5 ms·
Meh. Article headline depends on your definition of “elite”. Admissions to the top 5 schools are broken. There’s more qualified students than there are slots.
by forrestthewoods 6y ago
Meh. Article headline depends on your definition of “elite”.
Admissions to the top 5 schools are broken. There’s more qualified students than there are slots. The only solution to that is more slots.
If you get a 1500 on your SAT that’s a free ride to almost any university in the country. Especially if you come from an under-represented background. This includes Ivy League schools. But not Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT.
The best ticket to a top 25 world class education is a high SAT score. It’s a free ticket available to anyone.
I have many complaints about our university. But even a mediocre test score gets you a free ride to very very good state schools. Articles like this only reinforce the false necessity of Top 5 or Top 10 status.
- sthnblllII 6y agoIf the students at these schools aren't any better than those at dozens of others high ranking schools, why are so many executives, judges and politicians graduates from these few school?
- watwut 6y agoNetwork effect and credentials. It does not matter who is objectively better if quality is similar. It matters what people assume when confronted with uncertainity.
- pmoriarty 6y agoDifferent strokes for different folks, but if a school has a a lot of executives, judges and politicians graduate from them, that's a reason for me to avoid that school like the plague.
- LukeShu 6y ago> If you get a 1500 on your SAT A bit OT, but: I was going to say that the 1600 point scale hasn't been used for years (since 2005, when they switched to a 2400 point scale), but it turns out that they went back to the 1600 point scale in 2016.
- ec109685 6y agoAh, I was wondering that too. I went and looked up the book this was excerpted from and was surprised they were referencing the 1600 point scale.
- akhilcacharya 6y agoI got a 1500/1600 on my SAT and I paid full price at my state school, a T50 at best. It's not considered at good SAT score.
- forrestthewoods 6y ago1500 is top 2%. Plenty to get you into a very very good school. And get you plenty of scholarship money. Especially if you come from a disadvantaged background. A perfect 1600 won’t get you into top 10 schools on its own. Thus my original comment about there being more qualified candidates than openings.
- akhilcacharya 6y ago> Plenty to get you into a very very good school. And get you plenty of scholarship money. I mean, I didn't. I get what you're saying but the idea that you can just "work hard" to get into these sorts of institutions feels kind of insulting when there are lots of people like me that did work hard but didn't get in.
- forrestthewoods 6y agoI don’t know your situation. Even a perfect 1600 isn’t enough by itself to get you into top 5 schools. https://blog.prepscholar.com/sat-scores-for-colleges https://blog.prepscholar.com/sat-scores-for-colleges The highest average SAT score at the top schools is right around 1500. I’m not saying a 1500 will get you into Harvard. It won’t. But it will get you into a very good school. University of Washington is a great school. It’s average SAT score is just 1340. 75th percentile is 1460. 1500 is literally top 2% of score distribution. For most circumstances that should get most people into a top 5% school. (Top 5%, not Top 5).
- mav3rick 6y agoYou didn't work hard enough then.
- xxpor 6y agoHa, I wish a 1500 got me a free ride. My grades were complete garbage though, so that may have had something to do with it.
- applecrazy 6y agoSophomore in college here. A 3.81 GPA and a SAT score of 1540 were enough to get me a full ride at a decent school in the UT System (not Austin, though).
- confidantlake 6y agoI got higher than a 1500. I guess I should have applied to an Ivy. But it was too expensive so I didn't. I certainly didn't get a free ride to the state school I went to.