1400 AIN’T WHAT IT USED TO BE
Kevin Drum links an LA Times story showing that a remarkably high percentage of those getting over 1400 on their SAT’s were getting rejected by the two top schools in the UC system, Berkeley and UCLA. What’s more surprising, to me anyway, is that this was reasonably consistent across racial lines, with 49% of whites, 44% of Asians and African Americans, and 41% of Latinos with 1400 or better being rejected. Indeed, I’m truly amazed that any black or Latino applicants with that high a score were rejected, given the desire to diversify the campus.
Bear in mind that 1400 is, quite literally, not what it used to be. The scores were recentered in 1995, so old scores aren’t really comparable (there’s a conversion chart). For example, my 1520 (760V, 760M) earned in 1993 is the equivalent of a 1570 (800V, 770M) today.
1400 would be the equivalent of about 1350 on the old scale (assuming equal math and verbal scores). It’s still a pretty high score, though; the qualifying score for Mensa was 1300 on the old scale.
Here’s the table in its gory detail.
Chris,
True. I was aware of the recentering but didn’t turn up the score to percentile conversion chart with a quick Google search.
I also love their explanation of how a percentile is still a percentile! Well, no kidding.
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