[bboylen]

People parrot this point a lot but it doesn't make any sense. The average SAT/ACT at the Ivy's are near perfect, the number of mediocre rich kids paying their way in is a small fraction of the student body.

And yes test scores aren't the best metric for "talent" but it is one of the better signals you get in a college application.

[mildconcern]

Yeah, but the money paid by that small fraction of the student body is colossal.

They're not numerous enough to change any GPA/SAT averages, but they likely pay many times more in tuition & donations than the rest of their class put together. That's why they're the main focus of these places, even if their numbers are small.

[HDThoreaun]

All the schools lie about their average test scores to boost their rankings(source, president of northwestern when I took his econ class). We have no idea what the ivies averages are.