<p>Hawkette, I'm going to leave you alone now.</p>
<p>You write your posts in a definitive way and I can't tell if you do this to be provocative and stir discussion or if you really believe in the way you rank schools.</p>
<p>I'll just add that I really like schools with strong school spirit and sports teams. Schools where the average attendance for a football game is around 100,000 is a strong plus for me, but I understand if others don't see it that way. :)</p>
<p>And Hershey owns Shwarffen Berger and Godiva Chocolate is made by Campbell's Soup so I would use another analogy the next time chocolate and schools are used as a comparison. ;)</p>
<p>"No offense, cherokee, but this kind of observation always cracks me up. 1480/1485 vs. 1440 = "falling behind so much?"</p>
<p>Most analysts agree that there is no meaningful difference between a student with a 1440 and one with a 1480.</p>
<p>Stanford rejects ~half of the applicants with perfect 1600 scores. If they wanted to bump that average SAT #, they could do so easily. So could several of the schools this high in the rankings."</p>
<p>Actually that's precisely why it's so interesting. Given that the schools used to be the same and all were capable of raising their score, why has Stanford chosen not to, and what criteria have they replaced it with?</p>
<p>The elite private universities HAVE NOT gained much ground on the Ivies. By elite private universities, I am referring to:
Duke
Emory
Georgetown
Johns Hopkins
Northwestern
Notre Dame
Rice
Stanford
Tufts
U Chicago
USC
Vanderbilt
Wake Forest
Wash U</p>
<p>Publics:
U Michigan
U North Carolina
U Virginia
Coll Wm and Mary
U Illinois Urbana Champaign
U Texas Austin
U Wisconsin Madison
UNC Chapel Hill</p>
<p>Techs:
MIT
Caltech
CMU</p>
<p>I found a college guidebook from 1968-69, which would have 1968 data. The first thing that struck me was that the average SAT scores in 1968 were generally a little higher than 1976 and 1988. Perhaps 1968 was a boom year for baby-boomers to go to college. More competition. Maybe too much disco fever in the 1970s. Don't know.</p>
<p>After adjusting for recentered SAT scores, 2007 - 1968:</p>
<p>Ivies increased 48 SAT points starting from a 1968 average = 1341.</p>
<p>Elite privates increased 92 SAT points (due mostly to USC, Washington U, and Notre Dame) starting from a 1968 average = 1251.</p>
<p>Publics increased 42 SAT points starting from a 1968 average = 1165.</p>
<p>Tech schools increased 54 SAT points (due mostly to Carnegie Mellon) starting from a 1968 average = 1348.</p>
<p>When you consider that the Ivies and Techs were starting from a base SAT score that was 90 points closer to the SAT ceiling, I would say that the Ivies improved as much or more than the elite, private, non-Ivies.</p>
<p>We are looking at rates of SAT increase of about 1 or 2 points per year, overall.</p>
<p>collegehelp,
I think that you numbers are consistent with the trends that I have mentioned. I'd love to see your numbers for these colleges in 1968 if you have the energy to post them.</p>
<p>As far as interpretation, I see a near doubling in the improvements by the elite privates relative to the Ivies to be reflective of how the gap is closing/has closed. Nearly all of those schools today are statistically competitive with at least one or more of the Ivies and I don't think that was the case in '68. </p>
<p>As for the publics, their comparative numbers have been held in check by allegiance to their mission of serving their state residents first, not to mention the impact that state funding cuts have had on them. Unless their leadership is more proactive in addressing this slippage, then the state universities are likely to see these trends continue.</p>
<p>collegehelp,
Unless I am reading your information incorrectly, I get different results for the SAT scores currently for elite privates vis-a-vis the Ivies. Here are the Top 30 according to SAT scores:</p>
<p>1 Cal Tech 1520
2 Harvard 1490
3 Yale 1485
4 Princeton 1480
5 MIT 1470
6 Duke 1465
7 Dartmouth 1450
7 Wash U StL 1450
9 Stanford 1440
9 Brown 1440
11 Rice 1435
12 U Chicago 1425
13 U Penn 1420
13 Columbia 1420
15 Northwestern 1410
15 Tufts 1410
17 Carnegie Mellon 1395
18 J Hopkins 1390
18 Georgetown 1390
20 Cornell 1385
21 Vanderbilt 1370
21 USC 1370
23 Brandeis 1360
24 Emory 1350
24 W & M 1350
26 Notre Dame 1345
27 Wake Forest 1340
28 Boston College 1335
29 Case Western 1330
30 UC Berkeley 1325
30 U Rochester 1325
30 U Virginia 1325</p>
<p>and here are the Top 30 by ACT score:</p>
<p>1 Harvard 32.5
2 Princeton 32.0
2 MIT 32.0
2 Rice 32.0
5 Duke 31.5
5 Wash U StL 31.5
5 Notre Dame 31.5
8 U Penn 31.0
8 Dartmouth 31.0
8 Northwestern 31.0
11 Stanford 30.5
11 U Chicago 30.5
11 Columbia 30.5
11 Tufts 30.5
15 Cornell 30.0
15 Brown 30.0
15 J Hopkins 30.0
15 Vanderbilt 30.0
15 Carnegie Mellon 30.0
15 USC 30.0
21 Georgetown 29.5
21 Brandeis 29.5
21 W & M 29.5
24 Emory 29.0
24 U Michigan 29.0
24 NYU 29.0
24 Tulane 29.0
28 U Virginia 28.5
28 U Rochester 28.5
28 Case Western 28.5
28 U Miami FL 28.5</p>
<p>I would also like to reiterate that while most Ivies maintain a statistical advantage over colleges like USC, Tufts and Vanderbilt (but definitely not Wash U which is ahead of all but HYP and tied with Dartmouth), the rate of change over the measurement periods (whether it be 1968-2007 or 1999-2008), clearly shows that the gap has narrowed by a noticeable amount.</p>
<p>^ ^ ^ Hawkette, thanks for this rundown. It shows how peer assessment travels at a glacial pace; it shows also how the rankings in general move at a glacial pace. Am I wrong in thinking that the rankings matter less and less every year because slowly people are realizing that the rankings really don't represent present-day reality?</p>
<p>lolabelle,
If you're cynical about the rankings, you probably reach that conclusion. But if you're part of the historical status quo, you probably don't. And if you read only the NYT, then you may not even be aware that there are quality colleges west of Manhattan. :)</p>
<p>You mentioned the glacial change in Peer Assessment scores. I think you are being too kind. I am assembling some information now that shows that the PA scoring is more like "The Immovable Object." Again, the historical powers must love their oligopoly, but the accuracy and relevancy of Peer Assessments declines with each passing year. Heck, even some in the academic world are publicly protesting this. Rankings ex-PA are hopefully the next step and are undoubtedly a better reflection of the nature of the undergraduate experience that a student will have.</p>
<p>dstark,
It took me a while to dig out the post that you allude to in your dig about Hershey and Godiva. As brands go, I still prefer Godiva to Hershey (and I don't really care who their corporate parent is). I actually think it was a pretty good analogy.</p>
<p>As for your support of colleges with good spirit and average football crowds of around 100,000, then I'm glad to know that you are a fan of the Penn State Nittany Lions. Or did you mean the Tennessee Volunteers. Or was it the Ohio State Buckeyes…or did you mean some other college? :)</p>
<p>Hawkette: I'd love to see that rundown of PA and how may even be slower than the "glacial pace" I mentioned before. :) Do you think USNWR will ever drop PA?</p>
<p>As I noted way back in post #2, Vanderbilt has improved in every one of the measures listed by Hawkette, in some cases by a lot, yet the PA score has not budged over the nine or ten years in question. Hence, my use of the term "glacial" way back at the beginning of this thread.</p>
<p>What hard data drive the PA score? I thought it was based on opinions, impressions, intangible assessments by a variety of administrators and deans at so-called peer institutions.</p>