I’m a student at a high school that doesn’t report rank. I was perusing the Haverford website (as one does after the inevitable post-finals existential crisis) and came across a statistic that states that 92% of the admitted students whose schools reported rank came from the top 10% of their class. As far as I know, Haverford is the only LAC of its caliber to have such a number (Williams also has 92% from the top 10%, but Haverford ain’t Williams). Vassar, Wesleyan, and Carleton all have percentages in the 70s, and the only similarly ranked college that comes close to Haverford is Colgate, with 81%. The clear implication is that for applicants whose schools report rank, Haverford effectively implements a cutoff at the 90th percentile. As Haverford is a relatively lesser-known school, this can’t apply to unranked Haverford applicants, as they don’t exist in large enough numbers from any given school for Haverford to “infer” their rank like, say, the UCs do.
Does this mean that a ranked applicant is significantly disadvantaged in terms of Haverford admissions unless they’re in the top 10%? This would imply an advantage for unranked applicants, of course. I knew Haverford cared about rank, but these numbers make UT Austin’s rank cutoff policies look lenient.
Haverford tend to attract students who want an academically rigorous environment, mandatory thesis, etc. No surprise students rank high.
There is less difference between Haverford and Williams than you think/imply. All LACs are fairly lesser known. I wouldn’t say Haverford is less known than most of the other LACs you’ve listed. It isn’t. I really doubt Haverford has a rank cutoff like UT.
No, it doesn’t. More than half of US high schools do not rank, meaning that they do not provide a cardinal or ordinal number. That said, many high schools, even if they do not rank, have a school profile which will break out GPA by decile/quartile/quintile. If multiple applicants apply from the same HS, you can be sure the AO is comparing GPAs to see whose is higher.
So if the 92% number is accurate (and the most recent CDS actually says 95%), I’d wager that this applies to accepted students that came from HS’s without an official ranking policy.
@doschicos Yes, to clarify, I meant “lesser known” as in lesser known than big-name schools like Harvard, University of Alabama, Rutgers, Penn State, etc. I’d agree that most LACs are equally lesser known than these institutions. I’d also agree that Haverford attracts academically motivated students, but being outside the top 10% at a magnet HS or elite prep-school shouldn’t kill one’s chances.
I am aware that most high schools don’t report rank; Hamilton College, for example, acknowledges in its class profile that the majority of applicants were unranked. I see your point regarding AOs comparing GPAs from the same school; however, I don’t think Haverford is a popular enough college at faraway high schools for students to apply in such volumes as to permit GPA comparing. I live in an academically competitive state, and most people here don’t know about it. CC isn’t representative of the general population of flagship state-school applicants. Haverford is a top-notch institution for sure, but it doesn’t attract this demographic.
Please correct me if I’m wrong. I’m no expert in this anyway.
What do you mean by this? The statistic I’m using refers to students in the top 10% of their high school classes. The “top 10% or so” (of what? Middle schoolers?) attracted by these high schools constitute their entire student body.
“Does this mean that a ranked applicant is significantly disadvantaged in terms of Haverford admissions unless they’re in the top 10%?”
Not at all. To exand on what skieurope said… every high school sends in a “school profile” with the transcript. This allows colleges to read the transcript in the correct context. Ask your guidance counselor for a copy of your school’s profile (some high schools have it on their web pages). Even though your school doesn’t rank, a college will be able to make a pretty accurate guess at your percentile (or at least decile) if they so choose.
It also tells the college which AP or IB classes are offered, average SAT scores (or whatever test your school takes), graduation requirements (so the college knows you weren’t trying to bump your GPA by taking four years of gym), and posts the school’s enrollment and demographics, among other information.
As a basis, you may want to seek a uniform data source when comparing across colleges. For example, Wesleyan’s most recent CDS states that 57% of first-year students originated from the top 10% of their HS classes, with 85% from the top quarter, 98% from the top half, and 43% reporting. After seeing information in this form, you can then check various sites for colleges of interest for completely current information. With respect to Haverford, I think it would be correct to conclude, given its figures, that it emphasizes academic aspects in selection in relation to its peers. This seems likely to be the case for both ranked and unranked applicants. Haverford may attract academically stronger applicants than some of its peers as well.
smart kids apply and smart kids get in. it’s self-selecting, especially for a place like haverford which is nerdy intellectual, in a good way. It’s a small school- I doubt that the admissions people there use any kind of hard cut-off in terms of class ranks or anything else, and look at each application on it’s own merits. it does not strike me as the type of place that is so focused on a single number.
And it probably has a student body that is as smart as any tiptop school but not because of class rankings.
Yes, that is what I mean. Attracting the top 10% from a local public school vs. top 10% of a magnet or elite private/boarding school are two very different things. This is why the latter rarely rank. It’s the cream of the crop already.
@merc81 Yes, it does seem that Haverford attracts students with higher GPAs. As regards the Colgate statistic, I don’t see the significance of admitted vs. enrolled here. If anything, the percentage for enrolled students would probably be lower, as the yield for Colgate would probably be higher for admitted students not at the top of their classes.
The point was to encourage you to consider the differences between standard data sources (e.g., Common Data Sets, some publications) and non-standard sources (e.g., preliminary college websites). At this stage, nonetheless, I think you have correctly concluded that few liberal arts college report enrolling greater than 80% of students originating from the top 10% of their high school classes, with Haverford representing a clear counterexample (to the extent that statistics are available).
@merc81 ah, ok. Didn’t recognize your initial purpose.
@Sue22 I see. Just for kicks, let’s analyze these numbers:
If one follows the axiom that Haverford does NOT exercise a top-decile cutoff for rank-reporting students, the following deductions can be made:
The majority of Haverford’s applicants are from competitive high schools. As @doschicos has stated, these schools tend not to rank, and this falls in line with Haverford’s CDS report of a majority of unranked students. So far, so good.
We can say that most of the ranked applicants to Haverford come from significantly less competitive high schools than the unranked ones. I know this might seem like a stretch, but here’s my reasoning for this point:
i) Going back to the original statistic, 92% of ranked applicants come from the top 10% of their classes. One can’t assume that Haverford admits only top-10% kids from rank-reporting high schools; @joecollege44 has already dismissed this as unlikely. Furthermore, some competitive schools DO rank, meaning that if students from there applied, Haverford would be rejecting stellar applicants whose misfortune it was to be outside the top decile. I wouldn’t put it past Haverford to do this, but I doubt they do.
ii) It’s clear that, whatever the reason, Haverford rejects most of its rank-reporting applicants who are outside the top decile.
ii) Except in the cases of legacy and athletic recruitment, which form a minority of admits anyway, Haverford will only admit academically qualified students.
iv) Therefore, it follows that most of the students who report rank and are outside the top decile at their HS, are less academically qualified than their top-decile peers.
v) This top-decile dichotomy doesn’t exist at more competitive high schools, as most students there ARE academically qualified to attend Haverford, though they may not all be accepted due to the sheer volume of applicants.
vi) It follows that the schools from which Haverford takes its rank-reporting admits are less competitive than those from which it takes its unranked admits. This would explain why its top-decile percentage is so high: it only sees fit to admit the top performers at otherwise lackluster high schools. The remaining 8% of rank-reporting but non-top-decile admits must logically be from the minority of rank-reporting competitive high schools.
Essentially, I believe it’s possible that the top-decile “cutoff” is due to a disparity in the respective qualities of rank-reporting vs. non-rank-reporting schools from which students apply to Haverford. Haverford must be keeping a keen eye on not only the quality of the applicants, but on the quality of their schools. My conclusions are probably either erroneous or tautological, but this was fun!
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ii) Except in the cases of legacy and athletic recruitment, which form a minority of admits anyway, Haverford will only admit academically qualified students.
Haverford must be keeping a keen eye on not only the quality of the applicants, but on the quality of their schools. My conclusions are probably either erroneous or tautological, but this was fun!
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Haverford is known to be a school that doesn’t drop its standards for athletes. You can find some older articles on it from the NYT. It hasn’t changed. I assume the same applies to legacies. Might help explain the higher top 10% number vs many other top LACs who give a little more leeway for athletic recruits.
I think a lot of selective colleges are aware of and take into consideration high school quality.
Furthermore, you’ll notice that one of my main points was that, on average, the non-ranking schools from which students apply to Haverford seem to be academically preferred by Haverford over similar rank-reporting schools. It seems that either those rank-reporting schools that harbor Haverford hopefuls are of a lower academic quality, or that Haverford is displaying acute selection bias.
Haverford takes a fair number of lower income and/or first generation students. I would imagine some come from schools with lower academic quality but where those students shine. Questbridge and outside of Questbridge.
But for a certain type of student it might well be the gold standard. I would imagine there’s a certain amount of self selection going on at these elite LAC. Probably more so at Haverford than most.