Like every other part of society, 2020 had a huge impact on college admissions. In 2019 there were 1,804 schools that required SAT scores to be considered for admission. By 2021, the number had dropped to 185. For the most part, schools still considered SATs if they were submitted (“test optional”), but 657 schools don’t even accept test scores (“test blind”) as a part of the application process. While these changes caused a lot of confusion for high school students and their parents, it’s less clear anything changed in terms of acceptance rates.
The Department of Education releases data, including acceptance rates, about thousands of schools each year. With the exception of test-blind and non-selective schools, the data includes median SAT scores from incoming freshmen. Unsurprisingly, the top schools sorted by test scores are some of the most selective and highly regarded schools in the nation.
| school | acceptance_rate | sat |
|---|---|---|
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | 4.0 | 1560 |
| Harvard University | 3.2 | 1550 |
| Stanford University | 3.7 | 1550 |
| Princeton University | 5.7 | 1550 |
| Duke University | 6.3 | 1550 |
| Dartmouth College | 6.4 | 1550 |
| Johns Hopkins University | 7.5 | 1550 |
| Yale University | 4.6 | 1540 |
| Brown University | 5.1 | 1540 |
| University of Chicago | 5.4 | 1540 |
Reported SAT scores come from enrolled students.1 That means this data reflects the academic standards (as expressed by test scores) of the admissions process and are less easily manipulated than admission rates.
Even so, a graph of all schools that reported median SAT scores in the 2022-2023 school year, shows a strong correlation with acceptance rate.
Figure 1: Median SAT scores for freshman and admission rate for schools reporting this data in 2022–3
I’ve labeled MIT, which is at the top of the list, University of Wisconsin, which accepts almost exactly half of the students who apply and George Mason University, which has an acceptance rate of 90%. The bulk of the sample accepts most applicants. I’ve also labeled a handful of schools that fall under the blue line, which represents a simple linear regression. These are schools have much lower median SAT than would be expected from their acceptance rate.
College applications include a huge amount of data about students:
- GPA and class rank
- Academic transcripts
- Personal essays
- Extra-curricular activities
- Letters of recommendation
- Test scores (for schools that consider them)
One way admissions offices could use that data would be to consider each applicant individually and evaluate all the data in their file. But it seems likely most admissions are based on a combination of test scores and GPA with other factors only coming into play around the edges. This would greatly simplify the process for students above the academic threshold and leave more time for staff to evaluate students below the cutoff.
According to the CollegeBoard 1050 is average SAT score and the top decile starts at 1350. They also provide percentiles for each SAT score. The median score at MIT is 1560, which is 99th percentile for all students who took the test. Less selective schools would have lower score thresholds in order to admit enough students to meet enrollment targets. Since SAT scores are designed to fit a normal distribution, scores near the extremes represent a smaller portion of the population than average scores.
Indeed the cumulative distribution of 25% SAT scores from schools comes close to matching the cumulative distribution for all students who took the test. Scores from students who actually enrolled skew higher since people who scored lower than average are more likely to either not attend college or enroll in a non-selective school that does not report SAT scores.