<p>I meant to mention this earlier--but I think Rice was still free then. I've heard it said that Rice's price was what put it on the national scene. It allowed it to attract a really great group of students and compete with the best of the schools on the coast, at least for engineering.</p>
<p>It's still a fabulous school, of course, and people don't balk at paying for the education one gets there. That legacy of quality has continued in the ensuing decades. But being free likely was a big boost to its recruiting and selectivity.</p>
<p>Of course, some of the colleges may have fudged their numbers. If anything, that is probably more of an issue today. I took the numbers for 1966 because the earlier guidebooks did not report numbers (Barron's did not report numbers until about 1967; Lovejoy's did not report numbers at all in that period). The meritocracy in college admissions was really just starting. You didn't quite have the obsession with numbers and rankings that you have today, so, if anything, I'd trust the 1966 numbers more than todays. Along the way many colleges started giggering (not including athletes, students admitted under various programs, using numbers from the class as it stood after initial acceptances and deposits rather than matriculants, etc.).</p>
<p>Median scores are not a substitute for rankings, and rankings are largely spurious. The scores just give snapshot, if not perfect, of admissions competition. I just thought it was interesting that a small number of schools have succeeded where most have not in raising their status vis-a-vis the competition.</p>
<p>Heavily discount the competition's price is one strategy. Cranking up the marketing machine seems to be another. But, people seem to be ignoring the biggest winner of all: Princeton. They jumped from nearly the bottom of the favored list to the fabled "P" in HYP by doing one thing: finally accepting Jews.</p>
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Yale was the first in 1969, I believe. Amherst was among the last in 1974.
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<p>Columbia didn't go fully coed until 1983 (the graduate schools and engineering school went much earlier, but the college held out, due mostly to tensions with Barnard).</p>
<p>There was one year in the late 70's....'76?..... that they actually made the test more difficult. Mensa SAT score qualifications for that year are lower than any other year. A mere 1250 versus 1350 or more. </p>
<p>Since a lot of schools are not looking at the writing score on the new test, what is the point????? I say go back to the old 1600 scoring and bring back the SAT II writing test. Four hours is brutal and cruel.</p>
<p>I am starting to think that they enjoy torturing us! LOL</p>
<p>god d*** if this was like 1966 I would have like a full-ride to northwestern even with my meager SAT score!!!!! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr darn you smart kids!!!</p>
<p>actually the lowest WashU ever ranked on USNews was 24th in 1991. This is similar to others such as Hopkins (ranked 22nd at one point), Northwestern (23rd), Penn (20th), Caltech (21st), and even Columbia (18th). USNews has *****-slapped plenty of schools, but despite all the crap WashU gets, it's been a "top" school (by USNews' standards) for at least the past 25 years.</p>
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actually the lowest WashU ever ranked on USNews was 24th in 1991. This is similar to others such as Hopkins (ranked 22nd at one point), Northwestern (23rd), Penn (20th), Caltech (21st), and even Columbia (18th). USNews has *****-slapped plenty of schools, but despite all the crap WashU gets, it's been a "top" school (by USNews' standards) for at least the past 25 years.
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<p>1991 only goes back 16 years. In order to make a claim about the last 25 years the UNSWR rankings would have to go back to at least 1982 (but from what I understand they started this ranking later than that - mid or late 80s IIRC)</p>
<p>btw, does anyone have the USNWR rankings prior to 1991? I remember seeing those somewhere.</p>
<p>A year or 2 back, someone posted a link to a program that compares (converts) what SAT scores were thento what they would be now. can anyone find that post with the concversion program? I recall that my scores, by today's calculations (using hte 1600 pt scale) would be like 100 pts higher than I got back then. So, we aren't comparing apples to apples when looking at the averasge SAT scores back then to now.</p>
<p>I mention 1991 in particular because that was when WashU hit its lowest point on the USNews ranking of 24th. When WashU was first ranked, back in the early 80s, I believe it was in the low 20s (23/22) and then moved around, hitting 19 and then going back up. I in fact do have the link to the rankings over the years but it's on my other computer so I'll post it later.</p>
<p>brand, that would be great if you could post it (note: not the 91 onward historical ranking - which I have - but the pre-1991 list if you have it)</p>
<p>I've read that the conversion to recentering is +70 points on the verbal and +30 points on the math. So +100 pts. overall.</p>
<p>This may be approximate as the point difference before and after recentering may depend on what your score is, but I've read that the conversion above is a good rule-of-thumb.</p>
<p>Incidentally, around 50 to 60 years ago the SAT was scored much harder than even 20 years ago.</p>
<p>the other interesting thing about this list is that they give a mean score instead of the median. When the US News ranking lists the 25%-75% range, they are essentially giving the median. The median is not affected by outliers. </p>
<p>Schools today aren't hurt in the US News ranking by taking people with very low scores. Hypothetically, an ivy could take 24% of athletes/legacy/development people with 600 combined SAT's and it wouldn't affect their 25%-75% range.</p>
<p>I agree with Xiggis post that the womens schools scores appear unusually high--at least the top three. Vassar seems more like it.</p>
<p>I checked the Yale number against the Yale history document on its website and the 1380, remarkably, agreed with the history. Interestingly, here are the following numbers available from that history. Note the decline-!?</p>
<p>Michelle Hernandez discusses the recentering issue in her book. Especially the explosion post- recentering in the number of 1600 scores. We are slowly moving towards a generation of parents who will use the recentered scores as their benchmarks.</p>
<p>I have the 1976 Barron's book as well, and if I get around to it I'll post those scores as well. They are lower than the 1966 scores across the board. There is no "conversion method" for translating contemporary scores into 1966 scores or any earlier scores. As I have mentioned before, the demographics of the test takers cannot be pinpointed, and they have shifted dramatically. Attempts to translate scores assume that the center point is the same, but it is not.</p>
<p>Let me explain it this way. Assume, just making up the numbers, that the the median score was 900 20 years ago. Then, the scores were recalibrated to make 1000 the median. Does that mean that looking at scores today you can subtract 100 pionts and you will have an equivilent score from 20 years ago? No! If they are centering the scores at 1000, the abilities of the student at the center may have changed from 20 years ago due to the demographics of the test takers. If the abilitiy of the median student has declined by say 40 points over the past 20 years because of a wider demographic group taking the test and they are still centering it 100 points above where they were 20 years ago, a given student of given abilities should score not only 100 points higher due to the recalibration but an additional 40 points higher due to the interplay between the demographics and the centering. Now, the exact demographics are unknown. We only know that ever since the 1950s the demographic cohort taking the test has gotten larger and expanded from the higher socioeconomic strata from which it started. So that number, that I called 40 points for purposes of illustration, cannot be pinpointed.</p>