T20 undergraduate population vs # of available 99th percentile students

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In 2016, 25% of Harvard's freshmen had below a 1400 on the SAT.

That was before another recentering/redoing of scoring. 1480
Was 99th percentile then

[Anonymous]

Would # of 99th percentile students change a bit for HS class of 2026? Most of the students will only take digital SATs and would the change from paper SATs affect the number?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In 2016, 25% of Harvard's freshmen had below a 1400 on the SAT.

That was before another recentering/redoing of scoring. 1480
Was 99th percentile then

And a 1400 was not even close to the 99th percentile in 2016. So Harvard pre test optional had more than 25% of their freshmen class comprised of lower stat students. Certainly not all 99th percentile students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because I'm bored... if there are roughly 195,000 undergraduates students in the top 20... and roughly 48,750-ish incoming freshman... and only 12,000-ish 99th percentile test scorers... doesn't that mean only 25% of these students are in the top percentile?

That means don't worry if your kid doesn't score in the 99th percentile. There is plenty of room for them. Go ahead and apply and use your scores.

1.9 million SAT scores, 1.4 million ACT. That's 3.3 million test scores, 33,000 of those tests scores are top 1%. There is some overlap with people taking both tests or even retaking a test after getting a 1500 on the SAT but this is reasonably close.

2.34 entering freshmen this fall nationwide. 23,000 is top 1% of college freshmen

No need to turn this into a hair splitting exercise. Like... 1500 is not 99th percentile. 1530 is 99th percentile. That drop your numbers by many thousands right there. And then, like you said, many students take both exams. Sticking strictly to the SAT numbers PrepScholar reported 12245 scored 1530 or higher. That might be 2022, however, and not 2023. Whatever. The whole point is that there are roughly 48,000 freshman starting college at a T20 school and there are about 12,000 kids with 99th percentile (1530+) SAT scores. That suggests that nobody should get too worried if they are applying to a T20 school with a 90th to 98th percentile score.

You're kidding right? 90th percentile is 1350.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In 2016, 25% of Harvard's freshmen had below a 1400 on the SAT.

That was before another recentering/redoing of scoring. 1480
Was 99th percentile then

1480 was not 99th percentile in 2016. It was 1510.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In 2016, 25% of Harvard's freshmen had below a 1400 on the SAT.

That was before another recentering/redoing of scoring. 1480
Was 99th percentile then

1480 was not 99th percentile in 2016. It was 1510.

That is just 2 or 3 questions depending on the section. Shrug

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:California Institute of Technology (982)
Dartmouth (4458)
Rice (4494)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (4657)
Princeton (5604)
Johns Hopkins (6044)
Duke (6640)
Yale (6645)
Vanderbilt (7151)
Harvard (7240)
University of Chicago (7470)
Brown (7639)
Stanford (8049)
Northwestern (8659)
Columbia (8832)
University of Notre Dame (8971)
University of Pennsylvania (9760)
Cornell (15735)
University of California, Los Angeles (32423)
University of California, Berkeley (32831)

Berkeley and UCLA are test blind. Shouldn't even factor into this

Yes they should, those kids are top 1% material even if they don’t take the test.

lol good one

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:California Institute of Technology (982)
Dartmouth (4458)
Rice (4494)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (4657)
Princeton (5604)
Johns Hopkins (6044)
Duke (6640)
Yale (6645)
Vanderbilt (7151)
Harvard (7240)
University of Chicago (7470)
Brown (7639)
Stanford (8049)
Northwestern (8659)
Columbia (8832)
University of Notre Dame (8971)
University of Pennsylvania (9760)
Cornell (15735)
University of California, Los Angeles (32423)
University of California, Berkeley (32831)

Berkeley and UCLA are test blind. Shouldn't even factor into this

Yes they should, those kids are top 1% material even if they don’t take the test.

Pfft.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In 2016, 25% of Harvard's freshmen had below a 1400 on the SAT.

That was before another recentering/redoing of scoring. 1480
Was 99th percentile then

1480 was not 99th percentile in 2016. It was 1510.

That is just 2 or 3 questions depending on the section. Shrug

it's always just a few questions... and then another few..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Would # of 99th percentile students change a bit for HS class of 2026? Most of the students will only take digital SATs and would the change from paper SATs affect the number?

I think, yes. More kids will "just miss" getting into the harder second test set, and so they will be limited in their top score. This disadvantages kids who make mistakes on early test questions or have jitters at the start of the test, but who were perfectly capable of doing really well on the hard questions in the hard part of the exam -- just they will never see that part due to early question jitters and stupid mistakes.

I am so glad my oldest had the paper test. In practice exams, he showed a pattern of missing very few, but the ones he missed were always in the first 15 minutes of the test. By the end of test, he was missing none. We actually created a strategy around going back to the beginning of the section and redoing the questions from scratch if there was time. Very high score, but on the new digital version, he'd probably be capped due those early question mistakes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would # of 99th percentile students change a bit for HS class of 2026? Most of the students will only take digital SATs and would the change from paper SATs affect the number?

I think, yes. More kids will "just miss" getting into the harder second test set, and so they will be limited in their top score. This disadvantages kids who make mistakes on early test questions or have jitters at the start of the test, but who were perfectly capable of doing really well on the hard questions in the hard part of the exam -- just they will never see that part due to early question jitters and stupid mistakes.

I am so glad my oldest had the paper test. In practice exams, he showed a pattern of missing very few, but the ones he missed were always in the first 15 minutes of the test. By the end of test, he was missing none. We actually created a strategy around going back to the beginning of the section and redoing the questions from scratch if there was time. Very high score, but on the new digital version, he'd probably be capped due those early question mistakes.

Wow, that is a bad way to test kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I recommend that you don't use superscoring in this analysis. Superscoring seems like a public relations gesture to stressed out students. Rather than something that really impacts a lot of candidates to get them admitted. And you don't have any data on what improvements are typically seen with superscoring. Any assumptions might be quite off.

?? A 35 superscore is the same as a 35 in one setting. Test scores check a box not get you admitted. It is possible you could create a good impression by a one and done 35 but you would create a better impression by a 36 superscored. All colleges are looking for is the number. It does impact a lot of candidates.

No, it's not. It implies a different (lower) "true ability".

No it doesn’t. The SAT/ACT don’t test aptitude at all. They will both tell you so. If you can’t assume tests across different test dates are within a very narrow range of difficulty then that renders these tests practically useless as a comparitive metric.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because I'm bored... if there are roughly 195,000 undergraduates students in the top 20... and roughly 48,750-ish incoming freshman... and only 12,000-ish 99th percentile test scorers... doesn't that mean only 25% of these students are in the top percentile?

That means don't worry if your kid doesn't score in the 99th percentile. There is plenty of room for them. Go ahead and apply and use your scores.

1.9 million SAT scores, 1.4 million ACT. That's 3.3 million test scores, 33,000 of those tests scores are top 1%. There is some overlap with people taking both tests or even retaking a test after getting a 1500 on the SAT but this is reasonably close.

2.34 entering freshmen this fall nationwide. 23,000 is top 1% of college freshmen

No need to turn this into a hair splitting exercise. Like... 1500 is not 99th percentile. 1530 is 99th percentile. That drop your numbers by many thousands right there. And then, like you said, many students take both exams. Sticking strictly to the SAT numbers PrepScholar reported 12245 scored 1530 or higher. That might be 2022, however, and not 2023. Whatever. The whole point is that there are roughly 48,000 freshman starting college at a T20 school and there are about 12,000 kids with 99th percentile (1530+) SAT scores. That suggests that nobody should get too worried if they are applying to a T20 school with a 90th to 98th percentile score.

You're kidding right? 90th percentile is 1350.

It's pretty random. One of our kid took it three times and scores ranged from 1350 to 1510 and not in the order you'd expect. Same kid, same brain. The tests really don't seem to be as uniform as people think. Anecdotal, I know, but still. Our other kids were happy with the first score, but who knows what retake scores would have been: some better, some worse.

[Anonymous]

“This disadvantages kids who make mistakes on early test questions or have jitters at the start of the test”

It sucks to suck.

Get better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would # of 99th percentile students change a bit for HS class of 2026? Most of the students will only take digital SATs and would the change from paper SATs affect the number?

I think, yes. More kids will "just miss" getting into the harder second test set, and so they will be limited in their top score. This disadvantages kids who make mistakes on early test questions or have jitters at the start of the test, but who were perfectly capable of doing really well on the hard questions in the hard part of the exam -- just they will never see that part due to early question jitters and stupid mistakes.

I am so glad my oldest had the paper test. In practice exams, he showed a pattern of missing very few, but the ones he missed were always in the first 15 minutes of the test. By the end of test, he was missing none. We actually created a strategy around going back to the beginning of the section and redoing the questions from scratch if there was time. Very high score, but on the new digital version, he'd probably be capped due those early question mistakes.

Wow, that is a bad way to test kids.

Adaptive tests are garbage.