Someone help me with Math

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Despite what some posters are saying, scores still matter if you are white, Asian, or rich. That may not be woke, but it’s true. Test optional is for admitting URM, first-gen, and low income. To have a good shot at admission, your score should be above the school’s 50th percentile, ideally around the 75th percentile. Also, many colleges require applicants to apply to a specific school, and scores can vary depending on school. A quarter to one-third of admits at selective schools go to diversity applicants and athletes. You will be competing with the upper half of applicants. Applying to publics, you must take into account quotas to admit state residents. There are also international students, whose applications are ramping again with the change in Administration. International students are full-pay, so schools like them. After accessing all these variables, be reasonable. People like to dream, but being reasonable yields better results.

Test optional also benefits athletes (who are predominantly white) and legacies, also predominantly white (if not a HBCU). Rich kids also have an advantage in ED. Cry me a river.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the best and most useful post in this thread:

Anonymous wrote:You are doing the math wrong because you don't seem to understand how admissions works. They don't rank kids by ACT/SAT and pick off the top. They don't, and they never did. Kids with much lower stats than your kid will get into those 90,000 spots you mistakenly expect belong to the top test takers.

The most important thing to realize is that your child should be focused on what they want to study and which of the thousands of school out there have great undergraduate departments in that area.

The second most helpful is the one telling you to become very familiar with Naviance scattergrams to gage your chances and develop a proper "reach/match/safety" balance.

Now, this is the worst post in this thread, unhelpful, bitter and total BS to boot.

What you're missing is that university admissions are not based on a meritocacy {sic} in this country.

Diversity is everything here. Which means that someone who checks a box on a form that you child doesn't check will overtake someone like your child who has way better scores.

Let's please ignore this and stay on the OPs topic otherwise this devolves into the same old tired debate. Let's be helpful to the OP who seems sincere.

Didn’t say that admissions were ALL test. But at 3.9uw, and what would seem like at least average EC and recommendations the math would work out differently. Of course there would be some movement both ways where some higher stat kids would be more concerned with finances and then some legacies and recruits but it seems numbers wise the fit into top 50 would be more slam dunk. Especially considering cost is not an issue. But enough nasty comments for what was really a question. Done..

I don't think these are nasty comments at all. They are sincere. It is absolutely possible for high stats kids to be left out of the top 50 because those colleges are not filled solely with high stats kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

There are roughly 38,000 freshmen spots at the USNWR T20 institutions. About 3 million freshman enrolled in American universities the fall of 2020. So a spot on the T20 freshman class was only available to 1.3% of the pool of 3 million. If spots were awarded solely on standardized test scores, the cutoff would be above 33 on the ACT.

Of course no admissions are conducted this way. But it does underline why such highly competitive schools are a reach for every applicant.

BC is not the same level as the other 2 schools.

Yes, and I get that the stats are not there for a T20. Just saying that not being shoe in for at least a few 30-75 schools like Emory, Boston, Berkeley seems mathematically.