Median ACT Score for USNS?

[time2]

^^^ I agree. Many of those applying to service academies are in the TOP of their class in things such as academics, leadership AND athletics. None of them are striving to be average or just 'good enough' to get an appointment. Quibbling about how to analyze means or medians or whatever the denominator should be are really a waste of time for those now applying.

ACT/SAT scores are only 1 part of 1Q (Scholastic) needed to be in the running for an appointment. Current applicants would be better served focusing their efforts elsewhere.

 

[Whistle Pig]

None will dispute. Do your best. Always.

But the issue is getting mired, it seems. The real issue, and 1964 and some others allude to this, is that even if one KNEW the median ACT score, and even if one scored above that median being led to believe "gee, I'm in the top half of ACT scorers from the previous class inductees" that would NOT necessarily be true. In fact the deluded applicant might be in the bottom half of that comparison, depending upon one's recruitment status. It would be completely safe to assume top half IF one is recognized among the priority recruitment group, but beyond that it would be far less instructive.

btw,to clarify, it has also been incorrectly suggested, using median score information, that having a "lower" score is now balanced by an equivalent "higher" score. That is an incorrect assumption (more a function of "mean"). Knowing median score does not reveal distribution of scores. It merely indicates that half of the scores were above this point, half below. Nothing about the average or the distribution.

 

[AikiBudo]

btw,to clarify, it has also been incorrectly suggested, using median score information, that having a "lower" score is now balanced by an equivalent "higher" score. That is an incorrect assumption (more a function of "mean"). Knowing median score does not reveal distribution of scores. It merely indicates that half of the scores were above this point, half below. Nothing about the average or the distribution.

That would be true if we were given just the median score - we are not. We are given a rough distribution of scores - the scores shown are broken into quartiles and most schools (including USNA) show the middle two quartiles. So we While we don't know the lowest admitted score nor the highest (we can assume it is 800) we do know where the middle 50% of admitted candidates fall. In my previous post I was attempting to make the point that even if you assumed that all the recruited athletes and URM's SAT scores were in the approximately 300 scores that make up the bottom quartile (and of course that is not the case) and that all 'off-setters" or candidates with really high scores would be in the top quartile you would still be left with the middle 50%. The idea of using this middle distribution as the norm for school profiles is that it takes away the tails of the distribution curve and all the "outliers" so that you get an idea of where the "typical" candidate falls. We could argue the significance of these stats all day - again I think the take away for candidates is shoot for the top quartile and let the rest of your competition focus on whether their low to mid-range scores are good enough.