Ok NP here. Curious about this new “25%” thing. I’m not seeing a difference for Northwestern ACT composite range in CDS pre COVID to last year? 33-35 in 2022-2023 and also 2020-2021? Should I be looking at 2019-2020 instead? Or maybe there’s no real difference…and these numbers are what they are? |
They want these naturally motivated esoteric east going smart kids who also get good grades easily (no grinding)…. That’s the perfect applicant. |
It's not the job of elite colleges to do remediation. Countries succeed by developing human capital. We are supposed to match elite and advanced opportunities with the kids who are both intellectually AND academically prepared to take advantage of those opportunities. Yet, we keep trying to fit square pegs into round holes, and now the colleges will be ranked on how well they turn away kids who are prepared and take those who aren't. It's great. |
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I'm a professor at a university that has a decent ranking in the 80s on USNews, but a 80%+ acceptance rate so we have a super wide range of abilities.
Kids with ACT/SAT lower than their stellar GPA would predict...generally OK. As long as the ACT isn't TOO low. 28 ACT and 4.5 GPA? I would expect that student to be very successful, as long as they're not trying to major in something like engineering and got a 28 on the math section of the ACT. It's the "22 ACT, 4.35 GPA and valedictorian of HS" situations that can get really dicey (and yes, that is not an uncommon pairing for low SES kids coming from underresourced super rural or urban schools). |
And then she required special summer program to start, and special handholding throughout to survive. What a sad joke. |
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Problem is that GPA grading is inconsistent. A 4.0 W GPA from TJ is equivalent to a 4.5 W GPA from any other HS in NoVA.
Hence the SAT matters. If you score over 700 in Math, surely your Math skills are adequate for college level course work. I dont need to see anything else. |
You'll be happy to know that I sent one of these kids to a pretty good school on merit, and he is suddenly doing every bit of reading, etc. and acing classes. Sometimes being able to choose your own classes is pretty motivating. |
NP. The difference may be harder to detect with ACT scores. SAT scores show a 70 point difference in the 25th percentile composite and 30 points each for EBRW and math. |
You're right, your poor, marginalized children getting opportunities taken away from them by those pesky low income Questbridge kids. |
Interesting that this is a UC study but the entire UC system is now test blind for admissions. How does this make sense? |
| My DC graduated from a top 20 university (reach school) last year and got in with a 29 ACT (well below the 25% range) Attended a wealthy suburban HS and took a few AP classes but didn’t get straight As. Not URM or recruiter athlete but had EC and leadership strengths and is an extremely hard worker with strong work ethic and drive. Had great internships from top companies (no connections) and now working for MBB. |
NP. That is the result of the politics of the board of regents. It was a long battle that ultimately culminated with a court order during COVID that forced test blind, which a certain segment of powers-that-be were happy to accommodate. |
Yeah, the existential problem with your logic is that we've been conditioned to view an unweighted 3.7 as "bad grades" when, back in reality, the difference between an unweighted 3.7 and an unweighted 4.0 is often a matter of 1 - 3 points, a minor differential often related to a missing assignment(s). The suggestion that a kid with a 3.7 and a 1600 is going to "mess up" the average GPA at a Top 20 school, but a kid with a 4.0 and a 1460 is going to maintain the average GPA is laughable, at best. There are so many factors that go into a 4.00 in this age of grade inflation, like pleading for extra credit, persistent social engineering of the student's relationships with teachers, and the pressure on teachers to demonstrate strong grades in their classroom. Further upstream, it was suggested that so-called grinders “have to be the best/smartest”. Consider the silliness of that assertion. Where else in life do the best/smartest need to grind? The answer is nowhere. Grinding is for those who have to do extra. Hardly the domain of the best/smartest. |
https://satsuite.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/understanding-sat-scores.pdf Where did you get 95th %ile ... ??? Review the data at the link above, and let me know if that changes your opinion. |
The number of individuals in a given year scoring 1500 or higher on the SAT, or 34 or higher on the ACT, is probably close to 32,000 in total. I know there's a desperate narrative floating around that there are more qualified applicants for T20 schools than seats available, but that's simply untrue. |