Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kid is a HS junior looking at Caltech and would be Bucket A for Math but Bucket B for RW. We attended a presentation as part of a tour of Caltech where they discussed the bucket system and indicated the difference between A and B is small, but it still would seem better to be an A/A applicant than an A/B applicant, so this is factoring into whether kid will re-take the SAT.

The notion that that there is meaningful difference in a 10pt threshold (for example) is dubious to me when the exam is practicable and/or you can get a different result just with more test familiarity - (hence super-scoring). I totally get your point. Why have 2 buckets unless you plan to treat them differently? But if your DC takes it again and moves to Bucket A, they were same kid they were in Bucket B. I guess they have to draw the lines somewhere and they do what they do for their reasons as is their right.

It kinda seems they still want ‘perfect’. Hence the feeling that they prefer an A/A. Interesting that they don’t cast a wider net around verbal given that math seems to be the thing they are most sensitive to.

I think a wider net would have been feasible on the old, more logic and longer passages version of the verbal SAT. With the new SAT I have a feeling that if you can't score near perfect, you're not going to do that well with the extremely rigorous coursework at a place like Caltech/MIT, and that even if you do score near perfect you might still struggle.

Anonymous wrote:Kid is a HS junior looking at Caltech and would be Bucket A for Math but Bucket B for RW. We attended a presentation as part of a tour of Caltech where they discussed the bucket system and indicated the difference between A and B is small, but it still would seem better to be an A/A applicant than an A/B applicant, so this is factoring into whether kid will re-take the SAT.

The notion that that there is meaningful difference in a 10pt threshold (for example) is dubious to me when the exam is practicable and/or you can get a different result just with more test familiarity - (hence super-scoring). I totally get your point. Why have 2 buckets unless you plan to treat them differently? But if your DC takes it again and moves to Bucket A, they were same kid they were in Bucket B. I guess they have to draw the lines somewhere and they do what they do for their reasons as is their right.

It kinda seems they still want ‘perfect’. Hence the feeling that they prefer an A/A. Interesting that they don’t cast a wider net around verbal given that math seems to be the thing they are most sensitive to.

Anonymous wrote:MIT uses a similar system with, I believe, 8 to 16 buckets.

Can anyone share more details about MIT buckets?

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a great system. More colleges should adopt this system

I think a lot of schools do. But more schools should be this transparent about it.

I don’t think so. Most schools are nothing at all like Caltech.

I mean more schools should have a transparent bucket system. They don’t all have to use Caltech’s extremely high cutoffs. Alabama uses a different set of buckets for their scholarships, for example, but it’s still a transparent bucket system. And people really like that.

MIT uses a similar system with, I believe, 8 to 16 buckets.

Kid is a HS junior looking at Caltech and would be Bucket A for Math but Bucket B for RW. We attended a presentation as part of a tour of Caltech where they discussed the bucket system and indicated the difference between A and B is small, but it still would seem better to be an A/A applicant than an A/B applicant, so this is factoring into whether kid will re-take the SAT.

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Anonymous wrote:This does not make sense to me. How does 770 equate to a 34? A 770 is the equivalent to a 35 or possibly even a 36.

I imagine the people at CalTech have done the math on this one.

That is an interesting question because CalTech is slightly misaligned relative to the actual concordance tables. I suspect that it is because they detect a bigger difference at a 33.

If they want to keep the buckets balanced they needed to push 770 down to create two 30 point buckets for the SAT side. They stated that the differences are small so I doubt bucket A or bucket B will matter at all.their goal is to get more 750s to apply, not hurt kids with 770.

They said the difference in bucket A is small as measured by academic outcomes at caltech. They clearly said that the difference for bucket B is larger in terms of academic outcomes.

It’s actually fascinating to me that the ACT organization says a 770 is equivalent to a 35, and CalTech says no, our internal research shows that 770 and 35 belong in different buckets.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD has a 34 ACT math and trying to get it to 35+ to have a tiny chance at Caltech/MIT. Sibling was accepted to Caltech with a 36 ACT math. I wonder how many Bucket B (or C) will be among the 300 or 400 accepted. There are so few admitted to Caltech and thousands with perfect test scores are rejected. I think Caltech cares most about the SAT / ACT math subscore.

What was your DC 1’s profile to gain admission to Caltech? From what kind of HS?

STEM magnet. CS major. Had many ECs that were not STEM but did participate in a selective summer STEM program. Also accepted to MIT and Stanford.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This does not make sense to me. How does 770 equate to a 34? A 770 is the equivalent to a 35 or possibly even a 36.

I imagine the people at CalTech have done the math on this one.

That is an interesting question because CalTech is slightly misaligned relative to the actual concordance tables. I suspect that it is because they detect a bigger difference at a 33.

If they want to keep the buckets balanced they needed to push 770 down to create two 30 point buckets for the SAT side. They stated that the differences are small so I doubt bucket A or bucket B will matter at all.their goal is to get more 750s to apply, not hurt kids with 770.

They said the difference in bucket A is small as measured by academic outcomes at caltech. They clearly said that the difference for bucket B is larger in terms of academic outcomes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This does not make sense to me. How does 770 equate to a 34? A 770 is the equivalent to a 35 or possibly even a 36.

I imagine the people at CalTech have done the math on this one.

That is an interesting question because CalTech is slightly misaligned relative to the actual concordance tables. I suspect that it is because they detect a bigger difference at a 33.

If they want to keep the buckets balanced they needed to push 770 down to create two 30 point buckets for the SAT side. They stated that the differences are small so I doubt bucket A or bucket B will matter at all.their goal is to get more 750s to apply, not hurt kids with 770.

I don't think they ever mentioned relying on concordance tables, and whatever the test company's concordance tables say, there isn't one single objective way to equate two tests that very different. What matters to Caltech is seeing how specific SAT and ACT scores relate to outcomes _at Caltech_. They can use their own data reach their own conclusions.

And if a different schools used their own internal data to link SAT and ACT scores to grade outcomes, they might find something different. I could imagine different schools defining very different buckets. I doubt a humanities-oriented school would find the same correlations.

Anonymous wrote:DD has a 34 ACT math and trying to get it to 35+ to have a tiny chance at Caltech/MIT. Sibling was accepted to Caltech with a 36 ACT math. I wonder how many Bucket B (or C) will be among the 300 or 400 accepted. There are so few admitted to Caltech and thousands with perfect test scores are rejected. I think Caltech cares most about the SAT / ACT math subscore.

What was your DC 1’s profile to gain admission to Caltech? From what kind of HS?

DD has a 34 ACT math and trying to get it to 35+ to have a tiny chance at Caltech/MIT. Sibling was accepted to Caltech with a 36 ACT math. I wonder how many Bucket B (or C) will be among the 300 or 400 accepted. There are so few admitted to Caltech and thousands with perfect test scores are rejected. I think Caltech cares most about the SAT / ACT math subscore.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a great system. More colleges should adopt this system

I think a lot of schools do. But more schools should be this transparent about it.

I don’t think so. Most schools are nothing at all like Caltech.

Anonymous wrote:I wonder why they are worried about kids self selecting out. It’s a small school that it seems to have a very distinct academic culture that appeals strongly to the right students. Are they anticipating issues with getting sufficient apps? They only enroll ~250 a class.

Theh mentioned students admitted TO who believed they would have no chance with TR because they didn't have perfect SAT scores

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Anonymous wrote:two thoughts

35 is a lot easier to get than 780, esp for verbal side.

- This busts the myth that everything above a 1500 or 1520 is the same. "A hurdle to pass". Nope they think 780 is higher than 750.

lol They also said a perfect score is a dime a dozen.

Where do they say some a dozen?

Perfect scores are more common than they used to be but there are less than 1000 of them every year. There used to be like 7 of them. You'd make the news in the 1980s of you got a perfect score.

By "they" I don't mean Caltech. I meant DCUM moms ...

CalTech and MIT are the only schools looking to fill 75% of the class from that 1580+ bucket, though. HYPS fill 25% of the class from that bucket, 50% from the 1500-1570 bucket, and 25% from the sub-1500 bucket. So DCUM moms are correct that 1500 or 1520 is the threshold for an unhooked kid to bother applying.

Where are you getting that MIT targets to have 75% of the class as 1580 and over?

My child was told by a recruiter that only 25% of MIT are above 1570.

Or do you just mean MIT is "looking to fill" as in it aspires to have 75% in the 1580 bucket, but the reality is that MIT constantly falls far, far short of this "looking to fill" ideal? If that's what you are saying, I think that's an important distinction of MIT's goals for building a class vs. the reality of MIT admission.

No, I think you’re right and MIT, like HYPS, is only shooting for 25% from that 1580 bucket.

My DD has 1580, 3.9 from a no-grade-inflation school, good ECs but none of the math, science competitions. Should she apply to Caltech or no chance?

What do you mean by "good ECs"? But generally I would say go for it.