Colleges lying about admission statistics

Applying to College
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<p>Actually, who knows what Middlebury is doing with its SAT reporting.</p>

<p>Middlebury requires some kind of standardized testing, but it does not have to be the SAT I (or the ACT); it could also be SATII or AP or IB. So kids presumably designate which standardized test they are relying upon as part of the admission application.</p>

<p>In the past, Middlebury pretty clearly reported on its Common Data Set the SAT I scores only for those enrolled students who relied on the SAT I to satisfy the standardized testing requirement. Thus, the CDS for 2004-05 (Class of 2008) showed 50% of students submitting SAT I tests, and a 25%-50% range of 1380-1500. Pretty clearly, this reporting tactic was designed to inflate the SAT I number and get US News brownie points. The truly distorted figure is the 1380. That 25%number was higher than any other LAC (except Harvey Mudd, but top engineering schools are different because everyone has good Math scores) -- including A,W,S, and Pomona. I don't think so. </p>

<p>The CDS for 2005-06 (Class of 2009) says that 78% of enrolling students report SAT Is and the 25%-75% range is 1280-1475. (How they get a median score ending in a "5" escapes me.) This is much more in keeping with roughly comparable schools like Bowdoin, Carleton, CMC, Davidson, Haverford, Vassar, Wesleyan.</p>

<p>So far so good, But then when you go to the Profile of the Class of 2009 on the Middlebury site, you are told that the 25%-75% range for all enrolled student who submitted SAT I scores is 1230-1400. Those figures are very low. And I would have thought the 78% figure on the CDS was the figure for all enrolled students who submitted SAT Is (some kids do only take the ACTs and therefore have no SAT Is to submit or have reported). </p>

<p>It's a mystery.</p>

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<p>Yes, WesDad, it is a mystery. The 1315 average I mentioned came from the 1230-1400 mid-range you noted from the Profile of the Class of 2009 on the Middlebury site. I do not see why that mid-range should not be the one submitted to USNews for the coming year, along with the percentage of enrolling kids who reported Sat I's. </p>

<p>It will be interesting to see if it will prove to be the case when the new rankings come out in August!</p>

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<p>"(How they get a median score ending in a "5" escapes me.) " When calculating a median if there is an even number of data points, the 2 in the middle are averaged.</p>

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<p>i'm unsure how bowdoin or middlebury "stray." the CDS requires the reporting of all test scores from students who submitted them. </p>

<p>furthermore, i think the tendency to use SAT scores to measure the raw intelligence of the student body makes bowdoin and middlebury unethical. but i don't think this is an appropriate way to look at the SAT. i think, particulalry with schools who don't see the SAT as an broad imprimatur of intelligence or ability, SAT scores should be used almost exclusively to measure one's chances of getting into a college. meaning, for middlebury, it doesn't matter that their scores are inflated; all that matters is that the 50% of people submitting scores, scored in the range they provide. that is to say, if you apply to middlebury and choose to submit your scores, you should realize that the range is rather competitive, irrespective of the actual range of the students who attend. indeed, if you submit, your scores will be compared to only those other applicants who submit and not those who suppress. </p>

<p>i think it would be a disservice to potential applicants if the scores of all freshmen at SAT-optional schools were calculated, because, for admissions purposes, it would reflect an artificially low score range, and would undoubtedly encourage submission of scores that fell below the acceptable range of applicants who submit, and are admitted. </p>

<p>viewing the SATs as anything more than its use value in an admissions process cuts against the very notion these colleges place on the SAT, namely that it is a valuable relfection of ability for some, but not for others, and it cannot be dispositive in determining every applicants ability. </p>

<p>i guess folks could be cynical and say bowdoin and middlebury do this to up their rank, but, at least in bowdoin's case, they made the SAT optional in 1969; and, since 80% of the class submits anyway, the scores (itself only a fraction of the selectivity fraction of the score) are not sufficiently high on a statistical level to make a difference in their ranking. </p>

<p>anyway, just my thought.</p>

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<p>I agree, Trotwood. I'm pretty sure that Middlebury has been SAT optional since the 80s.</p>

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<p>It seems unlikely to me that, on the whole, Middlebury candidates, who have vastly inferior SAT scores to those who submit, would otherwise appear as academically qualified as those who do submit SATs. </p>

<p>It does appear deceiving to a potential applicant when they see a school's avg SAT is 1470 (Princeton Review report for 2004), which would cause the applicant to want to apply thinking Midd is a very top school vs. seeing avg SAT of 1349 (Princeton Review report for 2005) which would cause the applicant to maybe conclude that Midd is not a strong enough school to which to apply.</p>

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<p>It may actually work in a school's favor to have lower SAT I medians, so long as a school is still viewed as an elite institution. There are far more students who score in the mid range on thier SATs than those who score in the top 95% of all test takers. That may explain why Middlebury had an 18% increase in applicants this past year--more students who were academically gifted (in top 10% of class, lots of ECs, good recs) but who didn't score as well as they'd have liked on the SAT I applied because they saw the lower median on Midd's website. It's a double-edged sword. Yes, SAT medians come down, but then you get tons of kids knocking on your door trying to get in (thereby lowering the acceptance rate and making the school appear more selective).</p>

<p>A recent article in the Amherst Student discussed the benefits of becoming SAT-optional, and a student committee is examining how such a policy could benefit Amherst (and it's downside as well).</p>

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<p>perhaps middlebury should only report the sat scores of its male, caucasian, non-legacy, non-athlete, non-performing arts, non-hooked, sat-submitting admitted students? there would certainly be value in such a number... but on the whole the concept of using average sat scores of enrolled students as a rough gauge of overall student quality seems much more valuable.</p>

<p>its a huge pet peeve of mine, actually. i hate it when schools only display their 'admitted' student averages. i always wonder how many people realize how inflated that number is compared to the 'enrolled' student averages that most schools report.</p>

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<p>Trotwood, the CDS scores are not the scores Middlebury is reporting to USNews. Middlebury reports to USNews the scores of those matriculated students who submitted SAT I scores <em>for use in the evaluation process</em>. The scores used in the CDS are the scores of <em>all</em> students who submitted SAT I scores, including those who chose not to have them used in the evaluation process (possibly wanted the SAT II scores used, and Middlebury would then have had access to the SAT I scores). Middlebury may also have asked for the scores after the students had matriculated. </p>

<p>The fact remains, the scores reported to USNews are most certainly inflated.</p>

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<p>The same holds true for Bowdoin, Bates, Hamilton, Mt. Holyoke and a number of other SAT optional schools.</p>

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<p>i remember reading somewhere that midd is changing its reporting policies this year</p>

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<p>to use SAT scores as a barometer of student quality at schools that explicity deny their broad use value seems to be the error of the student, not the institution. i guess i can understand it being a pet peeve for schools not to report the testing average of the entire class if you use the SAT to determine where you ought to go to school and what sorts of students you want to be around. but, if that's the case, why would you ever look at Bowdoin and Middlebury to begin with, both schools that explicitly disavow the SAT as an accurate predictor of success in college? if it merely is a pet peeve because it artificially inflates the reputation of the college relative to other colleges, then i would question the degree to which the difference in SAT averages make a difference in the rankings at all. reputationally, making the SAT optional has not hurt bowdoin, and bowdoin has gained all the more from students who are creative and enterprising but are not served well by the SAT. </p>

<p>I think it's especially important to recognize that there are exceedingly bright people (and this isn't an exaggeration) who do poorly on the SAT. If you consider their lower scores to be something you'd rather avoid in college, then your argument has merit. But it's premised upon privileging the SAT with a kind of IQ quality that not even it's creators envisioned. </p>

<p>I am still unconvinced that SAT optional schools serve the public better by publishing actual SAT averages which are lower than the average applicant-submitter, than by publishing artificially higher SAT averages that actually represent the admitted pool of students submitting their scores. I realize that it doesn't bother me because I don't privilege the SAT with being much more than a standardized skills test (and have had the opportunity at Bowdoin to meet amazing students who did not score well on the SAT). I also concede that if you make the SAT out to be more than it is, my argument has little merit.</p>