Girl with 1370 SAT gets in to 5 Ivies

[Anonymous]

I do not assess intelligence, character, drive, and ambition from multiple choice primary school exam for university or high demand employment opportunities. Neither the government nor State makes the admission decision for me. Take it or leave it!

[Anonymous]

Maybe this student would’ve achieved the same results if her race were different, maybe not. We’ll never know. Even implicit (as opposed to explicit) racial admission preferences have a way of undermining those they purport to help by later inviting doubt on achievements. No one wins when deviating from meritocracy.

Even if every single post on this thread sang the student’s praises the reality is the majority of Americans are against racial considerations in admissions. These over the top URM success stories that come out every spring have a way of fanning the flames and risking the kind of madness that now threatens all of academia. The practice was never without a price.

The irony is if the student were half as great as everyone says, she would’ve ultimately been just as well off going to a school most haven’t heard of, a reality many even more academically capable students have come to grips with over the years after seeing lower achieving students get coveted spots at the most famous schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do not assess intelligence, character, drive, and ambition from multiple choice primary school exam for university or high demand employment opportunities. Neither the government nor State makes the admission decision for me. Take it or leave it!

MIT disagrees with you.
If you can't even get high score on the very basics, well...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I could not read all of the linked article, and hit a paywall when I went back. But based on what I read, she had good grades, about 4.36 GPA and ECs. The colleges saw that the 1370 in SAT probably correlated to family’s SES. Clearly, the colleges that accepted her thought that she had the goods, otherwise she would not have been accepted. These colleges already got their yield and full pay from earlier round of acceptances. Now they can afford to look for other attributes, like her race to shape the class of students. Regardless, congrats to her.

She does seem like a great kid but you’re making assumptions here that are troubling.
- we don’t know her SES. While her parents are both immigrants, they are college educated. They live in a HNW community outside of Philly
- her parents met when her dad tutored her mom in math, so clearly the parents are bright and driven- this wasn’t a kid who didn’t have access to testing resources

Her ECs are wonderful and she does seem like a change the world type. But, she doesn’t check as many boxes as one would think and I’m actually surprised she had the successes she did. WL at both Harvard and Dartmouth which required SATs (were Penn and Princeton TO?) Maybe she submitted AP scores to Yale vs SAT?

Just trying to look at this as a case study and figure out what lessons we can take from this example.

Be genuine, and demonstrate you have a "change the world mentality"
That is what most accepted at T25 have. It's how to differentiate yourself from the masses

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can’t imagine how the student must feel if she’s seeing all this hate online. I wonder who put it out there in cyberspace for all to see and comment, and who released her college decision news to the media. She’s 17-18 and to have to go to college with the whole online world questioning your credentials…

Here's the problem with social media and teens - what one posts never goes away. This will shadow her 4 years at college amongst her classmates and will probably follow into her post college job prospects. Then there is the self-doubt which is prevalent amongst black Ivy league students.
I hosted a 24 year old in my home recently and the snark, jealousy, catty talk about his college classmates and amongst themselves was very off-putting. Social media is a big source of this bad energy.

Whatever happened to celebrating quietly with your friends and family?

[Anonymous]

Very happy for this girl who is definitely deserving. The girl is focused on academics and pursuing her passion.

It is not about black or white or some other shade. The more interesting thing is that she is from an immigrant family. Immigrant blacks are doing extremely well, compared to native blacks. That is something worth exploring and trying to incorporate into the broader community.

- Asian male

[Anonymous]

Compare the weite up between the orig article (testing and ECs) to this kid, same cycle, different gender, but still look at the ECs alone.

https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/paterson-press/2025/05/08/harvard-bound-paterson-nj-teen-ivy-league-acceptances/83496050007/

The two seem stratospheres apart.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If her parents were educated outside the United States, she’s considered “First Gen”.

“First Gen” is the best hook you can have right now.

That is not the definition of First Gen. They ask where parents went to college. If they went to college - at all - anywhere - that is not considered "FG". They will also look at careers.

I didn't read the article. What are the parents careers?

That’s not true. If her parents went to college outside the US, she falls under “first gen”.

No, first gen means first gen to go to college anywhere.

No. Colleges only care about whether the student's parents went to college (and different colleges have different rules about what that means exactly). The student's grandparents could all have advanced degrees but if their parents didn't go, the student would be FG.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If her parents were educated outside the United States, she’s considered “First Gen”.

“First Gen” is the best hook you can have right now.

That is not the definition of First Gen. They ask where parents went to college. If they went to college - at all - anywhere - that is not considered "FG". They will also look at careers.

I didn't read the article. What are the parents careers?

That’s not true. If her parents went to college outside the US, she falls under “first gen”.

No, first gen means first gen to go to college anywhere.

No. Colleges only care about whether the student's parents went to college (and different colleges have different rules about what that means exactly). The student's grandparents could all have advanced degrees but if their parents didn't go, the student would be FG.

This. My parent was first gen and then got an advanced degree. A sibling (who wasn’t first gen now) did not go to college so this person’s kids are also first gen.

[Anonymous]

So obviously DEI come on. Asian or white wouldn’t be considered with those scores. AA is alive. But kid is very impressive as many who are rejected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry for the 1530+ SAT black kids.
This is why they don't get the respect they deserve.
They are the biggest victims.

Silly post. 1530+? Where did that arbitrary threshold come from?

No one cares about your SAT after you're accepted to college: it's a high school metric. No - employers don't care either.

Google
"The average SAT score for admitted students at Yale University is approximately 1540. The middle 80% of admitted students scored between 1500 and 1560 on the SAT*

It's not arbitrary. Let's make it ittle more generous to 1500.

It's not about after graduation. It's about admitted students. She's one of the lower 20% ALDC + URM.

[Anonymous]

She's an upper middle class DRIVEN teenager. I mean, she very clearly has a path she wants to pursue (the legal field) and the extracurriculars to back that up, that's exactly what colleges want. Of course she got into a ton of great schools, good for her!!!

[Anonymous]

So many racist posts here. She sounds amazing, she'll make waves!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So obviously DEI come on. Asian or white wouldn’t be considered with those scores. AA is alive. But kid is very impressive as many who are rejected.

Yes. My Asian DD got into T10 this year with similar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So the schools are not obeying the law and still the racial discrimination.

Cut the funding already.

No! She's impressive! The activities and accolades (and maybe teacher LOR) are why she got in.

My Asian DD applied test optional (With similar test scores tbh) and got into MANY T20 schools (and is going to one of them)!

Agree! And I also have an ORM test op kid at an Ivy too....
Not sure why the hate here?
I think people don't understand what holistic admissions is.

There are a lot of us on here!!
The idiots here focused on test scores and nothing else don’t get it.

The sad and simple truth is that their children are not compelling. They are not interesting. They are not interested. And it comes across in everything they convey in the common app. They will never have the results our children have had. It has nothing to do with test scores.