Reply to Got a Smart Kid Applying for College Anytime Soon? Read this NYT Article (if you haven't yet)

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am not sure if I am articulating my question clearly, so please humor me, but if you account for all of the extra &quot;randomly fired off&quot; applications that do not fall within the Ivy's selection profile, then is the selectivity still dramatically different than it was 20 years ago? In the 80's was the applicant pool largely comprised of qualified students? I guess that I am curious about the acceptance rate for applicants that mirror the profile of the current freshman class. [/quote]
I think I understand.  You're asking whether the accepted student profile has gotten measurably stronger, I think.  In other words, would a student admitted in the 1980s (30-35 years ago!) still be admitted today?  It's a hard question, but I think the best way to answer might be to look at the average SAT scores for admitted students.  Have they changed significantly. or are they still roughly the same?  That's not a perfect answer, but it might give a good estimate.[/quote]
25th percentile of 2013 incoming class (verbal/math) = 710/710
25th percentile of 1985 incoming class = 620/640

75th percentile of 2013 incoming class = 800/790
75th percentile of 1985 incoming class = 720/730

Definitely a significant increase in SAT scores of attending students.  Some of that might be attributable to the SAT &quot;recentering&quot; that occurred in the mid-1990s, but surely not all of it.

FWIW, of 1359 matriculating students ...
55% of matriculants came from public high schools. 
45% of matriculants came from independent, parochial, and other schools. 
14% of matriculants were children of Yale alumni.

Total University Enrollments* (non-International): 
Black or African American: 8% 
American Indian/Alaska Native: 2% 
Asian: 17% 
Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander: &lt;1% 
Hispanic of any race: 8% 
White: 62% 
Race/ethnicity unknown: 3% [/quote]

I think a good portion of that is the re-centering, but I agree it probably doesn't account for all of it. A 730 verbal is equivalent to an 800 now, and the 730 math is the same.

That's from the re-centering tables, but average scores jumped about 100 points so I'm skeptical that the math is really the same.

I also think the increase of prepping has driven scores higher for similarly capable students.  I.e. a student that got a1400 in the mid-80's with no studying would probably get into the 1500's today with the typical prep regime expected of high performers now. [/quote]

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