<p>Emory University takes all of their low scoring applicants and puts them in "Oxford College at Emory". The scores for these students are 1120-1320 (SAT) and 23-28 (ACT). They let hundreds of these kids transfer AUTOMATICALLY into Emory College after two years.</p>
<p>The ranges for Oxford are way below any of the test scores for students in top 20 schools. These statistics are even lower than schools not even in the top 50 (George Washington, Boston University, etc.)</p>
<p>Why is Emory allowed to "hide" these students? Its extremely misleading.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Better yield as kids that usually have no chance at other top schools would jump at the opportunity to attend one.</p></li>
<li><p>Consequently, these kids may also be more willing to fork over more money, thus allowing Emory to ease its financial aid and charge full price.</p></li>
<li><p>Lower acceptance rate of course!</p></li>
<li><p>Easy filler to make up for those students who transfer out of Emory or who do not come back.</p></li>
<li><p>Boost the average quantitative stats of the applicants who do get accepted by not including these "weaker" links with the school's computation.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Probably some others.. but hey if Emory has the money (from Coca Cola and whatnot) perhaps they can afford such a secondary school such as Oxford and do with it what they please.</p>
<p>Also, some who have potential, but they don’t want to admit b/c of low stats. Keep in mind that colleges are also businesses. Even though we all know that tons of the rankings are bull, colleges still want their names up there, hence the late trend of accepting students with “high stats.”</p>
<p>Shall I give you something to “LOL” at?
I got a 35/36 on my ACT with hardly studying, and I got waitlisted to Oxford.
I’ll admit I have a low GPA though, mainly due to taking the toughest course rigor in my school and then slacking it off.
ECs - fair competition, if not above average, I’d say.</p>
<p>What most colleges think: This kid isn’t stupid. She’s just lazy.</p>
<p>You’ve probably also heard that the course rigor at Oxford is a lot busier than Emory? I suppose that’s to whip kids with potential like us back into shape, and help others become accustomed to a difficult workload, so Emory will become easier.</p>
<p>Personally, I find it annoying (because of my rejection, of course).
Although, if you look at it from an objective perspective, it’s a good strategy. Emory gets an extra sack of students, and if any of them make a name for themselves, they’ll be known as graduates from Emory.
If they don’t, it’ll be attributed more to “Oxford” than Emory. However, these guys probably won’t even be known anyway.</p>
<p>A lot of colleges “game” the system in some way. Usually it’s not gaming at all, but how they normally do things. The real flaw is in USNWR.</p>
<p>Wake Forest, for example, has optional SAT/ACT; and Berkeley accepts a chunk of students for the spring semester. This isn’t gaming the system as it is the customs of these schools (though Wake’s policy on optional test scores is pretty new. But the idea of optional test scores isn’t). To me, the flaw resides in USNWR.</p>
<p>then there are schools such as Notre Dame and Tufts, which only report one score of the enrolled students that submit both the SAT and ACT scores.</p>
<p>and Columbia, which fails to report the stats on 25% of its undergraduates, and in fact, fails to issue a Common Data Set. They also fail to adjust their admit rate after enrolling their waitlist applicants.</p>