<p>The way you portrayed it seemed to be **more **than just a huge advantage, and in fact, almost unheard of. While I can’t comment per se on how big (if any) the advantage is, I can definitely tell you I’m not the only one, nor would I say there are only 5 or 10 per admission cycle. I do know about 2400+URM+4.0+star athlete, but I also do know that without the URM status and often with rather middling grades/scores a true star athlete will find him/herself admitted at HYPS (it’s called athletic recruiting and academic index). Don’t try to make this is a referendum on URM status.</p>
<p>There have definitely been perfect scoring blacks in the past few years. Both of my friends brothers got a perfect score on the SAT (one at Princeton the other UT) and they are black.</p>
<p>Perfect scores from anyone are exceedingly rare. </p>
<p><a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools;
<p>Also, colleges don’t really distinguish between a 700 and an 800, so an URM who scores 2400 won’t be viewed any higher than an URM who scores 2200.</p>
<p>Star* i read somewhere that the difference comes when there is a 60 point difference. But at the top it is probably neglible, since like everybody has that.</p>
<p>i’d say if you come from a disadvantaged family backgroud – yes.</p>
<p>Dbate, really? 60 points?</p>
<p>i have a 730 Cr, and a 740 math (750 in another sitting, 76 psat lol i fail at math!)… does this mean they are more willing to pick the 800/800 person??</p>
<p>oh this is depressing</p>
<p>Dbate:</p>
<p>It doesn’t work like that. Schools use SAT scores, GPA, etc. to assess whether or not an applicant is qualified for admission. After that it comes down to subjective things like did the applicant take advantage of his or her opportunities, passion, leadership, desirability of the applicant (will a lot of other top schools admit the applicant), etc.</p>
<p>how important is leadership would you say, if an applicant has everything else you mentioned?</p>
<p>@Agent of Sense
you mean “death and taxes”</p>
<p>URM + Perfect GPA + Perfect SAT score = 99% chance of acceptance at all ivies.</p>
<p>Period. Only reason you wouldn’t is if you just scribbled or put all “aaaaaaaaaas” on ur essays</p>
<p>Not true.</p>
<p>Asians are still URMs, but a bunch of them still get rejected. I think that if you’re Hispanic or African American, then the URM status helps out more. Asians have a higher bar set.
Here’s an example - A class of 2008 kid at my school - 2400 SAT Score, 4.0 GPA, Varsity Golf Captain and Varsity Soccer, Asian, and a damn good writer.
He only applied to one safety, which was our State’s university, and the rest were HPY, Stanford, Cornell, etc.
He ended up getting into NONE of them, even our state’s university, so now he’s going to go to community college.</p>
<p>The point here is that either Asian URM status isn’t that great, or that colleges don’t always care about perfect scorers, which undercuts the URM status.</p>
<p>And do realize that with URM status, you at least need to have some sort of financial problem. If you’re a URM and your parents make like 100k+ a year, they’ll look at with more scrutiny because they know that you probably had more opportunities than a URM whose parents only earn like 40k a year.</p>
<p>^ Asians aren’t URMs, lol. URM = Underrepresented Minority, and colleges only practice such for people that are under-represented at their colleges (Ex. blacks, native americans, hispanics), not Asians, who make up too large of a % of American elite colleges than they make up of the US population. Example: Berkley has about 40% Asians, but only 4% of America is Asian. Being Asian at Berkley is worse than being White!</p>
<p>URM + perfect scores = auto acceptance. It’s an undeniable fact, unless you just destroy your application purposely. If you are a URM with perfect scores and decent ECs and others, you get into HYP no prob. You don’t even need safeties, cause the safeties prob. wont give you as much money as the ivies / top schools will</p>
<p>Asians are still underrepresented at some schools.</p>
<p>“A class of 2008 kid at my school - 2400 SAT Score, 4.0 GPA, Varsity Golf Captain and Varsity Soccer, Asian, and a damn good writer.
He only applied to one safety, which was our State’s university, and the rest were HPY, Stanford, Cornell, etc.
He ended up getting into NONE of them, even our state’s university, so now he’s going to go to community college.”</p>
<p>Wow. That’s an absolutely terrible situation to be in. =[ Rejected everywhere..even your safety. And such impressive stats too!! So horrible. My heart goes out to him.</p>
<p>We got probably a similar in 08’</p>
<p>Rank 2, Asian, 2370 + Great EC</p>
<p>Rej: HPSM+CIT, WL: WashU. (Children, do not use WashU as safety ever). Now going to no name state school in middle of no where America on PSAT scholarship.</p>
<p>Asians aren’t URMs in the college world..</p>
<p>I was under the impression that Asians are underrepresented and at times actively recruited, for example at some libral art colleges. No?</p>
<p>^
No</p>
<p>Asians are ORMs. Overrepresented Minorities. I can’t think of anywhere that would need to recruit them.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>yes, this is true. Some Asians (usually chinese, japanese and koreans) are overrepresented as the usual suspects (HYP, etc.). There are some asians who are underrepresented at elite schools; laotians, vietnamese, etc.</p>
<p>According to the JBHE, of the 178,417 blacks who took the ACT test this year, only two of these students had a perfect score of 36. On the other hand, there were 220 white students who received the top score of 36. </p>
<p>the number of perfect scorers are relatively small (and they are not all posting on CC).</p>
<p>that said, there are a number of reasons that a high scoring student does not necessarily get into an elite school. As others have noted scores, gpa will get you to committee, but it is the soft factors and how you align with the institutional mission (which changes year over year) that helps move your application to either the admit or deny pile.</p>