<p>How would you factor in graduation rates relative to average SAT scores as a way to judge undergrad college quality, especially top colleges with engineering? How much weight would you give the grad rate-SAT relationship (assuming grad rates stem mostly from student quality but partly from college quality)? How would you interpret the US News "predicted graduation rate" "actual graduation rate" "over- under-performance". The US News predicted grad rate comes mostly from average SAT and HS rank and a little from educational expenditures per student. Is the overunderperformance an indicator of the quality of the college over and above the quality of students?</p>
<p>Here are the numbers I am trying to interpret (in order according to overunderperformance):
college,SAT 75th %ile,predicted grad rate, actual grad rate, over-under perf</p>
<p>U Mich ,1340,75,85,+10
U Illinois ,1380,74,81,+7
Princeton,1560,93,97,+4
Cornell ,1470,90,92,+2
Nwestern,1480,91,93,+2
Stanford ,1560,92,94,+2
UTAustin ,1350,70,71,+1
UPenn ,1510,92,92,0
J-Hopkins,1470,89,88,-1
MIT ,1560,93,92,-1
Rice ,1530,92,90,-1
RPI ,1400,82,81,-1
Berkeley ,1440,87,85,-2
CalTech ,1580,93,89,-4
CMU ,1480,88,81,-7
GeorgTch,1430,81,69,-12</p>