The "50%" range and the magic SAT number

Test Preparation
1

<p>I went through several of the top schools and studied their 50% ranges. Very, very interesting. Based on admissions it appears the key SAT number is 2100 (assuming M, CR, W are in close range).</p>

<p>I seriously wonder if getting a 2300 instead of a 2100 makes any difference in most cases. I doubt it. Having said that, I do believe the SAT2's are extremely important if you are going into a related field (i.e., math, chem for science majors.)</p>

<p>What does matter is the BIG picture -- course difficulty, GPA, EC's, teacher recommendations, etc.</p>

2

<p>you see, i've been wondering about that forever, too!!! (as my previous posts tell) </p>

<p>I've always thought that the SAT score must be bigger than at least 2250 for competitive schools - that's what every accepted student around me seemed to have, and also on CC as well.
Then I've been looking up the middle 50% range these days like you, and you are very right. For most schools, it's all around 2100 for SAT and 30 for ACT score. That seemed strikingly low to me at first, so I couldn't believe it.</p>

3

<p>To me, the SATs are just a hoop to jump through. The top of the hoop being perfect scores (the admissions think you're just a pure nerd) and the bottom of the hoop as around 2150 for the more selective ivys (<15% admittance rates)</p>

<p>if you're through the hoop, you are regarded in equal light as everyone else.</p>

<p>Of course, this is for the regular, stereotypical applicant. Many other things can offset the position of the hoop</p>

4

<p>hoop to jump through?? makes us sound like trained monkeys ;)...</p>

5

<p>Well, for academics, it's always GPA first then SAT second, then SAT II third -- that's what I'm getting from the adcoms</p>

6

<p>If you look at the percentile for certain scores and think about the number of people accepted into top schools annually, you could probably figure something like that out.</p>

<p>Too bad I don't remember where that chart is.</p>

7

<p>In fact, I recently met someone accepted to Harvard who scored a 2110. Of course, she had a strong GPA froma strong high school and everything else was equally impressive.</p>

8

<p>Higher SAT gives you higher chances. I don't think that someone with a 2100 should be regarded as highly as someone with a 2300. Nor do I believe that a 2300 and 2400 are indistinguishable, but perhaps less so.</p>

9

<p>What do those numbers mean when they give you wide range of numbers? For example: CR 680 -760. Does that mean 50% of the students' scores fall in between 680 - 760?</p>

10

<p>Yes. It means 25% of the students admitted got below a 680CR, 25% got above 760, and 50% were within.</p>

11

<p>^it means 25% of students enrolled scored that way</p>

<p>The higher their test scores, the lower their yield, so that number is deceptive.
The 25% below also tend to be special case "hooked" admits.</p>

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<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/413821-sat-score-frequencies-freshman-class-sizes.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/413821-sat-score-frequencies-freshman-class-sizes.html&lt;/a> </p>

<p>I'll try to update this soon.</p>