Word: ais
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...matter how good an athlete is, admissions officers will only compromise so much. The Ivy League uses a number called the Academic Index (AI), which Bowen says he invented, to measure applicants’ classroom qualifications. The index is the sum of three components: the average of students’ highest SAT I math and verbal scores divided by ten; the average of their three highest SAT II achievement test scores divided by ten; and their class rank converted to a 20-to-80 scale. A student who answered every question wrong on every SAT he took and placed last...
According to McGrath Lewis, the median AI for all students Harvard accepts is 220, and the lowest it will take is around 185. “And you’d have to feel that 190 underrepresents their ability, preparation and potential,” she says. “If a kid looks like he can think with a pen, a 580 [SAT score] might underestimate him. If his dad is a house painter, he probably scores lower. If he’s a great football player with modest scores but good recommendations and grades...
...admit office is that they are not suited to be in our class.” Even high-scoring recruits frequently get held up for the same reasons that non-athletes with perfect SAT scores find the reject pile. “Some coaches say I did an AI calculation on this [rejected] student and get frustrated,” McGrath Lewis says...
...next hurdle to surmount after AI consideration is what Harvard calls the “broken leg test.” It means exactly what it sounds like—how would a recruit take advantage of Harvard’s other opportunities if she were to break her leg. “Will this person be good in a seminar, with a professor, in a dining hall?” asks Fitzsimmons. “Will this person grow? We don’t sign people to contracts to play field hockey.” To find...
...When kids are looking at Harvard and other Ivies, it’s different in what some of the Ivy schools are able to do for the kids in admissions that Harvard can’t do,” says baseball coach Walsh. The Ivy League uses the AI to keep wayward admissions officials in line. The first rule is the floor—raised from 169 to 171 this summer. If an applicant’s AI score is below 171 (equivalent to an 1140 SAT I, an average SAT II score just over 570 and grades...