<p>Colgating–I’m glad to hear that some students are still doing well after Colgate. I think I know of both students you’re speaking about–and you’re right, a few students do very well after Colgate. A few students do very well after going to a state school too. Throughout the admissions process, and now as a medical school, I’ve seen our peer schools do much better than Colgate (for the record, my medical school didn’t interview a single Colgate student this year). As I’ve mentioned in other threads, I feel that this is due to our grade deflation more than anything else. Which leads me to my following point–</p>
<p>ColgateDad–It feels good to know that some graduate schools take our grade deflation into consideration; but I don’t think its fair to take the leap from one law school to ALL graduate schools without more data. Personally, I have never heard of top medical schools using a list like this. I will talk to the admissions at my (top) school though, and get back to you guys.</p>
<p>EDIT: Some quick research says that the law school is no longer using the “Boalt Formula”.</p>
<p>My point is contained in my initial sentence that all GPA’s are not created equal. I am not suggesting that I know of any similar ranking in use today, but there was this ranking in use some years ago at UCBerkeley which I’ve described above and which clearly ranked Colgate fairly impressively. Make of that what you wish. </p>
<p>It says pretty clearly that the perception which at least one graduate school had of the large number of undergraduate colleges that tend to get ranked in various lists in various ways ought to be considered in at least one other way – rigor of academic program. I don’t know if rigor of academic program is a factor included in the usual undergraduate rankings for freshman admissions. If such considerations are made, Colgate may (or should) rank fairly high. Or maybe not. But I’d bet that it is. </p>
<p>In any case, if rankings like this are no longer in use using mathematical formulas, certainly perceptions admissions people have of the quality of academics (or lack of it) is of some importance as they make their decisions. These must vary over time, of course. </p>
<p>So much focus is put on undergraduate admissions statistics (most popular schools, acceptance rate, yield, average SAT’s, and so on), one wonders if the overall quality of academic program and its rigor are not also key factors. Are they? If they are, do they correspond to the usual rankings we always see or are they different? This list suggests fairly different ranking order which I found very interesting. Would most people rank Harvard, Yale, and Princeton below Colgate in a list of academic rigor? I make no larger claims than that.</p>
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