<p>There is no way to establish a true, overall ranking that everybody will agree on. I think the data that Senior’s Dad is referring to would be useful and telling to a point, but I agree with Modestmelody that such data should not be the backbone of a ranking, only one of the many criteria.</p>
<p>modestmelody:</p>
<p>I think it would be very good for prospective Brown University students to know that a BU graduate with a 3.8 GPA can pretty much get into any medical school in the country (especially if it’s true).</p>
<p>While that fact, in and of itself, doesn’t tell us whether any particular student will likely graduate from BU with a 3.8 GPA, it tells us a lot (in fact, it tells us precisely what many of us want to know) about those who do.</p>
<p>But BU undoubtedly also knows what kinds of applicants to BU likely will graduate from BU with a 3.8 GPA. Otherwise, either (i) BU is incredibly intellectually incurious, (ii) BU simply doesn’t want to know, or (iii) BU’s admissions process is a total and complete sham.</p>
<p>I am amused by claims that “anything that would suggest that either GPA or SAT scores are adequate predictors of outcomes post-college is guaranteed to disappoint anyone looking to that data as an indicator for their child” made by institutions that rely heavily on GPA and SAT scores. What you are claiming is, in so many words, “while GPA and SAT scores mean the world to us, they are meaningless to you as parents and students making decisions about your and your children’s futures.” No other argument could be more preposterous on its face.</p>
<p>You write that I really should ask “what does that college view as its goals for undergraduates and what examples exist from people who have recently graduated demonstrating having reached those goals.”</p>
<p>I don’t disagree. But neither BU nor many other schools are willing to disclose even those limited kinds of information. BU and other institutions that rely on GPA and SAT scores in admissions decisions cannot be allowed to argue out of one side of their mouths that such data is absolutely determinative in making admissions decisions, but argue that selfsame data is otherwise meaningless.</p>
<p>The fact is, the tools we have at our disposal are GPAs and SAT/ACT scores. It is a poor workman who blames his tools for inadequacy in his craftmanship.</p>
<p>Let me also make one other point absolutely clear: I am not at all concerned about rankings per se. A college that places no one in law school may well be an outstanding engineering school, an outstanding music school, or an outstanding some other kind of school. Similarly, a college that places 100% of its students in law school may be abysmal as an engineering, music, or whatever other kind of school. Rankings (such as USNWR’s) necessarily rank schools as an combination of all of that school’s programs.</p>
<p>Colleges and universities ought to be required to disclose outcome data that they use internally or can easily produce that would be critical to families making significant decisions about their children’s futures.</p>
<p>Even the staunchest libertarian would be comfortable with governmental mandates requiring colleges and universities to operate in the sunshine.</p>
<p>Senior’s Dad, below is a side-by-side comparison in admissions rates between Cornell, Georgetown, UC-Berkeley, Michigan and Penn. In parentathese, I provide the average GPA and LSAT score of the students admitted into the particular program from the university in question. The data seems pretty accurate, but in the case of UC-Berkeley, the data only includes students applying to Law school straight out of college whereas in the case of the other 4 universities, the figures include both students currently at those universities as well as alumni who graduated and applied after gaining work experience.</p>
<p>YALE UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL:
Cornell University: N/A
Georgetown University: 49 applied, 1 admitted, 2% acceptance rate (N/A)
University of California-Berkeley: 16 applied, 2 admitted, 13% acceptance rate (3.86 GPA, 169 LSAT)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor: 33 applied, 3 admitted, 9% acceptance rate (N/A)
University of Pennsylvania: 62 applied, 5 admitted, 5% acceptance rate (N/A)</p>
<p>HARVARD UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL:
Cornell University: 138 applied, 14 admitted, 10% acceptance rate (3.93 GPA, 170 LSAT)
Georgetown University: 114 applied, 14 admitted, 12% acceptance rate (3.83 GPA, 173 LSAT)
University of California-Berkeley: 46 applied, 7 admitted, 15% acceptance rate (3.69 GPA, 169 LSAT)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor: 104 applied, 17 admitted, 16% acceptance rate (3.92 GPA, 173 LSAT)
University of Pennsylvania: 152 applied, 21 admitted, 17% acceptance rate (N/A)</p>
<p>STANFORD UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL:
Cornell University: N/A
Georgetown University: 74 applied, 5 admitted, 7% acceptance rate (3.8 GPA, 170 LSAT)
University of California-Berkeley: 34 applied, 2 admitted, 6% acceptance rate (3.9 GPA, 173 LSAT)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor: 54 applied, 6 admitted, 11% acceptance rate (4.0 GPA, 174 LSAT)
University of Pennsylvania: 98 applied, 8 admitted, 8% acceptance rate (N/A)</p>
<p>COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL:
Cornell University: 186 applied, 31 admitted, 17% acceptance rate (3.75 GPA, 173 LSAT)
Georgetown University: 142 applied, 33 admitted, 23% acceptance rate (3.76 GPA, 171 LSAT)
University of California-Berkeley: 48 applied, 17 admitted, 35% acceptance rate (3.76 GPA, 170 LSAT)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor: 129 applied, 22 admitted, 17% acceptance rate (3.80 GPA, 172 LSAT)
University of Pennsylvania: 217 applied, 51 admitted, 23% acceptance rate (N/A)</p>
<p>NEW YORK UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL:
Cornell University: 185 applied, 40 admitted, 22% acceptance rate (3.76 GPA, 171 LSAT)
Georgetown University: 133 applied, 36 admitted, 27% acceptance rate (3.72 GPA, 172 GPA)
University of California-Berkeley: 44 applied, 16 admitted, 36% acceptance rate (3.69 GPA, 170 LSAT)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor: 131 applied, 25 admitted, 19% acceptance rate (3.76 GPA, 172 LSAT)
University of Pennsylvania: 196 applied, 63 admitted, 32% acceptance rate (N/A)</p>
<p>UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY LAW SCHOOL
Cornell University: 125 applied, 18 admitted, 14% acceptance rate (3.8 GPA, 170 LSAT)
Georgetown University: 101 applied, 9 admitted, 9% acceptance rate (3.82 GPA, 167 LSAT)
University of California-Berkeley: 87 applied, 17 admitted, 20% acceptance rate (3.77 GPA, 169 LSAT)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor: 109 applied, 12 admitted, 11% acceptance rate (3.9 GPA, 170 LSAT)
University of Pennsylvania: 111 applied, 21 admitted, 19% acceptance rate (N/A)</p>
<p>UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LAW SCHOOL:
Cornell University: 98 applied, 23 admitted, 23% acceptance rate (3.67 GPA, 171 LSAT)
Georgetown University: 76 applied, 11 admitted, 14% acceptance rate (3.71 GPA, 172 LSAT)
University of California-Berkeley: 35 applied, 13 admitted, 37% acceptance rate (3.74 GPA, 170 LSAT)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor: 100 applied, 16 admitted, 16% acceptance rate (3.85 GPA, 173 LSAT)
University of Pennsylvania: 96 applied, 34 admitted, 35% acceptance rate (N/A)</p>
<p>UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA LAW SCHOOL:
Cornell University: 152 applied, 31 admitted, 20% acceptance rate (3.67 GPA, 169 LSAT)
Georgetown University: 100 applied, 16 admitted, 16% acceptance rate (3.64 GPA, 171 LSAT)
University of California-Berkeley: 26 applied, 5 admitted, 19% acceptance rate (3.76 GPA, 169 LSAT)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor: 100 applied, 13 admitted, 13% acceptance rate (3.9 GPA, 168 LSAT)
University of Pennsylvania: 251 applied, 64 admitted, 25% acceptance rate (N/A)</p>
<p>UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN-ANN ARBOR LAW SCHOOL:
Cornell University: 133 applied, 28 admitted, 21% acceptance rate (3.72 GPA, 168 LSAT)
Georgetown University: 88 applied, 21 admitted, 24% acceptance rate (3.63 GPA, 168 LSAT)
University of California-Berkeley: 28 applied, 9 admitted, 32% acceptance rate (3.78 GPA, 170 LSAT)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor: 324 applied, 91 admitted, 28% acceptance rate (3.69 GPA, 169 LSAT)
University of Pennsylvania: 113 applied, 36 admitted, 32% acceptance rate (N/A)</p>
<p>NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL:
Cornell University: N/A
Georgetown University: 94 applied, 20 admitted, 21% acceptance rate (3.64 GPA, 167 LSAT)
University of California-Berkeley: 19 applied, 0 admitted, 0% acceptance rate (N/A)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor: 135 applied, 23 admitted, 17% acceptance rate (3.68 GPA, 168 LSAT)
University of Pennsylvania: 104 applied, 31 admitted, 30% acceptance rate (N/A)</p>
<p>UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA LAW SCHOOL:
Cornell University: 128 applied, 32 admitted, 25% acceptance rate (3.77 GPA, 170 LSAT)
Georgetown University: 101 applied, 22 admitted, 22% acceptance rate (3.61 GPA, 169 LSAT)
University of California-Berkeley: 23 applied, 3 admitted, 13% acceptance rate (3.98 GPA, 172 LSAT)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor: 95 applied, 25 admitted, 26% acceptance rate (3.79 GPA, 171 LSAT)
University of Pennsylvania: 101 applied, 22 admitted, 22% acceptance rate (N/A)</p>
<p>CORNELL UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL:
Cornell University: 229 applied, 70 admitted, 31% acceptance rate (3.61 GPA, 166 LSAT)
Georgetown University: 74 applied, 31 admitted, 42% acceptance rate (3.57 GPA, 166 LSAT)
University of California-Berkeley: 22 applied, 4 admitted, 18% acceptance rate (3.67 GPA, 168 LSAT)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor: 78 applied, 22 admitted, 28% acceptance rate (3.69 GPA, 166 LSAT)
University of Pennsylvania: 87 applied, 29 admitted, 33% acceptance rate (N/A)</p>
<p>DUKE UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL:
Cornell University: 147 applied, 50 admitted, 34% acceptance rate (3.73 GPA, 170 LSAT)
Georgetown University: 94 applied, 31 admitted, 33% acceptance rate (3.72 GPA, 170 LSAT)
University of California-Berkeley: 26 applied, 11 admitted, 42% acceptance rate (3.77 GPA, 172 LSAT)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor: 95 applied, 28 admitted, 29% acceptance rate (3.75 GPA, 171 LSAT)
University of Pennsylvania: 120 applied, 40 admitted, 33% acceptance rate (N/A)</p>
<p>GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL:
Cornell University: 245 applied, 66 admitted, 27% acceptance rate (3.64 GPA, 169 LSAT)
Georgetown University: 323 applied, 95 admitted, 29% acceptance rate (3.64 GPA, 167 LSAT)
University of California-Berkeley: 56 applied, 24 admitted, 43% acceptance rate (3.64 GPA, 164 LSAT)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor: 194 applied, 39 admitted, 20% acceptance rate (3.72 GPA, 168 LSAT)
University of Pennsylvania: 241 applied, 84 admitted, 35% acceptance rate (N/A)</p>
<p>Below are the links to the data provided above. It would be cool if other universities published such data, not just for Law school applicants but applicants to all graduate schools.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.career.cornell.edu/downloads/Law/PrelawGuide_2008kg.pdf[/url]”>http://www.career.cornell.edu/downloads/Law/PrelawGuide_2008kg.pdf</a> (scroll to the last page)</p>
<p>[Law</a> School Admission Statistics for Georgetown Students (2007/2006)](<a href=“Cawley Career Education Center | Georgetown University”>Cawley Career Education Center | Georgetown University)</p>
<p>[Career</a> Center - Profile of Law School Admissions - UC Berkeley](<a href=“http://career.berkeley.edu/law/lawStats.stm]Career”>http://career.berkeley.edu/law/lawStats.stm)</p>
<p>[College</a> of Literature, Science, and the Arts | Students](<a href=“http://www.lsa.umich.edu/advising/advisor/prelaw/um_stats]College”>http://www.lsa.umich.edu/advising/advisor/prelaw/um_stats)</p>
<p>[Career</a> Services, University of Pennsylvania](<a href=“http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/gradprof/law/law_stats.html]Career”>http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/gradprof/law/law_stats.html)</p>
<p>Senior’s Dad-- first, I’m not an official from Brown, just so you know. I’m a senior there right now and will be a grad student there next year.</p>
<p>Second, don’t be so sure that all institutions so heavily rely on GPA and SAT-- in fact, Brown’s common data set will show you that we depend more on other criteria such as demonstrated interest (fit) and the rigor of your academic schedule.</p>
<p>Third, universities have a lot of data on various K-12 schools that helps them to disaggregate and make sense of GPA-type data. Whether this model could be done for colleges and universities is hard to say, if for no other reason than the lack of homogeneity between college schedules. GPA at universities and colleges, and especially at Brown, are very poor indicators to look at because of how much student programs differ and how that can fundamentally change expectations. The number of graders at any institution in addition to the lack of standardization, not just across schools, but across universities, even across departments and across individual courses taught by different professors ends up introducing so much variation that such a measure truly loses its value. It’s one of the reasons I think law school’s admissions process is completely backwards and nonsensical.</p>
<p>Third, I’m all about more information. I think we should all have packets full of information. In fact, if you’re really good at looking around college webpages, you can find a remarkable amount of information (at least here at Brown). But I am strongly against supplying the general public with information that is not particularly useful and/or easily abused as much data is because of our mentality. I also am strongly against the idea that each institution should be supplying the same data-- they sometimes don’t even have the same goals in place, never mind the structures and assessments that form due to those goals, so why would we expect to be able to compare the same statistics across schools?</p>
<p>The movement toward E-Portfolio systems at some universities, I think, is a wonderful example of how universities can provide really striking examples of student progress and work to outsiders, though I recognize that does not provide any concrete numbers or data to crunch.</p>
<p>Why should a school release the number of the student with the lowest SAT score at the university? Should we penalize a top school for taking a risk on a student that may have had an exceptional circumstance who may have a tremendous and positive impact on their campus and make huge strides in terms of eliminating the achievement gap because they’re concerned about how the number is going to look published in a book? That’s the problem with reducing people to just a few metrics, none of which are really so widely agreed upon as being great to begin with.</p>
<p>I’m not posting about all of this because I think top schools should be put on pedestals as sacred cows or take anything for granted, I just think it’s a really interesting article that articulates a very real and pressing need to “rank” these institutions that lives outside of the admissions nonsense everyone is caught up in. I’m actually really against ranking in general, in case you can’t tell, but thought this article made a compelling point from a perspective I had yet to consider.</p>
<p>Thanks, Alexandre.</p>
<p>The information you present is helpful. But I come to this discussion as the father of a bright and ambitious high school senior who’s making decisions about where she’ll attend undergraduate school – with an eye to law school or graduate school four-years hence.</p>
<p>What would be most helpful would be the inverse of this information – a listing of undergraduate institutions disclosing their graduates’ placements in various law schools. We are very fortunate to have my daughter’s preferred undergraduate school’s data. What we don’t have is data for her second, third, fourth, and fifth choices with which to compare apples to apples. I do know, for example, that her second, third, and fourth choice undergraduate schools each placed at least one graduate at Harvard Law School this past fall. What we don’t know is how many students applied at HLS from each school, how many were admitted, and how many actually attend law school. That kind of information would ease her undergraduate school decision-making process.</p>
<p>Senior’s Dad, if you check the links at the bottom of post #23, you will find the data you seek…for those 5 universities. Unfortunately, most universities do not publish this sort of information.</p>
<p>I HATE RANKINGS. It makes creates a superioity/inferiority complex b/t people who go to different ranked schools. It sucks cause people buy into it and they come to believe it. It anything it just makes things worse.</p>
<p>Thanks for your clarifications.</p>
<p>That Brown has a lot of data on K-12 schools supports my belief that the same sort of data can be arrived at for colleges and universities since there are far fewer of them than there are K-12 schools.</p>
<p>Maybe it’s a function of my background in the news media or my current work with governmental entities that are required to operate in the sunshine, but I cannot believe the general public is not to be trusted with raw information.</p>
<p>We require governments and public companies to disclose massive amounts of information, wholly without the assurance that everyone who learns of the information will draw the “correct” conclusions from it. With financial data public companies are required to disclose, it is almost a certainty that most members of the general public cannot properly analyze such data on their own. That’s why there are tons of financial advisors whose business it is to know what the information contained in prospectuses means (and even these “experts” frequently do not, in hindsight, draw “correct” conclusions from prospectus data).</p>
<p>Again, I don’t disagree with your statements that:</p>
<p>“GPA at universities and colleges, and especially at Brown, are very poor indicators to look at because of how much student programs differ and how that can fundamentally change expectations. The number of graders at any institution in addition to the lack of standardization, not just across schools, but across universities, even across departments and across individual courses taught by different professors ends up introducing so much variation that such a measure truly loses its value.”</p>
<p>But that argument, taken at face value, undercuts even the notion of a GPA, yet, as you concede, law schools, medical schools, business schools, and graduate schools all assign significant value to undergraduate GPA. Even Brown relies on grades for awarding degrees magna cum laude.</p>
<p>I don’t know why you are concerned that the scores of the lowest SAT score-archiving students would be identified. Instead of being an object of shame, that a college or university took a risk “on a student that may have had an exceptional circumstance who may have a tremendous and positive impact on their campus and make huge strides in terms of eliminating the achievement gap” should be viewed as a badge of honor. The only shame would be if that student were hopelessly in over his- or her-head. Even then, the shame would be the institution’s for making a poor choice among numerous exceptional circumstance students, not the student’s.</p>
<p>I suspect that, at base, your objection to disclosure of pertinent and relevant information is your fear that it will be used by third parties to conceive a “ranking” of colleges and universities. While disclosure of such information may well facilitate ranking, the primary purpose of my suggestions is to facilitate the free flow of information to students and families whom I believe are entitled to it and to diminish secrecy. In fact, publication of factual data can only improve rankings of colleges and universities by enhancing public knowledge of the facts upon which the rankings are based.</p>
<p>Well I think for obvious reasons you shouldn’t release the lowest SAT score. How would you like knowing you have the lowest SAT score at xxx? But I think that is not the information that I and (I haven’t fully read your posts) Senior’s Dad thirst for. Obviously I understand why the information we are requesting may not be given out-that’s right the average GPA for Brown students accepted to Harvard Med school for instance is more relevant to Brown students-I still think that as long as it’s interpreted correctly you’re fine.</p>
<p>I am a social scientist and non-profit consultant. I have to try to figure out what is wrong with a company with bad data and with the staff trying to make sure I never find out what is going on. In any organization what is going on is not in the brochure. This is not because it it bad per se. Every organization ends up being a social version of biodiversity. A college is a micro-ecology of social meanings and options that is highly unique. At a top school, like Princeton, the things that get people out of bed every day are indeed one little sliver of the big pie-chart of our national life. The thing is, at a top school, all those little one-in-a-million slivers are packed up against one another. Every other person is doing something amazing. Example, the girl sitting next to you in music theory II can’t seem to get Beethoven in her ear and neither can you. So that brings you together. Turns out that she can’t get Beethoven in her ear because she is the best 20 year old jazz pianist in the world. You can’t get him in your ear because you study voice and are composing new neo-renaissance melodies for the songs in The Tempest. Problems, problems. The problem with the data is that they don’t come within a mile of what motivates those students and keeps them up at night.</p>
<p>Look, if you are the lowest SAT-scoring undergraduate at a school like Brown, you either a) know (or at least strongly suspect) you are the lowest SAT-scoring undergraduate at Brown or b) REALLY, REALLY, REALLY should not be at Brown at all.</p>
<p>My BS-o-meter has been running high all night on this thread. cpenoi’s post burst the thing. Good night.</p>
<p>I am, in fact, undercutting the notion of GPA.</p>
<p>Brown has undercut that notion for sometime:<a href=“http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Dean_of_the_College/faculty/documents/gpaStatement.pdf[/url]”>http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Dean_of_the_College/faculty/documents/gpaStatement.pdf</a> </p>
<p>While Brown currently uses a measure not so different from GPA for magna, there quire discussions going on right now as to whether that measure makes sense. Additionally, it is against faculty rules and regulations to withhold honors from a student based on GPA-- you can ask for quality grades, but there can be no official cut off and honors is primarily supposed to be a reflection of the quality of one’s thesis.</p>
<p>I don’t think we need to not report lowest SAT score because of the mental health for that individual, but I do think it’s absolute insanity to think that number is: 1) Helpful to prospective students, because clearly there’s something else which is exceptional about that student that you won’t know; 2) Not going to be used in an abusive fashion; 3) Providing you with significantly more information than the 25-75 range does.</p>
<p>I agree with you Modestmelody. Many universities completely deemnphasize the SAT/ACT. Elite universities and LACs like Bowdoin, Cal and Michigan place very little weight and have much different expectations of their applicants.</p>
<p>The fundamental novelty of the future comes from the unknown and largely unrecognized diversity in aspirations and abilities of each new generation. Some of that novelty and diversity in its most constructive aspect comes from each school. A school participates and enhances that diversity for many reasons it understands and many more that it does not. The important thing is to have a glimmer of where your potential for diversity as a student can borrow and give back to others and grow. That is a ranking of a kind we could use.</p>