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You are unlikely to find the lowest stat admits in decision threads since CC decision threads are an extremely poor representation of the overall application pool. Some segments of the application pool are extremely overrepresented on CC, such as top stat kids who attend top high schools and are very focused on the college process, while other segments are almost not existent, such as those who apply with scores on a section that are not much above the US average – not those who are accepted, just those who apply. Nevertheless, we do occasionally hear about CC posters who are admitted to highly selective colleges with scores in the 500s on one section or equivalent. One example is the poster Mr Tubbs who was accepted to selective colleges like Stanford and Columbia, with an ACT equivalent of scores in the 500s on math and science and a 99+ percentile score on the reading section. I expect many long time posters will remember him because he went on to receive the highest award given to Stanford students (Dinkelspeil) and became the youngest ever elected official of his home town during his graduation year. </p>
<p>That said, I never claimed my scores were common. My verbal score was among the ~6 lowest in the entering class for my year at Stanford, putting me well into the bottom percentile of those who submitted SAT. My point was that my score distribution suggests the colleges did not assign a simple numerical representation of the score sum and consider nothing further, like the post I replied to suggested. Instead it suggests they looked beyond the simple score sum methodology and considered that a top math score is more critical for a math/CS/STEM specialist admit than a top verbal score, an aspect of the process that is unlikely to have changed in the years since my admission.</p>