<p>Looking for some assistance....
School X has a SAT range for all acceptances of 1290-1400
but a range of 1180-1350. for all enrolled students.
Which data range should be used when determining match or reach?
Using the above example, if a student has an SAT of 1260 School X is a reach using admit stats but a match using enrolled stats.<br>
Thanks in advance for the help.</p>
<p>the main criteria IMO is percentage of applicants accepted- not so much the grades or scores
If you are off the top end of scores AND the school admits 50%- 75% of applicants then it could be considered a pretty safe bet
If you are off the top end of scores AND the school admit 25% of students- it is much chancier</p>
<p>First you need to be admitted. To do that it would help to be well above the mid-point of the 50% range of admitted students, unlesss you are a recuited athlete, URM, moneyed legacy, or otherwise irresitable.</p>
<p>Sleepless, IMO you should use the most conservative estimate, ie the one with the higher SAT range. But, as Ekitty describes, probably the more telling statistic is the % of applicants admitted. There is always some degree of self-selection, even at a lower tier school, but generally the higher the % the better.</p>
<p>If those are real statistics rather than a theoretical example, I would wonder if they came from the same year. The acceptance range seems very narrow, to then drop that much in the enrolled group. If the acceptance rate is above 50% (and I would assume that it would be), then for planning, I would think the school would be a reach, but I wouldn't be surprised if the student was admitted.</p>
<p>cangel,
I am pretty sure the data is from the same year. You are correct in that the admit rate was 51%. Seems like a popular safety for more competitive schools resulting in a yield of 31% I believe.
I agree that the admit range seems more appropriate to use. The problem is that enrolled figures are the ones published in USNWR, etc. 50% range figures for admits is more difficult to come by is it not?</p>
<p>since the score is 1260- not knowing what the other factors are= I would say it is a reasonable match-reach but what matters more would be admit rate- is it 75% or 30%?</p>
<p>Sleepless, do you know waitlist figures for this school?</p>
<p>If the 25% for accepted was as high as 1290, but the 75% of enrolled is only 1350, then they basically accept almost every one over some number in the 1300s, then the admit rate for 1260 is probably around 50-50, or a little worse - making it a "true match" or a realistic reach, depending on how optimistic, or able to deal with uncertainty you are :).</p>
<p>notice the range for the enrolled is not only lower, it is also significantly wider than the admitted - a lot of kids are using them as a safety, but not attending, at the same time there is a fair amount of selectivity in the true "target group - students with scores right around 1300.</p>
<p>cangel,
Upon further investigation I have found that I was mixing '08 data with '09 data for school X. Sorry for the mispost. It did however get me thinking .... that if the admit ranges are more prudent to use when assessing your chances, I would conclude that most students are reaching a bit more than they realize. Doing a spot check on a few schools, it seems that admit SAT 50% ranges run about 40-50 points higher than SAT enrolled ranges. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>sleepless, I see you already discovered your error, but I still got a good chuckle out if your initial post:</p>
<p>
[quote]
School X has a SAT range for all acceptances of 1290-1400
but a range of 1180-1350. for all enrolled students.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>According to this data, there are students enrolled who were actually not admitted!! :) (students in the 1180 - 1289 range) Hey, you rejected me but I am attending anyway!!</p>
<p>I think the range for matriculating students is more important. Regardless of how good the applicants were in any given year, a school pretty much knows from what range its student body comes from. In your case, school x might be a state school that a high percentage of top students in the state apply to as a safety. Hence, the SAT range of accepted students is high. However, school x knows that most of those students won't come - they are accepting a lot in the hopes that even a small percentage will matriculate. Realistically, they aren't going to get enough 1300 + scorers to fill most of their class - hence anyone in the 1200s has an excellent change, and those in the 1100s aren't so far off either.</p>
<p>I agree with Emerald - the SAT ranges are too limited in and of themselves to accurately predict chances. Other factors that need to be considered and weighed include how the student's high school curriculum stacks up against the college's required/recommended high school curriculum, how the student's grades stack up (and it is important to ask the school for specifics about how their reported "median" is computed - do they use whatever GPA is reported on the h.s. transcript, or do they recompute and that's what the median is based on?), what the student has to offer in terms of diversity (racial, geographic, economic), special talents, etc. Then factor in overall acceptance rates and test scores and you'll have a pretty good sense of how the student stacks up and what their chances are going to be. Use test scores alone, however, and you don't have enough information to effectively guess chances for anyone at any school.</p>
<p>First you need to be admitted. To do that it would help to be well above the mid-point of the 50% range of admitted students, unlesss you are a recuited athlete, URM, moneyed legacy, or otherwise irresitable.>></p>
<p>This is where relying on test scores alone is dangerous. Someone in the lower 25% or even below that might have a very good chance at a school that accepts 60% or 80% but a not so good chance at a school that accepts 10% or 30%. In some cases, someone with test scores at or above the 75th percentile medians might have not so hot chances at the schools that accept 60% or 80% if they don't have the other parts of the package. As I said, colleges don't make admissions decisions based solely on test scores, so other factors need to be weighed and considered as well.</p>
<p>Nevermind.</p>
<p>While I agree that admission decisions are not based only on test scores, I am also fearful that as we move through this demographic surge in numbers of applications, test scores will become more important as adcoms struggle with larger piles to review. Do you have a sense if adcoms have added staff to stay ahead of this trend? If not, then test scores may become a means to attain more efficiency.</p>