Where are your UNDER 1400 SAT kids going?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Better to have a low test score than a GPA lower than 3.75UW. They say our kids shouldn't stress about grades -- then they make it ALL about grades. You can't have a bad day or a bad year because your 1500 SAT won't make up for those Bs even if was in AP classes.

This is why TO should go away. Someone who has a UW3.6 but took high rigor classes and gets a 1560 on SAT belongs in a elite college, someone who has a UW4.0 but took easier classes , or has grade inflation, and gets a 1290 does not.

+1,000,000

The vast majority of kids with a 4.0, not rigorous HS courses and a 1290 going TO is NOT getting into T20 schools. For people who are "so smart" you seem to have a difficult time understanding math---if there are 40K applications for 2K spots, and the school accepts 3K to get the yield they need, that means a 7% acceptance rate and 93% are getting rejected. That means many many many many highly qualified kids are gonna get rejected.

What it does mean though is that a kid with a 1490/1500 and rigorous course load and good gpa makes the cut just the same as your 1560 kid. Your kid doesn't get a bump for being 60-70 points higher on the SAT.

Agree. Test scores will go down. Once you reach the 25% threshold, the score itself is not determinative of anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DS with high GPA applied TO for Fall 2024. He's on the spectrum and has deep knowledge and excellent analytical skills when it comes to international politics, languages and the unique issues facing countries and their populations. He interviews shockingly well with adults - the more cerebral and academic, the more he shines. He's been awarded a number of merit scholarships and spots in honors programs. He's not strong in standardized testing for the typical ASD reasons. Ironically if he'd been required to submit a test score, he'd likely end up in a more standard program that would not be a good fit for an ASD kid like him.

This sounds like my kid. Can you share acceptances and rejections and where you ultimately decided to attend?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Better to have a low test score than a GPA lower than 3.75UW. They say our kids shouldn't stress about grades -- then they make it ALL about grades. You can't have a bad day or a bad year because your 1500 SAT won't make up for those Bs even if was in AP classes.

This is why TO should go away. Someone who has a UW3.6 but took high rigor classes and gets a 1560 on SAT belongs in a elite college, someone who has a UW4.0 but took easier classes , or has grade inflation, and gets a 1290 does not.

+1,000,000

Yet Ivies admit the second type of kids, if they like their story, and they end up doing just fine.

+1 Weighting one bad test day heavily over years of hard work, especially if high-rigor classes, makes no sense. I would question whether students who get Bs in high school courses are capable of doing the work at an elite school. Their classes will be far more challenging than APs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Better to have a low test score than a GPA lower than 3.75UW. They say our kids shouldn't stress about grades -- then they make it ALL about grades. You can't have a bad day or a bad year because your 1500 SAT won't make up for those Bs even if was in AP classes.

This is why TO should go away. Someone who has a UW3.6 but took high rigor classes and gets a 1560 on SAT belongs in a elite college, someone who has a UW4.0 but took easier classes , or has grade inflation, and gets a 1290 does not.

+1,000,000

The vast majority of kids with a 4.0, not rigorous HS courses and a 1290 going TO is NOT getting into T20 schools. For people who are "so smart" you seem to have a difficult time understanding math---if there are 40K applications for 2K spots, and the school accepts 3K to get the yield they need, that means a 7% acceptance rate and 93% are getting rejected. That means many many many many highly qualified kids are gonna get rejected.

What it does mean though is that a kid with a 1490/1500 and rigorous course load and good gpa makes the cut just the same as your 1560 kid. Your kid doesn't get a bump for being 60-70 points higher on the SAT.

Agree. Test scores will go down. Once you reach the 25% threshold, the score itself is not determinative of anything.

I was told a 1550+ is necessary for elite school admissions.

[Anonymous]

My 1390 kid is thriving at Swarthmore! Schools look at more than test scores. My DS had great extracurriculars and a fantastic essay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My 1390 kid is thriving at Swarthmore! Schools look at more than test scores. My DS had great extracurriculars and a fantastic essay.

I love this - I thrived at Swarthmore 30 years ago with a lower SAT score than that so I'm glad they're looking holistically. Obviously they could fill the class with 1600s but why would they want to?

[Anonymous]

My DS will be residing in a van down by the river.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Above 1300 is still a really high SAT score!

Yes...people on DCUM act like it's not but it is a very good score (1350= 94th/90th national/test taker percentile, respectively; 1390 gets you to 97th/92nd). Now, I assume those numbers are for a single sitting and superscoring and multiple test taking skews things but people here act like a 1350 is subpar. It's absurd.

The issue is that it’s a good NATIONAL score, but not particularly competitive for DMV area.
For example, even if you scored in the high 1400s, which is GREAT—you have to consider that Stanford isn’t going to admit an entire entering class (or even more than 30 or so) from one geographic area. So your 1480 might get you a good look if you’re that one kid who lives on a farm in Montana, but not from DMV where 600 other 4.0 applicants (with major ECs) scored 1550+ than you.

I wonder about this. Is "DMV" treated like a monolith? Is the "DMV kid" with a 1400 from an underresourced DCPS school that has an average score of 950 treated the same as the "DMV kid" with a 1400 from one of the top privates where that score may very well be the average? I honestly don't know the answer to that question...but assuming that neither kid is first generation and that the colleges can't consider race, do they look at the school resources to contextualize the school?

The majority of selective colleges consider the resources available at the high school level. A kid at Dunbar who scores 1400 will not be compared to a Sidwell kid who scores 1400. This board assumes that every kid is from a well-resourced public or private high school. Plenty of AOs have gone on the record explaining this, e.g., Yale, UVA, Dartmouth, Brown, etc.

Let's split the difference: what about a kid with 1400 at Walls or J-R? Definitely underresourced schools compared to Sidwell...but presumbably those kids are not going to get the same kind of "contextual" advantage, except they may only have a handful of kids applying from their school versus 30 from Sidwell.

It depends on the average SAT score for Walls or J-R and also the socioeconomic status of the individual student. If a kid is low-income at Walls scores 1400, and the average score is 1100, that kid will get a contextual advantage compared to a student at Sidwell. For example, a Yale AO explained this in their admissions podcast.

That makes sense...what if the average score at Walls is 110 but the 1400 kid there is upper income? I'm guessing that is actually a realistic scenario.

According to the YCBK, Yale, and Dartmouth podcasts, the UMC kid wouldn't have an advantage in that context because colleges also consider parent education, job titles, zip code, etc. Schools are looking for low-income/first-generation outliers.

So the Ivies have only rich private school kids and poor public school kids.

this is spot on

[Anonymous]

Unhooked kid with a 1320 SAT but perfect grades, good rigor, strong extracurriculars, and over 500 service hours:

University of Georgia - Accepted (no merit)
University of Florida - Accepted (no merit)
University of Central Florida - Accepted (10.5k merit per year)
University of South Florida - Accepted (8k merit per year)
University of Tampa - Accepted (18k merit per year)
University of South Carolina - Accepted (10k merit per year)
College of Charleston - Accepted (12k merit per year)
University of Arizona - Accepted (32k merit per year)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Better to have a low test score than a GPA lower than 3.75UW. They say our kids shouldn't stress about grades -- then they make it ALL about grades. You can't have a bad day or a bad year because your 1500 SAT won't make up for those Bs even if was in AP classes.

This is why TO should go away. Someone who has a UW3.6 but took high rigor classes and gets a 1560 on SAT belongs in a elite college, someone who has a UW4.0 but took easier classes , or has grade inflation, and gets a 1290 does not.

+1,000,000

Yet Ivies admit the second type of kids, if they like their story, and they end up doing just fine.

+1 Weighting one bad test day heavily over years of hard work, especially if high-rigor classes, makes no sense. I would question whether students who get Bs in high school courses are capable of doing the work at an elite school. Their classes will be far more challenging than APs.

As are completely inflated since 2020 covid.

The SAat is a much more accurate indicator of potential and ability than grades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are they happy? Where did they apply and get in/not get in? Merit anywhere?

In at UVA, UCSD, UCSB - offered significant merit at two 'Likely' schools.

The UCs don't look at SAT scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unhooked kid with a 1320 SAT but perfect grades, good rigor, strong extracurriculars, and over 500 service hours:

University of Georgia - Accepted (no merit)
University of Florida - Accepted (no merit)
University of Central Florida - Accepted (10.5k merit per year)
University of South Florida - Accepted (8k merit per year)
University of Tampa - Accepted (18k merit per year)
University of South Carolina - Accepted (10k merit per year)
College of Charleston - Accepted (12k merit per year)
University of Arizona - Accepted (32k merit per year)

This is encouraging. Congrats!

[Anonymous]

Mine got an 1130 or around that. He’s at La Salle and loves it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1310. Tulane. She’s thrilled. No merit but was offered merit from other schools like Fordham, College of Charleston. She was deferred EA as TO and submitted scores late, accepted. I agree they just have to be in the range. And that’s still above 90th percentile!! Everyone needs to calm down.

What made you decide to submit? Counselor recommendation? Figured it couldn't hurt at that point? Took the test again and earned a score within their range?

[Anonymous]

Doesn’t that the progressives, the hope of humanity, consider SAT racist? How dare SAT outcome is not perfectly the same for all races?