<p>In order for there to be a meaningful discussion, there has to be some agreement on a few basic premises, otherwise there is no reason to bother.</p>
<p>Here are the basic assumptions I’m operating under (if you don’t belive them, then there’s no use even talking):</p>
<ol>
<li> Not all colleges are the same in quality and prestige.</li>
<li> Rankings like US News’s, while imperfect, at least give people a starting point to discuss colleges. Many people have disagreements with their methodology and results, but in general it is about as good a ranking as there is.</li>
<li> People on collegeconfidential make life-changing decisions using distinctions among closely ranked colleges.This indicates they think there are significant differences between colleges that are relatively closely ranked (like, say, #13 and #19).</li>
<li>The rankings were never intended to be used in such a precise manner, and people who believe that they are precise, and chose a bad-fit #13 over a good-fit #19, simply because of the perceived superiority in quality and prestige, are making a mistake.</li>
<li>It would be helpful to come up with a method of interpreting US News-style rankings that acknowledges the differences in the spectrum of colleges without overestimating the significance in small differences of rank.</li>
</ol>
<p>These are the premises I’m working from. I can’t force you to agree with these. But if you agree with these, I think my approach makes some progress.</p>
<p>The point I was trying to make was so simple yet you continually failed to understand it. It was not about promoting Berkeley. If there’s anyone who did that on this thread, it’s the OP, since he grouped Berkeley with Columbia and the like. </p>
<p>The point is, some schools do not have exactly the same admission policy/standards as the others. </p>
<p>Whilst some schools weigh SATs as “very important”, some schools don’t see it that way. Some schools, mostly top publics, emphasize the importance of HS gpa and/or HS class rank. Berkeley, for example, does not superscore. So, Berkeley losses points by that exercise alone. On top of that, it also does not weigh SATs as they do HS gpa. **Because of that, it makes your whole reasoning FLAWED.<a href=“I%20used%20Berkeley%20as%20an%20example%20because%20it’s%20one%20of%20those%20schools%20I%20know%20I%20can%20use%20to%20prove%20my%20point.”>/b</a> </p>
<p>So, next time, do not make an interpretation that’s based on wrong merits. It losses your credibility.</p>
<p>RML,
If you want to pretend that standardized test scores are unimportant in the college admissions process for UC Berkeley (or U Michigan),then that is your choice. I’m fully confident that you are completely fooling yourself, but given your posting history, that is certainly no surprise.</p>
<p>For your contention that, in comparison to the USA’s Top 20 privates, UC Berkeley’s student body is equally or more talented, would you please provide some of your reasoning? So far, all I’ve read is that you think that class rank trumps all. Is there more to your argument than this? Are you able to offer any differentiated information that suggests that the student body, when measured as a whole, at UC Berkeley is stronger than any of the 20 colleges ranked ahead of it? </p>
<p>And on this topic of superscoring of SATs, let me reiterate my earlier comment: the CDS data reports superscoring, including at schools that do admissions on a single sitting basis. Check the data. It confirms this.</p>
<p>Ucb,
Re your suggestion that I am “promoting regional private research universities,” please help me understand which of the following criteria distinguishes between national/regional and non-research/undergrad-focused institutions:</p>
<p>1) quality of students (stronger students are preferred);
2) size of the classroom (smaller class sizes are preferred);
3) quality of classroom instruction (profs are preferred to TAs); and
4) institutional resources and whether they are committed to help undergrads (more money is better, eg, for things like FA, academic advising, job placement services, etc).</p>
<p>If a national, research-strong university can accomplish the above, then I’m all in favor. </p>
<p>Btw, I think that, to varying degrees, there are many that can do this, ie, my two tiers listed in # 37:</p>
<p>Tier One
Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, MIT, Caltech</p>
<p>Tier Two
Privates: Brown, Carnegie Mellon, U Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Emory, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, Notre Dame, U Penn, Rice, Vanderbilt, Wash U </p>
<p>Publics: UC Berkeley (Eng/Bus), UCLA (Honors), U Virginia (Honors), U Michigan (Eng/Bus), U North Carolina (Honors), W&M (Honors), Georgia Tech (Eng), U Illinois (Eng), U Wisconsin (Eng), U Washington, (Honors), Penn State (Honors), U Florida (Honors), U Texas (Honors/Eng/Bus)</p>
I don’t buy it. The actual data is a good enough starting point. Why do we need a one-size-fits-all ranking?
I agree, but I’m not sure if there really are that many people who choose #13 over #19 based solely on the number.
No, it wouldn’t. USNews-style rankings are pointless drivel for those too stupid or lazy to look at the data themselves. Seriously, it isn’t that hard.</p>
<p>This thread illustrates the flaw with rankings like USNews. Hawkette and UCB obviously have rather different feelings about what makes a quality educational institution. Neither of them is clearly right or wrong, but they would probably have a lot of difficulty agreeing on “tiers” that fit your system.</p>
<p>Hawkette, the statement you said which I quoted below is tantamount to lying as you’re already twisting some facts. </p>
<p>When Berkeley said it does not weigh SATs as they do hs GPAs, Berkeley meant it, for if it didn’t, Berkeley would be guilty of releasing erroneous information to the public. For which I cannot think of a reason why a renowned academic institution would do.</p>
<p>
When did I say that Berkeley (and schools like it) is not treating SATs as important parts of their admissions? Come on, tell me. Show me a post I made that say something exactly like that or anything that implies like it. You can’t show me, can you? And, I know why you can’t. It’s because I never said such a thing. In case you’re confused, this is what I said: Some schools, top publics, for example, are not weighing SATs as much as the elite privates do, and instead weigh hs GPAs more. I hope this is clearer now.</p>
<p>Here’s the Relative Importance of Application Elements for Berkeley (top public) and Emory (one of your elite privates):</p>
<p>UC Berkeley
Secondary School Record: Very Important
Class Rank: Not Considered
Extracurricular Activities: Important
Volunteer Work: Important
Character/Personal Abilities: Important
Application Essay: Very Important
Work Experience: Important
SAT/ACT Scores: Important
Recommendations: Not Considered
High School GPA: Very Important</p>
<p>Emory
Secondary School Record: Very Important
Class Rank: Considered
Extracurricular Activities: Very Important
Volunteer Work: Considered
Character/Personal Abilities: Very Important
Application Essay: Very Important
Work Experience: Considered
SAT/ACT Scores: Very Important
Recommendations: Very Important
High School GPA: Very Important</p>
<p>I also said that Berkeley (and schools like it) does no superscore SATs. As a result, some points are added to other schools, and make the Berkeley data undervalued. The scenario then suggests that the given schools your try to pit against each other do not play on an equal level field.</p>
<p>As to why Berkeley (and such schools) don’t superscore and weigh SATs as those elite privates do, it’s another story altogether. The point is, do not try to compare student bodies of the schools that have different admissions criteria. It makes your reasoning flawed.</p>
<p>alam1, I’m very sorry if I came across to you that way. Believe me; I don’t hate Emory. I thought it’s a fantastic school with superb undergrad and medical schools. (My aunt went their fro her Phd at the medical school.) But amongst the elite privates (top 20 according to THE hawkette’s list), it is the easiest school I can use to prove my point (and disprove hawkette’s consequently). As I am out to prove how distorted the reasoning of hawkette is, Emory would be the easiest target I can use to prove her assertions as flawed. Peace.</p>
<p>My contention has always been this: It is nonsense to compare the whole student body of Emory (please allow me to use it as an example of a top 20 private) to the whole student body of Berkeley. Here are the reasons:</p>
<ol>
<li>Both schools use different admissions criteria. [UC</a> Berkeley Admissions Scrutinized - Los Angeles Times](<a href=“http://articles.latimes.com/2003/oct/04/local/me-ucadmit4]UC”>UC Berkeley Admissions Scrutinized)
Whilst Emory is a SAT whore school, Berkeley is obviously not. In fact, Berkeley weighs hs GPAs more than they do SATs. As a result, almost everyone that has been admitted at Berkeley comes from the top 10% of their HS class, and has a hs GPA thats higher than most students from almost all elite schools in America. </li>
</ol>
<p>Heres the latest news from UC Berkeley re admissions: we received more than 50,000 freshman applications for approximately 10,700 admission spaces, resulting an admit rate of only 21%. Our applicant pool included nearly 27,500 students with a weighted grade point average of 4.00 or higher significantly more than twice the number of admission spaces available for our fall freshman class.* [UC</a> Berkeley NewsCenter: Archive 2010](<a href=“http://www.berkeley.edu/news/archives/]UC”>UC Berkeley NewsCenter: Archive 2010)</p>
<p>So, you see, Berkeley admissions are clearly geared towards hs GPAs, not SATs, for if Berkeley is a SAT conscious school Berkeley would have emphasized SATs on their reports instead. For a school as popular as Berkeley (with more than 50k applicants every year), I personally believe that it can easily afford to shift its admissions criteria to favor SATs if it wants to. But Berkeley did not change that part of their admissions criteria, because the UC studies have proven that SATs arent a better measure of ones intelligence, and there is no clear evidence to show and prove that those students who have higher SAT scores would perform better in college life (and beyond) than those students with relatively lower SAT scores. SATs are also a factor of race. The Blacks perform poorly on SATs. Asians do the best. But are Asians really smarter than Caucasians and Blacks? What about the British students who, like Americans, use English as a medium of instructions? Are they not as smart as the Asians who often score higher in SATs?
[University</a> of California - UC Newsroom | Do Standardized Tests Erode Rather Than Enhance Education?](<a href=“http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/5103]University”>http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/5103)
[SAT</a> Decision Could Bring UC Diversity](<a href=“http://aad.english.ucsb.edu/docs/satobrien.html]SAT”>http://aad.english.ucsb.edu/docs/satobrien.html)</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Berkeley does not superscore. Emory does. As a result, Emorys data have swelled (tampered) to look to its favor. </p></li>
<li><p>Berkeley is a large university and runs on departments. At Berkeley, the College of Engineering, for example, runs almost entirely independent from the College of Arts and Letters. The CoE people set their own admissions criteria and choose their own students. The other colleges do their own thing too, independent from CoE. As a result, each college has its own data, and some programs appear to be more selective than the others. For example, at Berkeley, it is harder to get onto the CS program than to get onto the History program. And, as a result, CS students have higher stats than those from History students.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Not too long ago, you claimed Emory students are smarter than Berkeley students. I questioned that statement because I thought it was an unsound statement to say. You reasoned that Emory students have higher SATs, and therefore, are smarter. You later went on and declared that when a student is accepted at both schools, the student must choose to go to Emory unless he gets a discount from Berkeley. Then I asked, what about those who are interested on majoring in business. Well, hawkette, heres the SAT data for Berkeley and Emory.</p>
<p>Haas
Mean: 1,400
Median: 1,420</p>
<p>Emory
Mean: 1,364
Median: 1,370</p>
<p>Now, based on your very own reasoning, which I thought is distorted, btw, Berkeleys business students are smarter than Emory business students. And, since Berkeley does not superscore and Emory does, the difference would have been quite wider than that. So, we can now say that Berkeley business students are significantly smarter than Emory business students. Is that a sound statement to say, hawkette?</p>
<p>What about WUStL students? Are they smarter than Sloan students? Well, if we would follow your reasoning, it would really appear that WUStL students are smarter than Sloan students. But can you prove that? Can SATs prove that? I don’t think so.</p>
<p>RML, I think you have a misconception about Emory’s consideration of SAT scores. Unlike most other top privates, Emory is NOT a SAT “whore” school. If anything, it is a GPA “whore” school because it consistantly picks students with high GPA and low SAT scores over students with low GPA and high SAT scores. This explains why the GPA average is relatively high… Emory average GPA is something like 3.82 whereas its SAT average is like 1380… By contrast, JHU’s website says that its SAT average is 1400 whereas its average GPA is 3.68. Emory does not care about SATs as much as you think. In fact, when I visited they said that they had a reputation of caring a lot more about GPA than SAT and that it was true. </p>
<p>[U-CAN:</a> Johns Hopkins University](<a href=“ucan-network.org”>ucan-network.org)
That site is a direct link from JHU’s website.</p>
<p>By these numbers, it would seem like using JHU in your argument would be of better use against Hawkette’s argument. I think you are branding Emory with stereotypes that is not really accurate.</p>
<p>Hawkette, if you think only Berkeley’s engineering and business classes have the strongest students, smallest classes, quality instruction, and strong institutional resources, you’re kidding yourself - or intentionally sending the wrong message. Smallest class I took at Berkeley was a demography class taught by a full prof and half filled with graduate students.</p>
<p>Perhaps with your list of preferences, you should become an expert on and talk about liberal arts colleges.</p>
<p>I’ve been over this before, but I’ll reiterate my points here:</p>
<p>I think it has been proven that high SAT score is more closely aligned with family income than intelligence. SAT test taking methodologies can be coached. Even an Amherst adcom mentioned in a PBS interview that if they only accepted the highest scoring SATers they’d end up with a very wealthy student body.</p>
<p>Given the public mission and larger size of a school like Berkeley, it admits a larger portion of poorer students. In fact, Berkeley is one of the largest enrollers of Pell Grantees in the country.</p>
<p>Also, Berkeley is 3-5 times the size of smaller privates. As a student body gets larger, the SAT average should approach the national mean. If you expanded other privates to the size of Berkeley’s, I don’t think many would be able to hold the higher averages they currently have.</p>
<p>In addition to this, I think it is silly to claim a student as more intelligent because he or she happens to score 50-100 points higher on a 3 hour multiple choice test taken before a student even sets foot on a college campus as an undergrad student.</p>
<p>Quote:
2. Rankings like US News’s, while imperfect, at least give people a starting point to discuss colleges. Many people have disagreements with their methodology and results, but in general it is about as good a ranking as there is. </p>
<p>I don’t buy it. The actual data is a good enough starting point. Why do we need a one-size-fits-all ranking?</p>
<p>Quote:
3. People on collegeconfidential make life-changing decisions using distinctions among closely ranked colleges.This indicates they think there are significant differences between colleges that are relatively closely ranked (like, say, #13 and #19).
4. The rankings were never intended to be used in such a precise manner, and people who believe that they are precise, and chose a bad-fit #13 over a good-fit #19, simply because of the perceived superiority in quality and prestige, are making a mistake. </p>
<p>I agree, but I’m not sure if there really are that many people who choose #13 over #19 based solely on the number.</p>
<p>Quote:
5. It would be helpful to come up with a method of interpreting US News-style rankings that acknowledges the differences in the spectrum of colleges without overestimating the significance in small differences of rank. </p>
<p>No, it wouldn’t. USNews-style rankings are pointless drivel for those too stupid or lazy to look at the data themselves. Seriously, it isn’t that hard.</p>
<p>This thread illustrates the flaw with rankings like USNews. Hawkette and UCB obviously have rather different feelings about what makes a quality educational institution. Neither of them is clearly right or wrong, but they would probably have a lot of difficulty agreeing on “tiers” that fit your system. </p>
<hr>
<p>Noimagination, thanks for the feedback. I’ve written a lot of posts slamming the US News-style ranking because they appear to give definitive and precise rankings to amazingly complex organizations (colleges). While it would be nice to assume everybody knows how to find and evaluate the relevant data, the success and prominence of the US News ranking indicates there are still plenty of people who want or need some guidance in the manner. When I was in high school, neither of my parents had the slightet idea of how to help me locate and evaluate options. I would imagine there are still plenty of people in that situation. I had a 15-minute session with my high school guidance counselor, and that was IT. Even for families that DO have a clue, it’s a process they might do only one or 2 or a few times, and it involves a lot of money. It’s not a place anybody wants to make a mistake, so it’s easy to see why they might think the rankings are the gospel and over-rely on them. It seems to me like quite a few people on collegeconfidential think there might be significant differences in minor differences in rankings. But perhaps you’re right and it’s a negligible amount and they get what they deserve.</p>
<p>Not one person here has commented on the crux of my approach, which is that tiers right next to each other are supposed to be considered of roughly comparable quality and/or prestige. It’s a way of interpreting the tiers that I thought minimized the bickering about micro-differences. But either nobody gets it or nobody cares, because there’s been zero feedback on it. </p>
<p>In my approach, Berkeley and Emory are in tiers that are next to each other, so they would be considered roughly equal. It’s only when two schools were at least TWO tiers apart that significant overall quality and/or prestige would be recognized. So my approach is meant to stop arguments EXACTLY like the one going on above.</p>
<p>Schmaltz:
I actually think that your ranking is realistic and is more aligned with how the general public view the top schools. Your ranking is almost identical to the ranking of US News made by HS counselors.</p>
<p>Alam1:
Thanks for sharing the facts about Emory. I think you made a strong point. I’m tempted to use JHU, but, like Berkeley, it is a superpower research-based school. I will try to use Vanderbilt next time.</p>
<p>UCBChemEGrad: I’m more interested to find out from you the reasons why SATs alone aren’t the be all of IQ measurement as what hawkette suggests. I’d be interested to know from you why it is just wrong for her to constantly use SATs every time she makes assertion about smart or smartest students.</p>
<p>BTW, hawkette’s segregation of CoE and Haas from L&S is just wrong. Computer Science, which is under L&S is one of the most oversubscribed programs at Berkeley, and I would bet that anyone who has been admitted onto the program has got stats identical to those of Vanderbilt students. Haas students were pre-Haas students who used to be under the L&S students too. I think hawkette just made a lot of errors due to her limited understanding and knowledge about Berkeley.</p>
<p>hawkette: For me, the most ideal admissions criteria would be:
40% SAT scores
40% hs GPA
5% Recommendations
5% Application Essay
5% Character/Personal Abilities
5% Extracurricular Activities</p>
<p>If you can prove to me that Vanderbilt students would score well against Berkeley students using the criteria above, I would concede. If you’ll come up on here again and show me SATs data of Berkeley and Vanderbilt to prove your point, we’re back to square one.</p>
<p>it doesn’t really matter what your personal favorite criteria are, RML. That’s not how elite colleges in the US select their students. If you want places that select on standardized testing and GPA’s, look at lower-tier state schools or go to Asia.</p>
<p>wow what a waste of time… so according to your tier system, Northwestern can be comparable to Stanford since those schools are one tier apart, but Georgetown is not comparable because it’s at a lower tier?</p>
<p>And this is according to who? you? Isn’t that as subjective as every other subjective opinion out there? epic fail…</p>
<p>All you’ve done is inject even more subjectivity into the rankings process in the clothes of false objectivity… why are Cornell and Georgetown at a lower tier than friggin northwestern and berkeley???</p>
<p>So Northwestern and Berkeley are directly comparable to Princeton, but Cornell and Georgetown aren’t even in the same ballpark? Northwestern is definitively better than Illinois, but Georgetown is not! Gasp!</p>
<p>I have a sudden urge to restart the Northwestern/Georgetown thread…</p>