College Comparison XVIII: Students Ranked in Top 10% of HS class

College Search & Selection
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<p>In order to assist some in their college search process, I have prepared a series of threads that will compare colleges on a variety of measurements. In making these comparisons, I have created three broad groups (private national universities, public national universities and liberal arts colleges) and provide comparisons involving 117 colleges (national universities ranked in the USNWR Top 75 and LACs ranked in the USNWR Top 40). </p>

<p>Following is a comparison of the percentage of entering freshmen who ranked in the TOP 10% of their high school class.</p>

<p>To aid in the comparisons, I have included the level of the highest-ranking public universities with each of the private groups for National Universities and LACs. This should help families appreciate the way that the very top scoring public compares with their private competition. </p>

<p>I hope that you enjoy the thread and find some helpful information. Good luck to all in your college search process!</p>

<p>Top 10% students , Private National University</p>

<p>100% , TOP PUBLIC (UC San Diego)
99% , U Penn
97% , Princeton
97% , Yale
97% , Caltech
97% , MIT
96% , Wash U
95% , Harvard
94% , Columbia
93% , Brown
93% , Georgetown
93% , Lehigh
92% , Stanford
90% , Duke
90% , Dartmouth
88% , Cornell
88% , Emory
87% , Notre Dame
87% , USC
86% , U Chicago
85% , Northwestern
85% , Rice
85% , Tufts
84% , Johns Hopkins
84% , Vanderbilt
82% , Brandeis
80% , Boston College
75% , U Rochester
73% , Carnegie Mellon
68% , NYU
67% , George Washington
66% , U Miami
64% , Wake Forest
64% , Rensselaer
63% , Case Western
59% , Tulane
55% , Boston University
53% , Worcester
51% , Yeshiva
51% , BYU
42% , Fordham
42% , SMU
40% , Pepperdine
39% , Syracuse</p>

<p>Top 10% students , State University</p>

<p>100% , UC SAN DIEGO
98% , UC BERKELEY
98% , UC DAVIS
97% , UCLA
96% , UC S BARBARA
96% , UC IRVINE
96% , UC S CRUZ
92% , U MICHIGAN
88% , U VIRGINIA
87% , U WASHINGTON
79% , U N CAROLINA
79% , WILLIAM & MARY
75% , U FLORIDA
75% , U TEXAS
73% , U MARYLAND
64% , GEORGIA TECH
58% , U WISCONSIN
55% , U ILLINOIS
54% , TEXAS A&M
53% , OHIO STATE
52% , U GEORGIA
50% , CLEMSON
48% , U PITTSBURGH
45% , U MINNESOTA
43% , PENN STATE
42% , U DELAWARE
42% , VIRGINIA TECH
39% , U CONNECTICUT
38% , RUTGERS
31% , INDIANA U
31% , MICHIGAN ST
30% , PURDUE
22% , U IOWA</p>

<p>Top 10% students , LAC</p>

<p>100% , TOP PUBLIC (UC San Diego)
95% , Harvey Mudd
91% , Haverford
87% , Williams
87% , Swarthmore
86% , Middlebury
86% , Pomona
85% , Claremont McK
84% , W&L
82% , Bowdoin
81% , Davidson
79% , Amherst
76% , Wellesley
76% , Hamilton
74% , Carleton
74% , Barnard
71% , Whitman
70% , Vassar
70% , Scripps
69% , Oberlin
69% , Bucknell
66% , Colorado College
66% , Macalester
65% , Wesleyan
65% , Colgate
65% , Bryn Mawr
65% , Occidental
65% , Lafayette
64% , Grinnell
64% , Smith
63% , Bard
62% , Mt. Holyoke
61% , Colby
61% , Kenyon
61% , Holy Cross
59% , Furman
58% , U Richmond
56% , US Naval Acad
53% , Bates
50% , Trinity
49% , Sewanee
43% , US Military Acad</p>

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<p>What we really want to know is what are the respective admission statistics (as in gpa, class rank, SAT scores) for caucasians, asians, hispanics and african americans at all of the above schools.</p>

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<p>of course the UC’s are gonna dominate this stat cause everyone who goes to them is in the top 10% haha</p>

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<p>Doesn’t this boost my self-esteem… <em>sigh</em></p>

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<p>hawkette:</p>

<p>I just want to say how wonderful your series of data posts have been. The work you put into it is much appreciated. I always feel like a heel when I point out the limitations and, trust me, that’s not my sentiment at all. Great job.</p>

<p>Caveat emptor: On this one, most of the top schools now have under 50% of their students reporting class ranks. It is usually the top privates and publics who refuse to rank. Therefore, the validity and usefulness of this data is questionable and you are starting to see significant year to year fluctuations – not because the students are actually changing, but just as statistical noise depending on whether a particular year’s cohort comes from reporting or non-reporting high schools.</p>

<p>I would not use this data to make highly granular comparisons.</p>

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<p>UCSD uses the point system where GPA dominates and can make up for 60-70% of the points to be admitted. No surprise there.<br>
They don’t care for sports, either.</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>Fair point, but what’s curious is the enormous variation from college to college in the percentage of entering freshmen who report their HS class rank. Among the top private universities, it ranges from 99% at Penn, 84% at Harvard, and 80% at Columbia, all the way down to 30% at Princeton. Among the top publics, it ranges from 100% at UC Berkeley and UCLA and 97% at Michigan, all the way down to 46% at UVA and 45% at William & Mary. Among top LACs it ranges from 60% at Pomona to 30% at Williams. </p>

<p>Even more than the low average rate at which class rankings are reported across colleges and universities, this enormous variance in the reporting rate is disturbing and suggests these figures, like most of the so-called “objective” US News data, are not to be trusted. How can it be that Princeton can get class rank information out of only 30% of its entering students, when just a few miles down the road its Ivy League peer Penn is getting this information from 99% of its entering freshmen? There are several possible explanations, none of them satisfying. First, it could be that provision of the information is effectively optional at Princeton and Williams, and effectively mandatory at Penn, the UCs, and Michigan, and close to it at Harvard and Columbia. In that case, the reported percentage of freshmen in the top 10% of their HS class should be heavily discounted at schools like Princeton and Williams, just as reported SAT scores at SAT-optional schools should be discounted insofar as optional reporting invites the high scorers to report and the low scorers to conceal. That pretty much turns all the reported data into junk as a means of comparison among schools. (And I’m not attacking you here, hawkette; I’m attacking US News which blithely presents such junk data as “objective.”)</p>

<p>Second, it could be that there are regional or state-to-state variations in HS practices with respect to class rankings. This is a more plausible explanation for public universities; it could be that the UCs get 100% reporting while UVA and William & Mary get less than 50% because in California class ranks are mandated either by state standards for high schools or by the UC system itself, whereas in Virginia no one cares. But for the top privates which draw students from everywhere, this can’t be a satisfactory explanation. Princeton and Penn are, what, 50 miles apart? Yet they’re at the extremes of class rank reporting, and Columbia at 80% is much closer to Penn’s 99% than to Princeton’s 30%. Surely all three schools get tons of applications from NY-NJ-PA, with enough overlap that regional/state differences can’t possibly explain the enormous variance.</p>

<p>A third possibility is implicitly suggested by interesteddad’s comment: Maybe it’s the kinds of high schools these colleges draw on. Many top private HS don’t rank; top public HS are split, but my sense is that more do rank than not. But if the explanation for the reporting discrepancy is that Princeton and Williams are drawing 70% of their entering class from elite private prep schools that don’t rank (and the handful of public HS that follow suit), while in contrast Penn is drawing 99% of its class and Harvard 84% of its class and Columbia 80% of its class from less exclusive schools that DO rank, then IMO that’s a far more interesting finding than the relatively minor differences in reported percentages of freshmen in the top 10% of their HS class. It effectively says to kids in ordinary public schools, “Don’t even bother with schools like Princeton and Williams; they’re less interested in your individual achievements and potential than in your pedigree.”</p>

<p>A fourth possibility, most disturbing of all: someone’s lying. Either schools like Princeton and Williams are suppressing class rank information on a substantial fraction of their students (presumably the bottom-performing fraction); or schools at the high end of that scale are artificially inflating their reported percentages.</p>

<p>In any event, it’s enough to cast serious doubt on the usefulness of this element of US News’ complex ranking formula. Garbage in, garbage out. One by one, the so-called “objective” US News metrics fall. Thanks, hawkette, for bringing this to our attention.</p>

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<p>^^^I’m sure that wasn’t her objective, but I wholeheartedly agree with you about the so called objective figures that USNWR uses. There is no doubt in my mind that many schools are jobbing their “objective” numbers.</p>

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<p>bclintonk: I have always suspected that everything you have said was true; you are much more eloquent than I…</p>

<p>anectodal note: (and no hard data for this comment)…around here, if you attend a non-ranking HS much more difficult to be accepted to UPenn unless you are designated a val or sal…from ranking HS, top #1-5 accepted only (top 5 kids that is not %)…excuding recruits, URM’s…</p>

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</p>

<p>I’m not certain why there is such a low percentage of first year students reporting class rank at Princeton but it certainly isn’t what you are suggesting here. About 70% of this year’s entering class at Princeton came from public schools. Only 28% came from private schools and nearly half of those were inner-city Catholic schools. These numbers are very similar to Harvard’s. Yale has a slightly higher percentage of private school students. I’m not certain about Williams.</p>

<p>[Princeton</a> University | Admission Statistics](<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/admission/applyingforadmission/admission_statistics/]Princeton”>http://www.princeton.edu/admission/applyingforadmission/admission_statistics/)</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>You beat me to it–this is exactly the case, even at schools that are outside the top. </p>

<p>I heard from a colleague at a school ranked between 60 and 75 who said that only 40% of their enrollees came from a school which supplied class rank. They were trying to figure out what to do about reporting. </p>

<p>Another colleague at a top public school told me that they did their own calculation (based on some data complications they couldn’t get around) and had less than complete faith in its accuracy.</p>

<p>These are just anecdotes but it’s not speculation–these are higher ed professionals who generate the numbers that go into the CDS and USNews.</p>

12

<p>

It simply can’t be. It is possible, I suppose, that these schools handle data differently. For example, one of them might report only if a specific rank is reported, while another might report if the high school indicates that the student is in the top 10%.</p>

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<p>I-dad and bc,
Re the varying levels of reported class rank, I was also struck by this in the collection of the data. For everyone’s use, I post below USNWR"s reported levels of class rank reported.</p>

<p>My view is that there are three major factors causing the discrepancies:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>It makes perfect sense to me that private high schools would not provide a class rank as their student bodies are frequently much stronger than the average public high school. A private high school with a graduating class of 50-100 students and which sends 20+ of them annually to top colleges (Top 25 Nat’l Uni, Top 25 LAC) would be crazy to provide a class ranking as their # 20 student (who would be ranked outside of even the Top 25% in many cases) is often very capable and competitive with highly ranked kids coming out of the public high schools. Compare a class rank figure from a good private where 100% of the students go on to college versus a class rank figure for a public where 60% of the students go on to college and the false indications of the merit of class rank are obvious. These are not just apples and oranges; these are apples and goat cheese. </p></li>
<li><p>Re the differences between the reported numbers of Princeton and U Penn, it could be as simple as how these colleges interpret the question. Princeton could be reporting the % of students who submit a class rank, regardless of whether their high school ranks or not. By contrast, U Penn could be reporting the % of students who submit a class rank, but do so only for those students that come from schools that actually provide a class rank. </p></li>
<li><p>There is often a difference in where top privates and the publics attract their students from. I have seen plenty of evidence over the years that private colleges attract a larger (and sometimes much larger) percentage of their matriculates from private high schools. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>One counterpoint to this, however, is that many publics also report comparatively low levels of % of students reporting a class rank. Perhaps this relates to some state rules/guidelines. </p>

<p>% of students reporting rank , % students in Top 10% , Private National University</p>

<p>100% , 99% , U Penn
30% , 97% , Princeton
40% , 97% , Yale
51% , 97% , Caltech
51% , 97% , MIT
62% , 96% , Wash U
84% , 95% , Harvard
80% , 94% , Columbia
41% , 93% , Brown
48% , 93% , Georgetown
37% , 93% , Lehigh
51% , 92% , Stanford
44% , 90% , Duke
44% , 90% , Dartmouth
40% , 88% , Cornell
40% , 88% , Emory
51% , 87% , Notre Dame
50% , 87% , USC
62% , 86% , U Chicago
47% , 85% , Northwestern
43% , 85% , Rice
53% , 85% , Tufts
39% , 84% , Johns Hopkins
41% , 84% , Vanderbilt
57% , 82% , Brandeis
29% , 80% , Boston College
39% , 75% , U Rochester
38% , 73% , Carnegie Mellon
35% , 68% , NYU
51% , 67% , George Washington
37% , 66% , U Miami
62% , 64% , Wake Forest
67% , 64% , Rensselaer
59% , 63% , Case Western
49% , 59% , Tulane
39% , 55% , Boston University
67% , 53% , Worcester
50% , 51% , Yeshiva
86% , 51% , BYU
32% , 42% , Fordham
46% , 42% , SMU
47% , 40% , Pepperdine
44% , 39% , Syracuse</p>

<p>% of students reporting rank , % students in Top 10% , State University</p>

<p>100% 100% UC SAN DIEGO
100% , 98% , UC BERKELEY
100% , 98% , UC DAVIS
100% , 97% , UCLA
100% , 96% , UC S BARBARA
86% , 96% , UC IRVINE
75% , 96% , UC S CRUZ
97% , 92% , U MICHIGAN
46% , 88% , U VIRGINIA
50% , 87% , U WASHINGTON
76% , 79% , U N CAROLINA
45% , 79% , WILLIAM & MARY
72% , 75% , U FLORIDA
99% , 75% , U TEXAS
51% , 73% , U MARYLAND
58% , 64% , GEORGIA TECH
70% , 58% , U WISCONSIN
68% , 55% , U ILLINOIS
90% , 54% , TEXAS A&M
67% , 53% , OHIO STATE
80% , 52% , U GEORGIA
100% , 50% , CLEMSON
67% , 48% , U PITTSBURGH
84% , 45% , U MINNESOTA
69% , 43% , PENN STATE
53% , 42% , U DELAWARE
60% , 42% , VIRGINIA TECH
65% , 39% , U CONNECTICUT
68% , 38% , RUTGERS
56% , 31% , INDIANA U
63% , 31% , MICHIGAN ST
68% , 30% , PURDUE
75% , 22% , U IOWA</p>

<p>% of students reporting rank , % students in Top 10% , LAC</p>

<p>78% , 95% , Harvey Mudd
39% , 91% , Haverford
30% , 87% , Williams
44% , 87% , Swarthmore
54% , 86% , Middlebury
60% , 86% , Pomona
53% , 85% , Claremont McK
52% , 84% , W&L
52% , 82% , Bowdoin
57% , 81% , Davidson
50% , 79% , Amherst
46% , 76% , Wellesley
44% , 76% , Hamilton
47% , 74% , Carleton
41% , 74% , Barnard
59% , 71% , Whitman
66% , 70% , Vassar
41% , 70% , Scripps
36% , 69% , Oberlin
28% , 69% , Bucknell
45% , 66% , Colorado College
52% , 66% , Macalester
51% , 65% , Wesleyan
30% , 65% , Colgate
38% , 65% , Bryn Mawr
45% , 65% , Occidental
53% , 65% , Lafayette
56% , 64% , Grinnell
46% , 64% , Smith
44% , 63% , Bard
43% , 62% , Mt. Holyoke
54% , 61% , Colby
30% , 61% , Kenyon
33% , 61% , Holy Cross
58% , 59% , Furman
41% , 58% , U Richmond
70% , 56% , US Naval Acad
46% , 53% , Bates
20% , 50% , Trinity
41% , 49% , Sewanee
100% , 43% , US Military Acad</p>

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<p>I don’t know, Hawkette. I don’t see how the factors you’ve listed (one of which I also listed), even in combination, can explain this wide variation in the number of applicants reporting rank. Perhaps some of the schools are imputing rank based on GPA and the school profile, and others don’t do that? Still, the numbers seem awfully screwy.</p>

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<p>U Penn is really the big outlier with others above 80% including Harvard, Columbia and BYU. Otherwise, most of the privates (NUs and LACs) don’t differ that greatly. Frankly, the variance in the publics is harder for me to understand. I guess it is something to do with state mandates.</p>

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<p>Re: Penn, anecdata: I’m at a “top” public school, I suppose, in the near region around Penn. And we get significantly more people in every year than to any other Ivy.</p>

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<p>There might be a problem in wording. Perhaps US News asks “number reporting rank” but schools answer with “Number for which a rank is available.” And that available rank may be from a derived figure or the actual figure reported from the school, depending on the student and his or her school.</p>

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</p>

<p>I don’t think you can let the privates off the hook that easily, hawkette. Set aside Penn as an outlier, but it still makes no sense that Harvard can get this data for 84% of its freshmen, Columbia can get it for 80%, the University of Chicago can get it for 62%–and yet Princeton can only get it for 30% and Boston College can do no better than 29%? That’s a huge variance, even from the Chicago level to the Princeton/BC level. Similarly among LACs: Harvey Mudd 78%, Vassar 66%, Pomona 60%—yet Williams, Colgate, and Kenyon only 30%, Bucknell only 28%, and Trinity a mere 20%? Again, a huge variance. </p>

<p>And it can’t be explained away by saying that “private colleges attract a larger (and sometimes much larger) percentage of their matriculates from private high schools.” No doubt this is true, but that doesn’t explain why Princeton’s reporting rate on class rank is so much lower than Harvard’s, Penn’s, and Columbia’s. Indeed, as PtonGrad2000 points out (post #10), a strong majority of Princeton’s entering freshmen come from public high schools, and the percentage of its entering class coming from private high schools doesn’t differ significantly from schools like Harvard, Columbia, and Penn. If only 30% of Princeton freshmen are reporting class rank and 60% to 70% of the freshmen are coming from public high schools, that means more than half the public high school matriculants aren’t reporting class rank at Princeton—while their counterparts at Penn, Harvard, and Columbia clearly are.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Could be. But that’s pretty much the quintessential case of garbage data, isn’t it? How can you “objectively” compare the data of two schools if one is reporting apples where the other is reporting oranges? As I said, garbage in, garbage out.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>The variance among publics appears on the whole somewhat smaller than among private universities and LACs. And variance among the publics is, if anything, more understandable. It could be state mandates as you suggest. Or it could be as simple as the dominant public university in a state demanding class rank information and thereby making it the de facto norm for virtually all high schools in the state, and therefore for the largest number of the university’s applicants. Other states and other universities may not care, consequently in-state schools won’t care and won’t produce class ranks, and in-state applicants won’t care and won’t submit or won’t even have the data. That would explain most of the state-to-state variance. </p>

<p>Very few of the privates draw their student body so heavily from a single state, however, so there’s got to be some other explanation for the variance between Penn-Harvard-Columbia at one extreme and Princeton at the other.</p>

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<p>Very interesting. Thanks for this and your other data posts.</p>

<p>I don’t know how many schools do this but our public High School does not release class rank. It does however provide a histogram of the GPA distribution from the year before which can be used by colleges, if they so choose, to make a pretty close guess which is something I assume most do.</p>

<p>There is a public report available in town that does show final GPA’s and the cutoffs for something like top 10% do not vary much from year-to-year so an accurate guess is possible but perhaps some colleges prefer not to do that.</p>

<p>Do your high schools report rank?</p>

20

<p>bclintock,
you bring up great points all the time about USNEWS using very bad data and I agree. The million dollar question is how to get them to evaluate more fairly. I have to assume they are aware of the weakness of their analysis and do nothing about it because they designed it to sell magazines rather than be fair. For the life of me, I have no idea why there hasn’t been a credible competitor yet.</p>