IPEDS Suggests the following order. Caltech is not listed since test blind. The scores listed below are average of 25th and 75th percentile as listed in 2021 IPEDS. I am assuming SAT-ACT concordance of 34 = 1500 SAT, 34.5 = 1520 SAT, 35 = 1540 SAT, weighted by approximate portion who took either test.
Some additional schools not included in the USNWR list are Olin (#2), Rice (#6), Vanderbilt (#7), and Columbia (#8).
1 . MIT – 1540 SAT (70% took), 35 ACT (34% took)
2. Olin – 1535 SAT (41% took), 34.5 ACT (23% took)
3. Harvey Mudd – 1520 SAT (40% took), 35 ACT (20% took)
4. Harvard – 1530 SAT (54% took), 34.5 ACT (31% took)
5. Chicago – 1545 SAT (49% took), 34 ACT (35% took)
6. Rice – 1530 SAT (46% took), 34.5 ACT (29% took)
7. Vanderbilt – 1525 SAT (25% took), 34.5 ACT (32% took)
8. Northwestern – 1520 SAT (43% took), 34.5 ACT (39% took)
8. Columbia – 1520 SAT (43% took), 34.5 ACT (28% took)
10. Yale – 1530 SAT (54% took), 34 ACT (35% took)
11. Stanford
12. Penn
13. CMU
14. WUSTL
15. Pomona
16. Brown
17. Princeton
18. Duke
19. Cornell
20. NYU
I noticed that as well. I don’t think expect a larger portion than the listed 23%/9% submitted scores, but cannot confirm since NYU does not provide 2021 CDS. Stanford had a similar issue and does provide 2021 CDS, which matched scores well. I used the CDS information for Stanford.
Other highly selective colleges with a large/small portion not reporting scores in iPEDS include the following. This has some correlation with whether the test optional college admitted a large/small portion of students without scores.
Georgetown and West Point were never test optional. Georgetown, unlike West Point, did allow applicants who could not take either an SAT or ACT to still apply. The results for Georgetown are curious though as I would expect a not-insignificant proportion of matriculants took both an ACT and SAT (Georgetown requires reporting of all test results, there is no score choice).
Well, they are the actual, however, they are higher, and sometimes substantially so, than they would be if the other 1/3-2/3 of the student had taken the tests or submitted them.
I forgot who pointed out that, since students are only submitting test scores if they are above the previous year’s median, that it wouldn’t take many application cycles before all colleges would have a median of 1600.
We can assume that, at test-optional colleges, the SATs scores that we see this year say very little about this year’s students - they are merely a reflection of last year’s median. Since last year was also test optional, that means that all these test scores are really only reflections of the test scores in 2019.
So this ranking is little more than a slightly warped reflection of the 2019 rankings.
So, as much as test scores tell us anything about a college, this year’s rankings don’t even tell us that. They tell us something about the class of 2023, and how the applicants of the classes of 2024 and 2025 decided whether to submit their scores or not.
I’m sorry, but my feeling is that this ranking is nothing more than one more example of USNews trying to maintain their reputation and the Arbiter of College Quality by repeatedly ranking colleges in different ways.
I agree that a ranking of scores is near meaningless. It’s near meaningless for many different reasons besides just being test optional – the score differences between the listed colleges being too small to have significant meaning, scores are typically only a small part of admission decision at highly selective private colleges, scores have only a small correlation with academic performance in college that is largely duplicated by other available metrics, averages are not applicable to individual students with varying majors/goals/applications, a good portion of scores are being railed at maximum, etc.
That said, I think the popular theory about test optional making scores increase until reaching near 1600 since nobody submits below median is overstated. Some selective colleges have been test optional for decades. This hasn’t happened. Instead their scores show a slow increase over time, not unlike test required colleges.
Comparing to 2019, the 10 newly test optional colleges with the highest average SAT/ACT in 2019 had a median score increase of only 7 points from 2019 to 2021. Many of these colleges had a huge jump in applications, a few by over 30% The increase in selectivity alone could explain a 7 point score increase over 2 years. Multiple schools reported no change in scores from 2019 to 2021. For example, Princeton’s 25/75 range remained at 1470-1560 and 33-35 in both 2019 and 2021.
Good point. I wonder how correlated the list of schools with highest test scores is with the list of schools with richest students. Schools near the top of the list are probably filled with kids with lots of test prep. You go down to school number 100 or 200 and they probably don’t have nearly as much. Maybe this proves that rich kids can buy test prep and test prep works.
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Im sure they are not the only ones that do this
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SAT/ACT College Guidance Readiness Class: The school fees for the SAT/ACT College Readiness Intensive class covers nine weeks of preparation for the SAT and ACT, taught by some of the best instructors in the USA. The fees allow for students to take this class once during their high school career. Students may repeat the SAT/ACT class for an additional charge. A second nine weeks of college guidance and preparation is offered for the completion of a full semester for credit class which will prepare students not only for their college entrance exams, but also give them an extra edge on college guidance. Choice of live or online classes - $3,750 value.
Certain CC posters used to call this the “Mother Theresa” poll years ago. But it’s an interesting interactive spreadsheet. You can rank institutions in terms of highest number of Pell grant recipients. Among the LACs, you have to reach the bottom of the page before the first of the institutions in the OP appears (hint: it’s Vassar.):
