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Ok ppl here is some math at www.ACt.org somewhere inside the website they say that 1 in 8300 ppl who take the test get 36 ( total number 1.1 million ). That makes the total number of ppl getting 36 in the ACT is around 200 . Now if according to some websites if harvard rejects " hundreds of applicants with perfect scores " then how come 25 % of students have ACT scores of around 35 an estimated 200 students submit their scores so 50 students have near perfect scores not bad sonsidering not most of them actually do apply to harvard .

and now for the SAT lets say 2 million ppl take the sat my friend got around 1520 and got a 99 percentile so to be safe lets assume 1000 ppl get perfect scores . of these i read in a book around half of em apply yo harvard . the 75 th percentile for harvard is 1580 ( collegeboard.com ) it accepts 1500 students a year . out of which 25 % have a perfect score so potentailly Harvard accepts 80 % of ppl with perfect scores ( Not bad since the same ppl might no have gr8 SAT 2's ) who says no one places any emphasis on SAT's ?

By Serene (Serene) on Friday, June 06, 2003 - 07:16 pm: Edit

But SAT doesn't stand on its own. You realize those who get 1600s are probably very good students who are outstanding in other areas at the same time.

By Sunshine916 (Sunshine916) on Friday, June 06, 2003 - 08:45 pm: Edit

harvard admissions officer told me they rejected 70% of people with perfect SAT's this year, and 80% of class valedictorians. most prestigious colleges reject at least 50% for show and bragging rights. while your logic is okay, your stats are incorrect for some odd reason. colleges LIKE to reject these perfect kids...

By Drusba (Drusba) on Friday, June 06, 2003 - 11:03 pm: Edit

Actually, the figures are:

For those testing in 2002:

1. For the ACT, 134 scored 36. That is out of about 1.1 million.

2. On the SAT, 1096 scored 1600, out of about 1.3 million.

3. But for college admission purposes, over 3000 scored 1600 on the SAT; reason for number difference: most of those never actually scored 1600 on one test, they simply scored 800 verbal on one test and then 800 math on a separate test. For the ACT, colleges generally will not mix scores and thus only the 134 would count from that group for perfect score. Because multiple SAT tests are used for college admissions, it becomes easier to see how a place like Harvard can get 800 or more of perfect scores to apply so it can reject a high percentage.

By Chasgoose (Chasgoose) on Saturday, June 07, 2003 - 03:17 am: Edit

Colleges do not intentionally reject kids with a 1600 just so they can advertise "Oooh we are so hard to get into, we rejected half of the applicants with perfect scores!" (that is my less eloquent summary of what a Yale admissions officer said at one infor mation meeting) They reject those applicants because something else in their application was bad. And even if they intentionally reject 50% of the 1600 applicants that still means that 50% get in. I like those odds a lot better than the 13% admissions rate for all applicants.

By R3bell (R3bell) on Saturday, June 07, 2003 - 04:06 pm: Edit

thanks ppl i have another question what about other LAC top tens do they also like rejecting ppl with perfect scores . I mean places like swartmore .