Admission to Selective Colleges in 1989

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In 1989 I got rejected from Yale, Princeton and Williams with a straight A average, 1390 SAT and at top prep school. So yes, it was tough then too.

The SAT used a 2400 point scale in 1989 and that would be equivalent to a 1000 on the current sat

you’re not smart enough to create a believable lie

Um I took it in 1988 and it was a 1600 scale

And it didn't change to 2400 until 2005 dude

Yup and the out of 1600 wasn't "normalized today's scores" until 1995. Which means that you can add ~100-140 points to your 1988 score to compare with your kid's score today (makes us seem a bit smarter)

It's been re-normalized twice, so it might be even more than that. All the "I only scored a 1400 and I got into Harvard, it's so much harder now" folks don't realize that a 1400 was 99+%. You would have to score in the mid 1500's now to be equivalent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I graduated from a Fairfax Co. HS in 1988 and it was said to be one of the most competitive years.

This certainly was not the case for my high school. So many waitlist and outright denials for top kids (top 5% of class) at UVA/W&M and Ivie, Duke, etc.

Even a Supreme Court justice's kid was waitlisted at many of the places I was.

That's not to say it's not increasingly more difficult these days to get in. The difference being that student's "Back up schools" back then are now very hard to get into, but it was just as hard for the top 10/Ivies, etc.

Yup! In 1988, if you graduated HS in Virginia and had at least a 2.0 (or something ridiculously low), you were GUARANTEED admission into Va Tech.
I don't live in VA anymore, but my state's 2nd ranked large school (because the flagship is T50 and wouldn't do guaranteed admissions), requires a 3.5 GPA to be guaranteed admission just for comparison.

School I attended in 1988 had a 35% admission rate, today it's 7% or less (T15 school at that time). in 1988 ~12K students applied for ~1900 spots. This year ~51K applied for the same ~2K spots.

I had a 3.0 and a 1400 on the SAT and I got rejected from VT engineering in 1984. All my friends with much lower SAT scores but higher grades got into it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I graduated from a Fairfax Co. HS in 1988 and it was said to be one of the most competitive years.

This certainly was not the case for my high school. So many waitlist and outright denials for top kids (top 5% of class) at UVA/W&M and Ivie, Duke, etc.

Even a Supreme Court justice's kid was waitlisted at many of the places I was.

That's not to say it's not increasingly more difficult these days to get in. The difference being that student's "Back up schools" back then are now very hard to get into, but it was just as hard for the top 10/Ivies, etc.

Yup! In 1988, if you graduated HS in Virginia and had at least a 2.0 (or something ridiculously low), you were GUARANTEED admission into Va Tech.
I don't live in VA anymore, but my state's 2nd ranked large school (because the flagship is T50 and wouldn't do guaranteed admissions), requires a 3.5 GPA to be guaranteed admission just for comparison.

School I attended in 1988 had a 35% admission rate, today it's 7% or less (T15 school at that time). in 1988 ~12K students applied for ~1900 spots. This year ~51K applied for the same ~2K spots.

I had a 3.0 and a 1400 on the SAT and I got rejected from VT engineering in 1984. All my friends with much lower SAT scores but higher grades got into it.

It was guaranteed admission to the college, not engineering specifically.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In 1989 I got rejected from Yale, Princeton and Williams with a straight A average, 1390 SAT and at top prep school. So yes, it was tough then too.

The SAT used a 2400 point scale in 1989 and that would be equivalent to a 1000 on the current sat

you’re not smart enough to create a believable lie

Ahhhh, the teenagers are out Jeff!! We have proof.

[Anonymous]

I'm not gonna read all of the pages of this thread because it's categorically NOT HELPFUL to any parent who is helping their child navigate today's world.

As much as it's not helpful to post sale prices for homes in Arlington in 1989.

Not relevant,
Not helpful,
Not a point of reference that I choose to use.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Northwestern circa 1988: Average SAT was around 1240. Acceptance rate was nearly 40%

So glad I was applying then and not now! Had such an amazing time at NU. Then again, my 1400 from then would be a 1480/1490 now and that was all with 2 takes of the SAT and no studying/prep work, and most people only took it once back then.

Had a good experience too. It wasn't intensively competitive in those days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My sister got into Vanderbilt with an 1100 on the SAT's. Those were the days. Can you even imagine that now?

1100 back then is comparable to 1400 today

Also back then maybe 5% of the kids had an average whereas today 50% have an unweighted 4.0

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In 1989 I got rejected from Yale, Princeton and Williams with a straight A average, 1390 SAT and at top prep school. So yes, it was tough then too.

The SAT used a 2400 point scale in 1989 and that would be equivalent to a 1000 on the current sat

you’re not smart enough to create a believable lie

Um I took it in 1988 and it was a 1600 scale

And it didn't change to 2400 until 2005 dude

Yup and the out of 1600 wasn't "normalized today's scores" until 1995. Which means that you can add ~100-140 points to your 1988 score to compare with your kid's score today (makes us seem a bit smarter)

It's been re-normalized twice, so it might be even more than that. All the "I only scored a 1400 and I got into Harvard, it's so much harder now" folks don't realize that a 1400 was 99+%. You would have to score in the mid 1500's now to be equivalent.

To be able to compare, you would have to compare percentile to percentile. They aren't the same tests. The SAT was originally calibrated to have an average score of 1000 a long time ago, but that was based on relatively few, well-prepared students applying to college. By the 1980s, the number of students applying to college had grown greatly and the average had gone below 900, I believe. In the 1990s it was re-normed to get it back to an average of about 1000 and it has been subsequently as well.

Top high school and college student may be studying more, but I have seen analysis showing current number of hours both for high school and college students is below 1960 levels. For high school, number of hours was relatively low after WW2, rose substantially after the Sputnik wake up call and again during the 1980s after a period of decline. For college, the number of hours studying on average is well below 1960s levels.

Average high school and college GPAs have been rising steadily for over 50 years. High school grade inflation is particularly acute in relatively affluent public school districts. Some colleges (for instance Brown) have very limited room to increase average GPAs as they are now in the 3.8 range. In 1991 it was 3.38. Harvard is probably in the same 3.8 range today. In 1963 its average GPA was 2.7.