SAT score - Prospective freshman

1100 and into Wharton? This happened how?

applied early. bad test-taker. Great extracurricular activities and high school rank. But worried that SAT scores will matter in job process.

What happens if you never took the SAT because your state/university did not require it? And yes, this is a top 30 business school which you have all heard of, Im sure.

Did you take the ACT or nothing? The ACT can substitute but you have to explain it to them because no one knows what it is outside of the midwest.

Honestly, if you got into Wharton with a 1100, whatever you are doing must be amazing. You might as well just stick with the 1100 and focus on your GMAT, GPA, and extracurriculars.

there is no chance in hell that anyone goes to wharton with an 1100 unless his dad donated $20 million

i know 2 people at Wharton with less than 1200's - i know this because i worked with my high school college counselor and had access to their official college board scorecards. Both, however, were predicted to score 40+ on their IB exams. Still, they weren't really Penn material so I don't know how it happened.

IS this 1100 out of the old 1600 scale or the 2400 scale? Either one is still pretty bad, I mean, college football players can do better than that...

if I took ACT, should I list it as ACT: 34/36 or ACT: 34/36 (Eng: 34/36, Read: 30/36, Math: 36/36, Sci: 36/36) or ACT: 34/36 (SAT equivalent 1510)?

there are definitely some fucking morons at Wharton. I know (knew) a guy who had a 0.4 his senior year before Penn finally told him to get the fuck out... that kind of GPA is ridiculous to me as even in Wharton you would have to try to get any lower than a C

A .4 G.P.A. isn't at all a reflection of intellectual horsepower so much as it is of one's motivation; all that means was the kid probably contracted an acute case of senioritis and never went to class.

It's intriguing how some view G.P.A. as the ultimate rubric for pure intelligence, when in many cases it's simply a matter of who has the proclivity to study more, not of intellectual facility. My freshman year, I was determined to achieve nothing short of a 4.0 both semesters and I did. Needless to say, I worked extremely hard and my social certainly wasn't on par with many of my peers.

My sophomore year, I decided that I wanted to get a taste of that "college experience" which can be so elusive on the campuses of our "target schools". That year, I got a 3.5 both semesters. So does that mean I became so markedly "dumber" during sophomore year or my intellectual facility was somehow enervated over those three months of summer break? I would be inclined to doubt it. My point here is that our G.P.A. and our test scores, be it SAT, ACT, GMAT, LSAT or what have you, are all too often but a simplistic function of the work and time we invest in them. Why else would so many of our classmates undertake those months long,rigorous graduate school test (GMAT, MCAT, LSAT, GRE, etc.) classes if these tests weren't a fuction of time and work invested?

So does the fact that Jon Bon Jovi got an 870 on his S.A.T. mean he's braindead? Maybe, but I think we'd all agree it's much more likely that his focus was elsewhere and he simply didn't care or prepare like we did. The same rings true for the senior with a .4 G.P.A. Is he a "moron" for achieving such paltry grades? Maybe if he went to class and studied just as hard as everyone else. However, something seems to tell me this wasn't the case. Testing and even moreso, academic achievment, is often just a function of the amount of time and effort we invest in them.

List just score and maybe scale. Don't give break down, unless you want to break out the math score. SAT equiv is kinda shady, so I wouldn't do it...

That's precisely my point. The senior's G.P.A. is a reflection of his motivation (vis a vis his schoolwork), not necessarily of mental horsepower. Just because the senior doesn't study or go to class, that doesn't mean that we can jump to conclusion that he's a "moron", because his G.P.A. is the product of time and work invested, not pure intellectual capacity.

I knew a kid in high school who took the SAT with no prep, received a dismal score in the 1000's, and busted his balls studying and taking a prep class for the next time it was offered, only to see it improve by over 300. Now he either miraculously got a LOT "smarter" in that three month period or his score was more a reflection of the work he put in. Which do you think is more plausible? That's not to say there's not an intrinsic "natural" component to scores or G.P.A.; you certainly have to possess the "raw materials" to excel in both endeavors. However, there is also a significant work/time component which I've expounded at play, which is why we can't instantly assume the kid with a .4 G.P.A. is a "moron".

As to debating whether there is some hard and fast rule or cut-off line to readily determine banking ability, that's a fool's errand. I'm sure there are people with high GPA's and low GPA's, high test scores and low test scores, who have overwhelmingly succeeded and miserably failed at banking. There's simply too many factors at play to make those kind of sweeping generalizations.

i can sum up your entire post as "nothing is 100% correlated with intelligence or banking ability"

your's is an obvious point, but I would imagine the screening processes IBs use are fairly well correlated with what they want in an employee. Companies are more concerned with not hiring bad people than missing out on possibly brilliant people, so it's easy to screen out low GPA and low SAT candidates and not even worry about it.

I agree, there is no 100% correlation with a high GPA and SAT to success in banking... but my guess is it is probably closer to 90% (which still isn't bad).

Someone once told me that for students applying to jobs from non-core schools, the SAT/SAT2/ACT could be used by recruiters to identify the student as an individual from "the top of the heap" at that university. In other words, it could be used as a proxy for the "options" that student may have had in the college selection process. For example, a student with a 1600 at UC Irvine is quite likely there for a very specific reason.

Does this sound familiar to anyone?

I'm from a non-target, and I was asked my SAT score by at least one person at every BB I interviewed with. A couple of firms even asked me for my SATs before first rounds, so I would say your assumption is correct nph.

Why not retake it? It doesn't affect anything whatsoever, and if you do better then you won't feel bad about saying it. I don't see the big deal. You don't even have to study for it- I highly doubt you will do worse.

I'm guessing you guys don't think this person should spend the summmer studying for the SATs and retaking them.

1100 in Wharton? This year, only 471 students were accepted to the Class of 2011; that's an acceptance rate of about 8-9% overall. The original poster said "hypothetically", which probably means that this situation isn't real.

I hope no one will ask for my SAT scores. Mine is not so good.

Actually, this year, the Penn overall acceptance rate was around 11%. Wharton's should be lower. And 471 were accepted; they're not sure about the number that will matriculate.