The VALEDICTORIAN & SALUTATORIAN advantage

<p>I was just reading over a Dartmouth news blurb on their accepted ED class of '17 & saw that they reported some interesting info...</p>

<p>35% of accepted ranked 1st
TheDartmouth.com:</a> Dartmouth accepts 464 in early decision despite smaller pool</p>

<p>[that article also points out that about 30% of those accepted are athletes.]</p>

<p>Found last year's Dartmouth articles....of ED '16 acceptances:
31% "slated to be" Valedictorian
21% "slated to be" Salutatorian
TheDartmouth.com:</a> Dartmouth admits 465 in early decision
That's 52% total, which leaves room of 48% for the rest of the non-top-2% world!</p>

<p>For the entire Dartmouth '16 admitted class (including ED), the numbers are even greater:
48% Val (comes to 53% just for RD admitted)
12.7% Sal
60.7% total top 2%
39.3% everybody else!
TheDartmouth.com:</a> College admits 9.4 percent of applicants for the Class of 2016</p>

<p>Wow, Dartmouth surely likes those Valedictorians, especially for RD. Implies a significantly lower acceptance rate for the lower 98%.</p>

<p>I'd be curious if anyone else has found similar data out in cyberspace.</p>

<p>Do you know if it’s a similar situation for transfer applicants? I was the salutatorian in a class of 400.</p>

<p>Btw, why do many more vals get accepted than sals? Often the grade difference is so minuscule that they are essentially the same.</p>

<p>muaythaiguy2- I don’t “know” but I think its reasonable to assume that being your HS’s sal is a positive thing, although HS experience is less important in x-fer admission in general that regular freshman admissions.</p>

<p>Why Val >> Sal? Perhaps an admissions officer will chime in here, but one could speculate a few things…1) the positive stigma of “1st” place; 2) bragging rights for schools to show the world their smart admits; 3) ease in selection…certainly easy to put the Vals in a special pile, perhaps too diluted with Sals. Just guessing.</p>

<p>some more Dartmouth info from an alumni interviewer communication…</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>The Dartmouth class of '14 overall admit rate was 11.7%, so the Vals had over double the chance of acceptance.</p>

<p>source: <a href=“http://www.dartmouth.edu/~interviewers/pdfs/newsletter_dec2010.pdf[/url]”>http://www.dartmouth.edu/~interviewers/pdfs/newsletter_dec2010.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>looks like Val/Sal with a top CR score (plus an “outstanding” interview) is the ticket.</p>

<p>The interesting thing is that correlation does imply causation here; otherwise, vals/sals would be accepted at nearly the same rate. It is obvious that it’s simply because of the title.</p>

<p>Part that interests me more is the possible impact of interviews on admission… then again, outstanding interviewees may tend to have better applications as well.</p>

<p>That is pretty interesting. I wonder how these numbers compare to Dartmouth’s peers.</p>

<p>Harvard rejects more valedictorians than it accepts these days, though I can’t remember where I read that. Just another statistic to add to the colleges’ prestige. There are more tidbits like these here:
[2015</a> Ivy League Admissions Statistics | The Ivy Coach](<a href=“http://theivycoach.com/2015-ivy-league-admissions-statistics/]2015”>2015 Ivy League Admissions Statistics | Ivy Coach)</p>

<p>At other schools it translates into specific merit scholarships, WPI for example has guaranteed merit awards of at least 20K for #1 and #2 ranked students. :-)</p>

<p>Excellent point muaythaiguy2. The data below from Brown’s class of 2016 further support the title of Valedictorian in itself being an admissions booster.</p>

<p>source: [Admission</a> Facts | Undergraduate Admission](<a href=“Undergraduate Admission | Brown University”>Undergraduate Admission | Brown University)</p>

<p>But first…& this is interesting…Brown had 1643 Vals apply versus only 813 Sals apply. Hard for me to believe that Brown would attract a differential so great (double the Vals than Sals)…UNLESS there were many more Vals than Sals in this country. I think Brown’s stats support the fact that many HS’s hand out multiple Vals in relation to Sals. (Which furthers the irony of why “Val” is so much more attractive to admissions than “Sal”)</p>

<p>CATEGORY - Admit rate
All Applicants - 9.6%
Valedictorian - 24.1% (2.5x the all-app rate!)
Salutatorian - 15.5% (1.6x, or 60% boost relative to all-app rate)
Top 10% - 13.1%
CR 800 - 21.8%
CR 750-790 - 14.4%
CR 700-740 - 11.6%
M 800 - 16.4%
M 750-790 - 14.0%
M 700-740 - 10.5%
Wr 800 - 21.4%
Wr 750-790 - 14.2%
Wr 700-740 - 10.8%</p>

<p>So the Val card has more admit clout than scoring an 800 (side note: like Dartmouth’s data, CR appears to be more prized than M), and has 55% more admit power than the Sal card (24.1/15.5 - 1). Sal is close to the same admit power as an 800 in Math (not too shabby), but significantly weaker than Val. Assuming all other things scale between Val and Sal proportionate to the miniscule dfferences in their respective GPAs, like muaythaiguy2 said, there is no other explanation that I can fathom to explain the huge difference other than the name “Valedictorian” itself is coveted by admissions.</p>

<p>More likely is that Val’s and sals tend to be stronger applicants than those outside the top 2 spots.</p>

<p>I am skeptical that top colleges care whether you are valedictorian or salutatorian. </p>

<p>A better explanation is that top colleges look for “superstar” students, and such students often are #1. There may be little difference in grades between #1 and #2, but the cream rises to the top – the “superstar” will not make the occasional mistakes of the non-superstar #2 and so will end up with a slightly higher GPA.</p>

<p>Also, at schools where the valedictorian title goes to several top students, salutatorian status could often go to “second tier” students.</p>

<p>I think this statistic is extremely embarrassing for Darmouth admissions. It’s not something to be bragged about; it’s something they should be ashamed of. The difference between any of the top 5 students is usually miniscule. Dartmouth is assigning value merely to the title. Ridiculous.</p>

<p>I refuse to believe that on average, vals have significantly stronger apps than sals. Not enough of a difference to justify that massive of a gap in admission chance, if any difference at all.</p>

<p>one oddity between the Dartmouth and Brown Val & Sal data…Dartmouth is reporting Val+Sal percentages of their ENTIRE admitted class in the multiple 10’s of percent. When I do the math for percentage of Vals & Sals admitted to Brown, I come up with only ~9% of the admitted class. I think Brown is holding the line in not counting Vals & Sals for students applying from schools not reporting class rank, wheras I suspect Dartmouth probably figures out from counselors reports etc who is a Val or Sal from HSs that don’t generally report rank.</p>

<p>when other people are applying to your college with similar stats and ECs but out of nowhere you pull out the CLASS RANK</p>

<p>Additionally of interest, is the strong role the interview seems to play at Dartmouth.</p>

<p>These Penn data are a bit dated (class of '12), see page 3 for class rank admit breakdown: [wenty-five</a> years ago this fall_ I entered the University of](<a href=“http://www.docstoc.com/docs/83843391/wenty-five-years-ago-this-fall_--I-entered-the-University-of]wenty-five”>http://www.docstoc.com/docs/83843391/wenty-five-years-ago-this-fall_--I-entered-the-University-of)</p>

<p>CATEGORY - ADMITTED %
All Apps - 16.95%
Valedictorian - 45.1% (2.7x all-apps admit rate)
Salutatorian - 34.0% (2.0x all-apps admit rate)
Other top 5% - 17.7%
2nd 5% - 8.3%
Total top decile - 21.6%
CR 750-800 - 30%
M 750-800 - 23%
Wr 750-800 - 30%
(more in linked doc)</p>

<p>Similar Val/Sal pattern as Brown '16.</p>

<p>My impression is that there are far more Vals these days than Sals. The title gets thrown around far too liberally in my opinion, all in a futile attempt to impress colleges. One nearby high school names everybody with a weighted GPA greater than 4.0 a co-Valedictorian. More than 10% of the class “earned” the title. They don’t even bother to name a Sal - perhaps it would be embarassing to be a Sal but not even make the top 10%.</p>

<p>BeanTownGirl, Harvard rejects more __________'s (Insert nearly anything here) than it accepts is true for almost any possible statistic/EC/etc. Just saying…</p>

<p>In my school, there was around ~370 students and there was only one valedictorian and one salutatorian (me). Would that give me a big advantage in transferring considering no one else shares the title?</p>

<p>Not all high schools rank. Some elites have given that number in the past- and maybe around 50% of their freshmen were from schools that did not. </p>

<p>Harvard reports 14000 applicants had 4.0 gpa or better. Clearly, just being tops isn’t all it takes. </p>

<p>Yes, some hs are very liberal with their rankings. The more important lesson is that being val/sal is no guarantee, in the holistic context. Just using D, 70% of vals were not accepted.</p>