<p>@bclintonk: It is true that the scores of those who are below the 25th percentile do not affect the 25th percentil score. But the existence of those people makes the 25th percentile score lower than it would otherwise be. The question is who would be admitted if the athletes weren’t. Just look at who is on the waiting list. That alone should tell you that the 25th percentile score of admits may rise if no scholarship athletes are admitted. Let me also reiterate that schools differ widely in how much weight they put on SAT scores.</p>
<p>I love the wild claims about Stanford / Stanford/admissions by people who know nothing about either.</p>
<p>anyway, if stanford wants a class of really high SAT score kids they can certainly do that, they choose not to.</p>
<p>Yes in generally minorities have (a bit) lower SAT scores than the general population. They also generally haven’t taken 50 princeton review classes.</p>
<p>This is another stupid conversation about overvaluing SAT scores. Really kids, the aren’t that big of a deal, its a 4 hour test that most of you spend 500 hours preparing for.</p>
<p>9,737 posts and none wasted wondering why Stanford chooses a different class profile than some other schools.</p>
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<p>You should expound, then, on why you think that is the case. I don’t really see how you could say that for Yale and not for Princeton as well.</p>
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<p>White kids who they reject in favor of minorities don’t necessarily spend hundreds of hours on test prep, either.</p>
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<p>Yeah, they had 10 little essays. Quite annoying, actually. </p>
<p>Stanford can pick the top students. Assuming Stanford offers admission to the top 25% at WashU/Penn/Cornell/Brown/Darthvader/Berkeley/Duke, guess where those students will be going?</p>
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Your defensiveness aside, that’s leaping to conclusions. You neglected to ask me about my opinion of Berkeley and Princeton. I would say that Berkeley is stronger than Princeton as well.</p>
<p>I lack the boredom and inclination to look up more data, but a quick look at the NRC rankings gives you an idea of where the schools stand academically.</p>
<p>Non-Zero Scores
- MIT
- Berkeley
- Harvard
- Princeton
- Caltech
- Stanford
- Chicago
- Yale</p>
<p>All Scores
- Stanford
- Berkeley
… - Harvard
… - Princeton
… - Yale</p>
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<p>The 25th percentile would be affected only if those athletes are displacing people who would be above the current 25th percentile. We don’t know that to be the case. First, it’s unlikely that all 200 of the athletes are in the bottom quartile—many are probably in the middle 50%, and a few probably in the top quartile. But even if they were all in the bottom quartile, they’d represent only half of the students populating that quartile—from which we might infer that Stanford is admitting lots of people with less-than-stellar SAT scores who are NOT athletes. I quite agree that “the question is who would be admitted if those athletes weren’t.” But the answer to that is not so obvious.</p>
<p>Besides, it’s not as if the Ivies don’t also give an admissions preference to athletes. Stanford football coach Jim Harbaugh claims his program’s academic standards are tougher than those at most Ivy League schools. Whether this is true or not, I don’t know, but I’m skeptical that athletics account for much of a difference in Stanford’s SAT scores vis-a-vis its Ivy League competitors.</p>
<p>“White kids who they reject in favor of minorities”</p>
<p>That’s not how admissions at Stanford works at all works at all.</p>
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Yep. As I’ve posted before, a study found that nearly 20% of male Ivy League students are recruited athletes, and both male and female athletes are admitted with “significantly lower grades and [SAT] scores.”</p>
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<p>I know, Stanford is looking for the elusive “intellectual vitality” where if you are an URM or an athlelte, you already have more of it than other people. In other words, if you are an UMR or an athlete or a legacy, you are more “intellectually vital” than other applicants. Talk about absurdity.</p>
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Stanford would have close to 100% yield if they lower their SAT to 500/500/500 because those guys won’t have other similar places to go.</p>
<p>"Yes in generally minorities have (a bit) lower SAT scores than the general population. "</p>
<p>Between extremes: Asians score 1623 and African americans score 1276, or a difference of ~347 points out of 2400. The overall average is ~1506.</p>
<p>On a 1600 scale, Asians score ~1082, Africans ~850, the average is ~1010.</p>
<p>So, on a 1600 scale, there is a spread of ~232 points at the extreme and ~160 from the low extreme to the average score.</p>
<p>You say this is only “a bit”. You go to Stanford. I would like to see you drop your SAT score by 100-250 points and still convince the Stanford admissions committee , all else equal, that you are still a viable candidate for admissions.</p>
<p>Your definition of “a bit” seems off.</p>
<p>This translates to</p>
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<p>Can’t be that low to get 100% yield – 501/501/501 would be just fine. :)</p>
<p>Are you trying to make it seem like Stanford is not an excellent school? Because if you judge a college based on its average SAT scores, that’s pretty much the worst comparison you can get. Stanford is one of the best schools in the country.</p>
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No. Penn is one of the best schools in the country. Stanford is an institution.</p>
<p>At my school, 3 people with 2300+ SAT, strong ECs, etc. got rejected or waitlisted at Stanford, but his one arrogant scumbag with a 2130 that nobody in our class likes got accepted (he flat out rejected by Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Penn, Dartmouth, and Columbia). Most people think he made up some extraordinary ECs that were hard to verify, because he was not involved in a single club on campus and considered community service to be below him. </p>
<p>Point is, Stanford seems to have lower standards when it comes to academics and tends to base their decisions on other factors. I think the fact that Stanford does not interview worked in this guy’s favor.</p>
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<p>Ah a ranking of RESEARCH and DOCTORATE programs…clearly relevant to our discussion. </p>
<p>IBclass is a very confused individual, he can’t seem to distinguish between graduate and undergraduate programs. Nobody in their right mind would claim that Berkeley is on par with Yale (or any ivy for that matter) when it comes to undergraduate academics, prestige, or anything you want to compare. </p>
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[quote]
The United States National Research Council conducts a survey and compiles a report on United States Research-Doctorate Programs approximately every 10 years</p>
<p>While the NRC rankings are regarded by many as the premier ranking of doctorate programs, it has been criticized as part of a self-validating academic circle and as favoring universities that conduct mainstream research as opposed to more heterodox approaches.
[quote]
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<p>-Wikipedia</p>
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<p>How do you even begin to defend that statement? IBclass06, do you have ANY idea how easy it is to get into Berkeley? I spent a morning on my entire UC app and still got the regents scholarship to Cal. Their average SAT is literally around 2000.</p>
<p>What basis do you have to claim Yale is better than Berkeley save for SAT scores and the fact that Yale is wealthy, at least it was, who know what its endowment will be after the true value of its endowment is established in the coming years. Grad students and professors at Berkeley teach undergrads, and clearly Berkeley is stronger than Yale in those two areas overall based on not only the NRC, but US News and the ARWU. Berkeley is also stronger in research in general.</p>
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<p>Thank you. I didn’t want to waste my breath. Honestly, ffs.</p>
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For engineerings, Berkeley undergraduate academics, prestige, or anything you want to compare blow Yale out of the water.</p>
<p>And for maths, too, mirite? ;D</p>