Experts Develop New Way to Rank Colleges

<p>I will eventually read the full article, but I would like to offer preliminary congratulations to the authors on producing a college admissions study even less useful than US NEWS. Extra points for the three-year old data, too.</p>

<p>"Mini: I think that there is a correlation (inverse) with some of these schools and your "entitlement index." Some schools are about where you would expect them to be, but ones which are higher or lower are probably there because kids take financial awards elsewhere."</p>

<p>I think the actual effect is unknown. The HYPs and Williams/Davidsons/Browns of the world can have as high an entitlement index score or as low a one as they chose. If they don't give out financial aid to a lot of students it is because they CHOOSE not to give out a lot of such aid. And the choice not to give it out lies in the admissions office, not the financial aid office. The inverse is true for the MITs/Caltechs/Berkeleys/Occidentals/Smiths. </p>

<p>Students without financial need - those in the top 5% of the U.S. population (able to pay $168k over four years) -- are free to make head-to-head choices. The rest of us are not. What the study does is show where members of the leisure class (to use Thorsten Veblen's term) choose to send their kids to school. Nothing wrong with that, but not many of these families are choosing to send their kids to Cooper Union or Berea. </p>

<p>My d. (to use another example) had very significant financial need, and applied and was accepted to a bunch of 100% of need schools. Yet, the differences between the lowest and highest offers were massive. It is unlikely we could have afforded the lowest one (I'm thankful we weren't reduced to having to figure it out.) The study would have missed us (and likely 90% of the U.S. population) totally.</p>

<p>Mini, I'm having trouble grasping your point that the study fails to factor in need-based decisions in showing "revealed preference," though I agree that they don't mention it in their discussion, and I'm mindful of your views that "need blind" admission is a bogus claim: a preference is clear-cut, x or o, however complex the reasons for it. If a choice is dependent on a better aid offer, it's still a choice. Therefore, schools offering better aid will do better in this system because they win more head to heads, no? What am I missing?</p>

<p>On a more general issue, I'm surprised at the number of posters who feel this study is worthless. One of the few things I liked about Princeton Review (I'm a Fiske fan) is the "Students who applied here sometimes preferred ...and usually preferred..." section. This study, despite the "thinness" of the data, attempts to statistically address that issue.</p>

<p>Idler, I'm one of the ones who called it useless, and I was a bit harsh, I agree! But - to take just one example that does NOT consider financial aid, regarding a school my nephew goes to and I know something about - I read that despite the fact that Bowdoin is perpetually in the top ten among LACS, it is often NOT chosen by people outside of the East Coast due to the number of connecting flights that must be made (flying to NY, then Boston, then Portland --- or even just Boston to Portland) as opposed to, say Wesleyan, which is a few hour car ride away from the NYC ariports.
I firmly believe that is why Wesleyan - even when it was ranking lower than the top ten, which it cracked this year, was always listed with AWS as a "Little Ivy" while Bowdoin, a very fine institution, was ignored.
Of course, this becomes self-perpetuating, in that people then do not choose it not only (or not just) because of flights, but because it appears to them that Wesleyan and other schools not as far away as Maine are more prestigious.</p>

<p>I believe Bowdoin would have a different rep if it were in Connecticut!</p>

<p>Voronwe:</p>

<p>I disagree. Bowdoin is ranked higher than Wesleyan in USNWR, so rep is not an issue. When it comes to preference, however, factors such as location come into play. So people prefer Wesleyan to Bowdoin because of its location. What's new? I suspect many people prefer Harvard over Yale or Princeton also because of location.
Disclaimer: My S chose W over B because of location (south rather than north), and also because of size (Bowdoin being smaller than his high school). Neither factors can be altered, and therefore gamed.</p>

<p>"Therefore, schools offering better aid will do better in this system because they win more head to heads, no? What am I missing?"</p>

<p>Maybe, or maybe not - and that's the whole point. Yale or Princeton, for example, are said to offer very excellent financial aid, but only to a small number (relative to other colleges) of admittees. So the "head-to-heads" involve a much larger number of folks who don't require any financial aid (or, as Veblen put it "the leisure class"). So the revealed preference is indeed revealing, but only for those in the top 5% of the population economically speaking. We don't know one way or the other regarding preferences given financial need - as I already noted, my d. turned down one very high ranked school in favor of another very high ranked school, both of which would well have served her needs, among other reasons because the financial aid package at one included $18k in loans and a campus job washing dishes, and the other included no loans and a research assistantship. For those from the top 5% of the population, this wouldn't make a difference in the least. In other words, I grant that the study "reveals preferences" - what make it "worthless" is that one can't get any idea from the study as to what the preferences "mean".</p>

<p>And for most of the population, financial issues trump quality-related issues every time. (Most folks don't buy BMWs.) The revealed preferences are obvious - most folks go to state universities and community colleges, and buy used cars.</p>

<p>(And, yes, travel makes a big difference too. My d. didn't consider Cornell, for example, because, for us, it would be an extraordinary schlepp.)</p>

<p>I'm not disagreeing with you, Marite - my only point is that there are several factors, from location to financial aid to what one's parents insist on, and maybe more, that will have an effect on the final choice. in other words, another school may have been preferred, so as a ranking of "preferred" schools it is useless. As a ranking of "what schools were chosen" it may be accurate, but I find it of little value.</p>

<p>PS - nephew chose Bowdoin over Wesleyan because of a sailing team that practices on the ocean! A geographical factor that also cannot be altered!</p>

<p>Voronwe:</p>

<p>In surveys such as these, preference is not really about "what I would really like"but what I end up choosing. Individually, buyers may have different reasons to choose to buy a particular product instead of another. In the aggregate, these individual reasons do not really matter. What matters is the outcome of these individual reasons and individual choices. And it matters for the seller rather than for the buyer.
As a "buyer," it matters not to me that Harvard gets chosen over Princeton or Yale more often than the reverse--that won't affect my S's decision.<br>
For the colleges, especially if they seek to boost their yield, the results of such a survey probably DO matter. They cannot change their location and would not want to change their size. They can tweak their admission strategies (ED vs. EA), they can zero in on certain groups of applicants over others, they can do outreach and they can offer larger aid packages. They have to know who their competition is in order to adopt the appropriate strategy.<br>
I see value in such a survey--and I also think it is part of a much larger project that includes The Early Admissions Game, rather than just a one-off; but the value is not for the buyers; it is for the sellers.</p>

<p>But then it is interesting how much the "revealed preferences" don't reveal. I'd be willing to bet that 90% of BYU students would choose it over Harvard (and, in my community, I see that happen at least twice a year.) Most, however, don't even apply. We have dozens of students every year who are "Ivy League" material who go to UW. They CHOOSE UW over Brown, Princeton, Dartmouth, etc., and their preferences are so great, they don't even bother to apply to the "inferior" institutions. (and they don't necessarily apply ED, so that doesn't have much to do with it.) </p>

<p>But what most of these students have in common is that their families wouldn't consider paying $168k over four years. Yes, they could apply for financial aid, but their "revealed preference" is not to do so, and to go elsewhere instead. So the study may reveal preferences, but only among those prepared to shell out $168k (top 5% of the population.)</p>

<p>There are thousands and thousands of students with top GPAs and SATs for whom the top 50 schools are just not very attractive.</p>

<p>Marite, when you put it that way (it's for the sellers, not buyers) it makes perfect sense. Thanks!</p>

<p>Mini:</p>

<p>The authors specifically point to BYU as an example of a school chosen by a certain group of students over many other schools that would be considered superior (Notre Dame also has an edge among Catholics).
If we use the case of Evil Robot, who was admitted to Yale, his first choice school but ended up going to Vandy because of a more generous financial aid package, his "revealed preference" would be Vandy, even though Yale was clearly his first choice. That is, indeed, a real limitation of the study.
I wrote in another post that my hunch is that the authors did not include financial aid in order to reduce the number of variables they' re dealing with when using the tournament model. The last section of their article suggests to me they are thinking of possible ways to study preferences among schools lower down. If they do, they would certainly need to include financial aid, but also factors such as geographical preferences (i.,e students from the South choosing southern schools, students from the Midwest going to colleges in the Midwest, and so forth). I suspect, however, that the tournament model might prove too rigid for an expanded study.</p>

<p>The study doesn't offer "meaning," it offers data. Does it mean anything to say that Harvard wins more head to heads than every other school but two 100% of the time, and those two only win it 4 or 5% of the time? Or that Stanford bests Princeton in 76% of the years studied? I think it does. Is it a good guide for individual choice? I think it isn't.</p>

<p>As far as "The Theory of the Leisure Class," Mini, not everyone who doesn't qualify for financial aid is a member of the leisure class, sadly, in fact some might work as hard as you!</p>

<p>Veblen's theory of the leisure class does not have to do with how (or how much, or how hard) people work, but how a culture decides to spend its discretionary income, and how trends in spending such discretionay income are set. Where one sends a child to college is a prime example of the theory at work. In fact, the point of the theory is not to ascertain how the very rich make decisions (in fact, other than pointing, in a rather satiric vein, to a cult of conspicious consumption, this is a weakness of Veblen's work that has often been pointed out), but how it comes to be that the not-so-rich (including myself, I might add) make decisions about their discretionary income. (The theory is NOT mine.)</p>

<p>The data is not greatly useful to "sellers" either, as it is limited to those few for whom the institution is directly competing who would be well-satisfied with 11 or 12 other competing products (as evidenced by the number of applications sent.) It leaves out the revealed preferences of what is likely the majority of the market, potentially high-ranking applicants who do not apply to those institutions at all.</p>

<p>Alls I can say is..when my S went to the Princeton interview, the interviewer asked him if he had applied early action to any school..he had..to Harvard.....Princeton was the only school to which he was waitlisted!!!! Seemed a bit shady to me. Had he not told him the truth, would he have been admitted to Princeton???? THINK SO!</p>

<p>Mini:</p>

<p>I think you underestimate the value of the study to "sellers," at least those included in this particular study. HYP are competing against one another, not against Podunk U. Colleges compete against a limited range of competitors. HYP are competing against one another, not against Podunk U. Sure, there will always be some students who choose colleges outside that limited range--which is why Harvard's yield is not higher, for example.</p>

<p>But they ARE competing against Podunk. That is where they are losing the bulk of their most highly prized students. It is also why the gap among universities (and among liberal arts colleges), or at least the top 150 or so, has narrowed so greatly since, say, 1970. That is what has fueled the creation of honors colleges inside public universities all across the nation.</p>

<p>And the colleges that have closed the gap are those who recognized that top applicants, especially economic and ethnic minorities, were going to Podunk, and starting recruiting in places where Podunk students come from. That is what Amherst's initiative over the past decade (and Smith's for the past three decades) has been all about.</p>

<p>Mini:</p>

<p>I have been around Harvard for many decades, now, and never have I heard Harvard comparing itself to Podunk. There's a great deal of talk about "our sister institutions" which, when itemized is a list of the usual suspects. I suspect the conversations in Princeton and Yale are no different.</p>

<p>"That is where they are losing the bulk of their most highly prized students"</p>

<p>Where do you get that idea from? How do you define "highly prized?" Do you mean URMs?</p>

<p>"I have been around Harvard for many decades, now, and never have I heard Harvard comparing itself to Podunk. There's a great deal of talk about "our sister institutions" which, when itemized is a list of the usual suspects. I suspect the conversations in Princeton and Yale are no different. "</p>

<p>I am sure that is exactly right, and that is exactly why the Honors Colleges are flourishing. They are literally thousands of students with SATs in the 1400,1500s, and 1600, desired URMs, folks with major and advanced skills in music, art, football, track, and tiddlywinks who are streaming into the UW Honors College, the University of Oregon Honors College, and the University of Michigan Honors College, Miami of Ohio Honors College, Berkeley, and dozens of other places who couldn't give a hoot about HYP. Some of these places have SAT cutoffs that are HIGHER than the 25th percentile at H, Y, or P. (Which means that 25% of the accepted students at HYP couldn't even get into these places, which go strictly by the numbers.) Amherst now makes a point of going out and finding them. </p>

<p>Harvard would never compare itself with Podunk. (The theory of the leisure class says that even to allow such a comparison would be odious.) It would certainly never be happy to admit that 25% of its admits couldn't get into some of the state u honors colleges. It's better just to ignore 'em, especially as the students' "revealed preference" is for Podunk.</p>

<p>Mini:</p>

<p>I'm not sure what your point is. HYP all have admission rates hovering around 10%. It is well known that they could throw out the entire group of admits and send acceptance to another group of the same size with exactly the same SATs, GPAs and ECs. The only difference would be the URMs (there's a reason for the U in URM, after all). So they are not letting away the most highly prized students: there just is not enough room for all qualified students at the most selective schools. Thank goodness there are at least 50 institutions of higher learning that are just as good, and Honors colleges at various state universities to asborb all the highly qualified students who do not make it into the top 10 or top 25!
Given this reality, I doubt that the folks at H, Y, P are losing much sleep over the students who end up going to Podunk. I do know of concrete cases, however, of some colleges competing against each other over specific students, by increasing financial aid, for example, or holding out lures of internships, and other extras. The cases I have heard about, however, invariably involve the colleges that compete against one another--the 12 or 13 in your example earlier.
On your other point, if some students do not give a hoot about HYP then they will not be involved in the kind of tournaments that the authors studied. That's fine. Really, the study is not trying to capture all colleges and every last student! It has much more limited goals than that.</p>