<p>Hi, I often wonder why college just publish the middle test score range. Is there any particular reason for this? Do colleges fear that people will find out they admit students with ridiculously low scores?</p>
<p>It’s fairly useless info as only the uber hooked have such scores, and if you have that kind of a hook, you’re not studying common data sets.</p>
<p>^ I have to disagree with hmom5 here. Her characterization may apply to HYPSM and a small handful of the most selective LACs, but I suspect there are far more schools hiding deficiencies in their students’ test scores. But the two groups of schools have a common interest in avoiding full disclosure— HYPSM, Amherst, Williams, etc would prefer not to have a lot of publicity about the kinds of admissions breaks they give to recruited athletes, legacies, development cases, etc. Bad for their public image. And the schools just one step further down the food chain from HYPSM-AW don’t want to reveal just how different their student body really is from their gold-standard rivals.</p>
<p>Brown published the entire range on its fact sheet … just check out the site. Perhaps other elites should!</p>
<p>Annually colleges prepare what is known as the Common Data Set, basically a form in which they detail a lot of info about the college that relates to admissions, class sizes, graduation rates and other categories. That asks for the middle 50% range and thus that is what colleges publicly provide.</p>
<p>The Common Data Set was essentially a response to US News rating list. US News has long used such things as middle 50% as a factor. Other factors US News uses are also part of the common data set. In other words, essentially all the admissions info you see published today by colleges resulted from colleges sucking up to US News rating list and since full range of admitted students is not sought to create rating lists, colleges generally do not provide it.</p>
<p>Brown fact sheet is interesting. I had noted on Naviance that no one from ds’s school had been admitted there so was interested.</p>
<p>Statistically, the entire range is completely useless; it tells you absolutely nothing about your chances at a school. The only information it would provide is, like bclintonk said, how big of a break the school gives to athletes and people with hooks.</p>
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<p>Well, not quite. The most common admissions data published on college admissions office webpages is data on the median or middle 50% GPAs and SAT/ACT scores of admitted students. This is not the same as the stats on enrolled freshmen, the figures reported in the Common Data Set and US News. At most schools, the stats of admitted students are higher than the stats of enrolled freshmen, because they generally lose a fraction of the best-credentialed cross-admits to their peers or to more highly regarded schools higher up the food chain. By posting “admitted students” data instead of “enrolled freshmen” data, they can make their student body look a little stronger than it actually is.</p>
<p>And of course, without a corresponding gpa, test scores by themselves don’t mean as much as many think.</p>
<p>Brown posts the admit stats by GPA as well. Bums you out they reject so many valedictorians (75%). What we don’t know is the trade-off or combination of GPA and SAT/ACT that makes the cut for the beauty contest i.e. gets you the chance to walk on the runway (review of Essay, ECs etc.)</p>
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<p>Yes, statistics on admitted rather than enrolled students are an example of how to lie with statistics for any college with less than about 70 percent yield.</p>
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<p>Don’t forget that there no definition of Valedictorian. Texas used to call every student with 4.0+ a “Val” – some high schools would literally have hundreds of them.</p>
<p>Not my Texas hs. ^^^ It’s a district decision.</p>