are simply more of the former group who apply.</p>
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I know people who are both excellent athletes and have passions. They are certainly busy people, but they still somehow manage to find time to modify their schedule months in advance to allow for a Saturday morning of testing. Even the most overachieving of overachievers can probably budget out a few hours with enough notice.</p>
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At Harvard its roughly 2100 – or about 700 on each exam. The tail end of the distribution probably goes down to low 600’s for each exam.</p>
<p>Yale publishes information that makes it a little easier to look at the tail end of the distribution. From Yale’s stats, we know that only 2-3% of enrolled students have tests scores in the 500-590 range – I think its fair to assume that those students probably have scores on the high end of that range (580-590, NOT 520). About 18-21% have test scores in the 600-690 range. So when I look at data, I look at 600 as being the cutoff, because I know from the reported stats that a small fraction of admitted students actually have scores below that. In theory that would mean 1800 would be the minimum score for consideration (assuming other offsetting factors) – but I do recognize that it is likely that scores are somewhat lopsided – which is how I came up with the idea that something between 1850-1900 is probably the point at which Yale’s adcom would discard an otherwise strong application. </p>
<p>Even though there is likely to be some imbalance in any score set, because the colleges do superscore, and because most students tend have scores on various subtests that are fairly close, you can’t assume that all or even substantially all of the students with 600 range scores have offsetting scores in higher ranges.</p>
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<p>This isn’t a thread about “chances”. This is the “blunt tool” thread.</p>
<p>Actually, budgeting time for a second/third/fourth sitting for the SAT 1 can be difficult. It’s not just finding a few hours on a Saturday - it’s finding a few hours on a small, fixed set of Saturdays. Scouts who are patrol leaders, for example, are often needed on weekend trips - and the dates for those are not always decided very far in advance. Some scout trips are definitely on SAT dates. Sports events can interfere - although most high school teams try to avoid this, there are other events. For example - most competitive fencing is done outside of high school teams, with no regard to the SATs.
I could go on, but presumable, you all get the point.</p>
<p>@calmom: I don’t agree with your interpretation. Yes, it may be fair to say that an application will not automatically be thrown away at the level you describe. However, the kids who get in with those scores are an extreme minority. The very fact that they are admitted when higher scorers are rejected indicates that they have something very special. It seems very reasonable to conclude that they are typically hooked.</p>
<p>Look at some data from Princeton: [Princeton</a> University | Admission Statistics](<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/admission/applyingforadmission/admission_statistics/]Princeton”>http://www.princeton.edu/admission/applyingforadmission/admission_statistics/)</p>
<p>EDIT: Only including junior and 1st half senior year, there are ten test dates available. The probability that it will be impossible on all of them seems low. More to the point, anyone with a very busy schedule would want to consider taking a test sophomore year.</p>
<p>Maybe…instead of a 2400 being infinitely better than a 2390 OR that anything over a 2100 is OK for Harvard…</p>
<p>scores are logarthmic? It curves how much it matters near the top?</p>
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Yes, but not 3 separate sessions of Saturday morning SAT I testing, on top of sessions for SAT II testing, because they are worried that their 740 math score isn’t good enough. </p>
<p>And believe me, they really truly are NOT spending much time on CC posting their stats on chances threads. Which is why you get a very distorted view of reality on CC, and why I think the actual data published by colleges is a more reliable source of information.</p>
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<p>What does the fact that some people who are admitted have scores under 2100 have to do with the SAT’s being a blunt tool? calmom, please respond to some of my objections to your claims.</p>
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<p>Who is “they”?</p>
<p>Re Posting 101
"Mifune has a post somewhere explaining how increasing SAT scores lead to an exponential increasing acceptance rate. "
Mifune’s posting references a 2004 study which has not been accepted at any journal (and thus is not verified). The study is not concerned with upper rank SAT scores in college admissions but rather with constructing a ranking of colleges by student preference as revealed by action. It does not comment on admissions rates for SATs above 98%. There is one graph showing SATs versus admissions for 3 schools and no indication of where the data came from.</p>
<p>^ That post seems vaguely familiar. 
All right, then, let’s disregard mifune’s link. What do you have to say about the Brown data?</p>
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No they aren’t, they are simply the tail end of a median score distribution. There is no statistical difference between getting in at the bottom 20% end of the distrubution than at the top 20%. </p>
<p>The problem with the statistical analysis is that we are dealing with a test that is fairly easy to top out on, so we don’t have a good picture of top end distribution. We also don’t have a good picture of the distribution of applicants overall – so it is very likely that with a self-selecting applicant pool, an elite college may also be turning away more applicants with scores in the 700 range than scores in the 500 range (simply because they get more high scorers). </p>
<p>Again… that’s the point of the “blunt tool” observation. A score of 760 doesn’t mean very much to the ad coms at elite schools. It’s not rare enough for them to sit up and take notice – so it doesn’t really add much information to the applicant file. They probably use high end scores as a way of distinguishing among students who are otherwise undistinguishable to them… but that’s not the same as saying the students who stand out to them are all “hooked” – unless you have a very liberal definition of the word “hook”.</p>
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I think it depends on whether a trade-off is truly taking place. If the kid is working on research that will make her a Siemens finalist or working on a jaw-dropping community service project that will earn him a national award or whatever, I agree that most colleges would probably be okay with 740s. Kids in the 2100-2290 range still have an 11.8% shot at Princeton, even if 2300+ers have a 26.3% chance. The whole point here is that the odds DOUBLE past that 2300 mark. Is that just correlation, or is there something causative here? I don’t know. But if making that test date is really such a big deal, it might be worth thinking about whether the alternative activity is really that worthwhile.</p>
<p>EDIT: I agree that most top kids probably don’t frequent CC.</p>
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<p>Please clarify. As I noted earlier, very few students truly “top out” on the SAT, unless I am misinterpreting that phrase.</p>
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The 95% of kids enrolling in Ivy League schools every year who are not addicted to CC. </p>
<p>Try counting sometime. Count the total number of kids admitted to the incoming class at any college, and compare that with the total number of posts you see reporting stats from students who claim to have been admitted and are posting on an “Admitted” students thread. I think that at best CC might pick up data from roughly 2% of the admitted students. The other 98% aren’t sharing their information.</p>
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<p>There are many CC posters who are accepted to top schools who do not post their information. Nonetheless, I would suspect that it exceeds 2% (though that is not relevant). Anyhow, I do not see your broader point when you are discussing the number of students who report their scores on CC.</p>
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<p>The SAT would be more meaningful as a test if a score of 800 was near-impossible, and if the upper range of scores was more attenuated. </p>
<p>However, colleges are probably satisfied with the SAT as is because they are NOT looking for top end scorers, but are resting admissions decisions primarily on other factors and simply want some objective assurance that the students they admit will be able to do the work. If they know that any student who scores 600 or above on a give test meets that standard, there’s no particular reason to sort things out further. </p>
<p>As currently constructed, the SAT is the functional equivalent of having an IQ test that tops out at 135. There are plenty of people in the world who have IQ’s well above 135 - and there exist tests capable of measuring that - but if, for example, you were administering a school’s gifted program, and the criteria for admission into the gifted program was an IQ of 130 or above – the there would be no particular reason to need a test capable of discerning the difference between children with IQ’s of 135, 140, or 150.</p>