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I was reading and sorting for filing some of the college mail my daughter has received and there was one really good, if depressing, piece from Georgetown on the profile of their 2002 class.

For students ranked #1 in their class, only 60 percent were accepted; #2, 43 percent; #3, 38 percent; top 5 percent, 27 percent; second 5 percent, 13 percent.

Focusing just on the Liberal Arts college (as opposed to Science/Pre-Med, Languages & Linguistics, Nursing & Health Studies, Foreign Service, or Business), of the 102 students who had an 800 SAT I Verbal AND were in the top 5 percent of their class, only 55 were admitted.

For an 800 SAT I Math AND top 5 percent, 33 out of 50 were admitted. Percentage admitted drops with both class rank and SAT scores.

All this underscores the futility of looking at someone's GPA/scores and saying "you're in."
As the accompanying text in this six-page profile says: "The admissions committees have focused on three major areas in selecting the entering class--academic ability and achievement, extracurricular achievements and personal strengths, and the mixture of the student population. [nifty use of commas...I count five areas. t.d.]

Of the 1,490 students enrolling in the freshman class, the following EC's were reprented by the # of students noted:

Band/Orchestra 128
Class/Student Government President 97
Community Volunteer Work 743
Debate/Forensics 128
Dramatic/Performing Arts 118
Editor--Paper/Yearbook/Literary Magazine 98
International Exchange Program 80
Model United Nations 87
Religous Youth Group 162
Athletics (various) 686

Grist for the mill.

By your local mayor on Tuesday, February 04, 2003 - 11:00 am: Edit

i don't want to go to Georgetown.

By Thedad (Thedad) on Tuesday, February 04, 2003 - 11:08 am: Edit

I don't think Georgetown is any sort of anomaly.
This statistical profile is probably valid for
all the top schools. It certainly matches the
anecdotes. It's just the first time I've seen
it spelled out in such detail, six pages of charts
and text.

By Thedad (Thedad) on Tuesday, February 04, 2003 - 11:14 am: Edit

Three-year-old data, Georgetown's acceptance rate was nestled between Dartmouth and Penn.