National Liberal Arts Colleges
- Pomona
- Harvey Mudd
- Haverford
- Amherst
- Hamilton
- Swarthmore
- Williams
- Barnard
- Bowdoin
- Washington & Lee
- Wellesley
- Colorado College
- Smith
- Vassar
- Carleton
- Colby
- Colgate
- Davidson
- Claremont McKenna
- Grinnell
- Middlebury
- Wesleyan
National Universities
- Caltech
- UChicago
- Johns Hopkins
- MIT
- Columbia
- Duke
- Harvard
- UPenn
- Rice
- Stanford
- Yale
- Dartmouth
- Northwestern
- Princeton
- Vanderbilt
- Brown
- Carnegie Mellon
- Notre Dame
- Georgetown
- Georgia Tech
- UC–Berkeley
- WashU
How is this “selectivity rank” determined?
Seems the Chicago marketing blitzes have the desired effect.
More meaningless rankings to warm the cockles of the hearts of the prestige-obsessed.
@ucbalumnus: The rankings appear to be based on USN’s Student Excellence category:
If it is as listed at https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/ranking-criteria-and-weights , then the student selectivity is 7% of the overall USNWR ranking, and it is made up of 5% SAT/ACT scores and 2% percentage of students with top 10% class rank in high school.
Considered alone, that means 71% SAT/ACT scores and 29% percentage of students with top 10% rank in high school.
@MWolf: The rankings were posted in the admissions forum for their potential utility. As one example, a student seeking a school similar to Vassar (#12), but with less competitive admissions, can look into Skidmore (#59, not previously listed). Alternatively, students seeking more rigor might find that with these rankings as well, particularly when comparing across colleges of a similar type.
However, basing the rating mostly on SAT/ACT scores with some effect from percentage of student with top 10% high school rank does not capture all of the possible ways college admissions may be more or less selective.
Also, rigor does not necessarily match up to admission selectivity or limited proxies of such like SAT/ACT scores.
Many schools have stopped class ranking, so this “selectivity ranking” isn’t taking into account the academic strength of the class as a whole—just that of a select portion.
Basing a selectivity measure mostly on SAT/ACT scores with some effect from high school class rank is likely mainly due to convenience, even though it lacks much of what goes into selectivity (does anyone believe that the most selective colleges admit mainly by SAT/ACT scores with some input from high school class rank)?
Most other things that actually go into selectivity are either inconsistently measured and reported (e.g. high school GPA), are subjectively graded with no externally visible measure at all (e.g. extracurriculars, essays, recommendations), or are things that are not usually seen as being part of students’ personal merit (e.g. legacy).
However, these numerical characteristics may offer a strong indication of less evident academic attributes when considered across a student body.
The rankings don’t seem to follow this weighting well. For example Caltech and Chicago are tied for #1 among national universities. Both colleges have 99% in top 10% among the few students who report rank, and Caltech has notably higher test scores than Chicago – 35/36 at Caltech and 33/35 at Chicago. Caltech appears to clearly do better in the listed weighting, yet the 2 colleges are tied.
The ranking is meaningless without knowing how it is computed. I didn’t see a selectivity rank listed on the USWR website. Is this something in the College Compass section, which requires a subscription to view?
USN provides the rankings in its print edition. As with the few other category rankings included (graduation and retention rank, social mobility rank, faculty resources rank, and financial resources rank), they appear adjacent to their relevant data without (apparent) additional explanation.
Nonetheless, those weightings seem to be the closest that can be inferred from available information. In the examples of UChicago and Caltech, they differ by only 10 SAT points as listed by USN, with the same percentage of students originating from the top 10% of their HS classes. Inclusion of the ACT as a secondary standardized scoring factor may not have sufficiently moved the result to break a liberal interpretation of a tie.
Other sources list more than 10 point difference, but It’s not just Chicago and Caltech. Exceptions appear throughout the ranking list. For example, the top 2 among LACs are #1 = Pomona and #2 = Harvey Mudd. These are not tied like Chicago/Caltech. Pomona ranks higher. As summarized below, Harvey Mudd does better in both class rank and all test scores (especially math), yet it is ranked lower than Pomona. It looks like the ranking is based on something else besides these factors. If the print source does not specify how they are computing the ranking, it gives the rankings little meaning.
1 = Pomona -- 93% in top 10%, 700/790 Math, 690/750 EBRW, 32/35 ACT
2 = Harvey Mudd -- 96% in top 10%, 780/800 Math, 710/770 EBRW, 33/35 ACT
@Data10: Note that the print edition registers a top 10% figure for Harvey Mudd of 87% (with Pomona at 93%), which has been footnoted in HMC’s case as “Data reported to U.S. News in previous years” (without further explanation). Therefore, Mudd’s placement in relation to Pomona may meet consistency standards.
Potential flaws aside, isn’t anyone curious to see what the rankings reveal, particularly with respect to colleges that over-perform or under-perform? For example, by its overall rank (#22), Barnard blends a bit with some (comparatively) less selective colleges. However, by its selectivity rank it appears as a top-10 school, and may offer an academic atmosphere more consistent with its selectivity rank than with its overall rank.
Nope, not curious at all. Sorry, not sorry.
I truly don’t want to give any credence, or lend any intellect or curiousity that could be seen as supporting college rankings in any way.
@MWolf re: Post #4 above: You wrote “prestige-obsessed”.
Did you mean “job-obsessed” ?
Also, you wrote “meaningless”.
Did you mean “meaningful” ?
Since this selectivity measure is probably highly SAT/ACT weighted, all it may be saying is that the colleges that move up have a heavier emphasis on SAT/ACT scores or a higher minimum to be considered possible for admission than others.
The assumption that higher SAT/ACT scores necessarily means a more rigorous or academic environment is an assumption by the test-score-supremacy idea on these forums; a few anecdotes like Caltech and Harvey Mudd are not enough to apply that assumption generally.