Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would suggest the dreaded drop off occurs around when the 75th percentile ACT score falls below 34. A 34 represents the median student at top LACs like Williams.

So the top schools tend to be 33-35, then next layer 31-34, and then the descent into mediocrity begins.

My 28 ACT kids goes to Georgetown. He’s briliant with an 135 IQ. Get lost. There’s a reason the best of schools are all going to drop testing.

LOL, my IQ is higher than 135 and I'm definitely not brilliant. But more important, Georgetown reaffirmed its commitment to testing -- it's not going anywhere.

(Unless you're saying Georgetown isn't among the best of schools. In which case, what's your point?)

Yeah, no kidding.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine had those stats and 1580 SAT and did not get into Williams or Bowdoin.

Look at Middlebury, Hamilton, Carleton, Bates.

This is crazy. I went to Williams a decade ago. What stats do you need to have to get in now? How can a 1580, a 4.0 GPA and 9 AP's (so maybe 1 sophomore, 4 junior, 4 senior - very rigorous) be the entry point? I was "well rounded" (athlete + really interesting national and international ECs) but my stats were lower than your kid's stats.

Well, that was a decade ago. College admissions is unrecognizable from 5 years ago, much less 10 years ago. 30 years ago, I went to a top 20 school with a 1300 SAT from top private and only 3 EC activities. Today I wouldn’t even be able to get into my state school. Life changes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine had those stats and 1580 SAT and did not get into Williams or Bowdoin.

Look at Middlebury, Hamilton, Carleton, Bates.

This is crazy. I went to Williams a decade ago. What stats do you need to have to get in now? How can a 1580, a 4.0 GPA and 9 AP's (so maybe 1 sophomore, 4 junior, 4 senior - very rigorous) be the entry point? I was "well rounded" (athlete + really interesting national and international ECs) but my stats were lower than your kid's stats.

I think the point is, they get high stat apps in spades so they have the luxury of rejecting many or even most of them. The other schools don’t have quite the same luxury so as you go down the list, especially ED, a high stats kid has a much higher chance of acceptance.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would suggest the dreaded drop off occurs around when the 75th percentile ACT score falls below 34. A 34 represents the median student at top LACs like Williams.

So the top schools tend to be 33-35, then next layer 31-34, and then the descent into mediocrity begins.

My 28 ACT kids goes to Georgetown. He’s briliant with an 135 IQ. Get lost. There’s a reason the best of schools are all going to drop testing.

LOL, my IQ is higher than 135 and I'm definitely not brilliant. But more important, Georgetown reaffirmed its commitment to testing -- it's not going anywhere.

(Unless you're saying Georgetown isn't among the best of schools. In which case, what's your point?)

Anonymous wrote:Look at Davidson, Wesleyan and the Claremont Colleges

Claremont Mckenna and Pomona just as difficult as Williams and Amherst. Davidson and Wesleyan a bit easier.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would suggest the dreaded drop off occurs around when the 75th percentile ACT score falls below 34. A 34 represents the median student at top LACs like Williams.

So the top schools tend to be 33-35, then next layer 31-34, and then the descent into mediocrity begins.

My 28 ACT kids goes to Georgetown. He’s briliant with an 135 IQ. Get lost. There’s a reason the best of schools are all going to drop testing.

135 is brilliant? Why is IQ test any better than ACT?

I get that standardized tests aren't perfect but applied over a whole student body, I think it's an indication of academic ability. It's not a coincidence that the highest ranked schools have sky high average test scores. What I noticed with the LACs is that the top 10 or so are sky high, and then it falls slightly for the next 20, and then it starts to fall more substantially with low percentages of students (often well under half) reporting scores. In the absence of any other metric, this is all we have to rely on in terms of understanding why students at Trinity are not quite the same as Middlebury, no matter what Trinity's website claims.

This was all in response to an observation someone else made that the student body ceases to be impressive with lower ranked LACs. I was attempting to put some parameters around that.

Anonymous wrote:When posters talk about an ACT score of 33 or 34, would a superscore count?

Yes

Look at Davidson, Wesleyan and the Claremont Colleges

Anonymous wrote:I would suggest the dreaded drop off occurs around when the 75th percentile ACT score falls below 34. A 34 represents the median student at top LACs like Williams.

So the top schools tend to be 33-35, then next layer 31-34, and then the descent into mediocrity begins.

My 28 ACT kids goes to Georgetown. He’s briliant with an 135 IQ. Get lost. There’s a reason the best of schools are all going to drop testing.

Anonymous wrote:Mine had those stats and 1580 SAT and did not get into Williams or Bowdoin.

Look at Middlebury, Hamilton, Carleton, Bates.

This is crazy. I went to Williams a decade ago. What stats do you need to have to get in now? How can a 1580, a 4.0 GPA and 9 AP's (so maybe 1 sophomore, 4 junior, 4 senior - very rigorous) be the entry point? I was "well rounded" (athlete + really interesting national and international ECs) but my stats were lower than your kid's stats.