<p>The admissions department reports data for a five year period from 2002-2007. 60 of 705 applicants have been admitted. </p>
<p>I understand that Caltech places a heavy emphasis on an applicant's performance on the entrance exams. Are the reported figures the total number of applicants, or just the total number of applicants that were given serious consideration based on satisfactory performance on the exams?</p>
<p>I assume it is just the total number of applicants.</p>
<p>If this is the case, I wonder what rough percentage of applicants perform up to par on the exams? I know that no one can give an exact percentage, but would it be safe to assume 70%? 40%?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>How would anyone know this except the people who score the exams?</p>
<p>Anyone that has been on the committee may be able to recall the number of applicants that were discussed in committee, and may also know the total number of applicants for that year.</p>
<p>This would be a good enough estimate to satisfy my curiosity.</p>
<p>From what I understand, applicants that do not perform to a certain level on the exams are not even discussed in committee.</p>
<p>The admissions committee consists of faculty, staff, and students…so I guess there is a very small range of people that could know that might be on this message board. Maybe 10 students over the past 5 years?</p>
<p>Also, a transfer admit may have asked about average exam performance after being admitted?</p>
<p>Even if the transfer admissions committee did have an unofficial cutoff, there is no guarantee that it would remain the same from year to year. Furthermore, if there was an unofficial cutoff, it would be highly unlikely that they would share this information. Generally, people on admissions committees are discouraged from releasing information outside of what the admissions committee releases officially. </p>
<p>That being said, I’d imagine that there probably is no unofficial cutoff.</p>
<p>Clearly your interest in this information is at least in part related to your desire to learn something more about your “chances” of being admitted. I can assure you that this is a pointless activity, and I hope you don’t spend too much time worrying about it. What will happen will happen. Good luck.</p>