<p>I created an "effectiveness ratio" by dividing the graduation rate by the SAT midpoint (multiplied by 100,000 for scaling). My rationale is that the higher the graduation rate relative to SATs, the more effective the college is at graduating students. The higher the grad rate and the lower the SAT the higher the "effectiveness ratio".</p>
<p>This places colleges with tough curricula and high grading standards at a disadvantage. I don't know how to get around that. Keep that fact in mind as you interpret the rankings. </p>
<p>universities</p>
<p>effectiveness ratio, grad rate, SAT midpoint, school</p>
<p>71.24 84.1% 1180 Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus
71.15 93.2% 1310 University of Virginia-Main Campus
69.75 90.0% 1290 University of California-Los Angeles
68.60 84.4% 1230 Yeshiva University
68.50 79.1% 1155 University of California-Davis
68.34 91.2% 1335 Boston College
68.32 79.9% 1170 University of California-Santa Barbara
67.96 95.5% 1405 University of Notre Dame
67.75 91.5% 1350 College of William and Mary
67.44 84.3% 1250 University of California-San Diego
67.30 89.2% 1325 Wake Forest University
67.18 79.6% 1185 University of California-Irvine
66.94 93.4% 1395 Georgetown University
66.87 88.3% 1320 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
66.84 81.5% 1220 Syracuse University
66.63 80.3% 1205 Miami University-Oxford
66.51 94.8% 1425 University of Pennsylvania
66.47 88.1% 1325 University of California-Berkeley
66.32 94.8% 1430 Brown University
66.25 77.5% 1170 University of Delaware
65.90 95.2% 1445 Stanford University
65.90 92.9% 1410 Northwestern University
65.77 91.8% 1395 Cornell University
65.50 74.3% 1135 Michigan State University
65.41 90.9% 1390 Vanderbilt University
65.33 88.8% 1360 Brandeis University
65.30 90.4% 1385 Johns Hopkins University
65.29 77.7% 1190 Texas A & M University
65.20 93.6% 1435 Duke University
64.81 81.0% 1250 University of Florida
64.74 79.6% 1230 Fordham University
64.72 96.8% 1495 Harvard University
64.66 92.8% 1435 Columbia University in the City of New York
64.63 96.0% 1485 Yale University
64.58 77.5% 1200 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
64.47 93.5% 1450 Dartmouth College
64.44 78.3% 1215 Clemson University
64.37 79.2% 1230 Pepperdine University
64.12 90.4% 1410 Rice University
64.04 95.1% 1485 Princeton University
63.99 81.6% 1275 Boston University
63.75 82.6% 1295 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
63.57 77.5% 1220 The University of Texas at Austin
63.50 92.1% 1450 Washington University in St Louis
63.49 87.9% 1385 Emory University
63.41 65.9% 1040 University of California-Riverside
63.29 90.2% 1425 University of Chicago
63.21 74.3% 1175 University of Denver
63.15 83.0% 1315 Lehigh University
63.14 84.3% 1335 New York University
63.12 75.9% 1203 Clark University
63.08 89.3% 1415 Tufts University
63.06 77.9% 1235 Brigham Young University
63.05 75.0% 1190 Marquette University
63.04 81.9% 1300 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
62.99 92.6% 1470 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
62.85 75.4% 1200 University of Washington-Seattle Campus
62.83 71.9% 1145 Indiana University-Bloomington
62.83 77.0% 1225 University of Georgia
62.72 74.6% 1190 University of Connecticut
62.64 79.9% 1275 University of Maryland-College Park
62.44 86.8% 1390 Carnegie Mellon University
62.28 81.3% 1305 Case Western Reserve University
62.19 79.0% 1270 University of Wisconsin-Madison
62.08 74.5% 1200 Saint Louis University-Main Campus
61.96 84.6% 1365 University of Southern California
61.66 73.1% 1185 Rutgers University-New Brunswick
61.66 70.6% 1145 Purdue University-Main Campus
61.53 82.1% 1335 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
61.32 75.1% 1225 University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Campus
61.30 77.2% 1260 SUNY at Binghamton
61.20 81.1% 1325 University of Rochester
60.75 78.1% 1285 George Washington University
59.90 68.3% 1140 University of California-Santa Cruz
59.88 76.3% 1275 University of Miami
59.83 75.7% 1265 Stevens Institute of Technology
59.62 76.3% 1280 Tulane University of Louisiana
59.24 71.7% 1210 Baylor University
58.81 75.6% 1285 Worcester Polytechnic Institute
58.53 89.3% 1525 California Institute of Technology
58.41 77.7% 1330 Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus
58.04 71.4% 1230 Ohio State University-Main Campus
57.81 71.1% 1230 Southern Methodist University
57.68 73.0% 1265 American University
57.60 67.4% 1170 University of Colorado at Boulder
56.74 67.2% 1185 University of Missouri-Columbia
56.09 63.4% 1130 Auburn University Main Campus
55.28 65.8% 1190 Iowa State University
55.11 65.9% 1195 University of Iowa
50.69 63.4% 1250 University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
49.83 57.8% 1160 The University of Tennessee</p>
<p>effectiveness ratio, grad rate, SAT midpoint, school</p>
<p>72.88 78.0% 1070 Spelman College
70.38 79.9% 1135 Saint Johns University
69.94 81.7% 1167.5 College of Saint Benedict
69.57 89.4% 1285 Lafayette College
68.97 83.4% 1210 Muhlenberg College
68.51 92.7% 1353 Davidson College
68.45 81.5% 1190 DePauw University
68.05 89.5% 1315 Bucknell University
67.91 85.9% 1265 Smith College
67.70 93.1% 1375 Vassar College
67.25 82.7% 1230 St Mary’s College of Maryland
67.16 86.3% 1285.5 University of Richmond
67.06 89.9% 1340 Colgate University
67.04 95.2% 1420 Williams College
66.84 86.6% 1295 Trinity College
66.84 95.6% 1430 Amherst College
66.60 92.2% 1385 Wesleyan University
66.45 91.4% 1375 Middlebury College
66.22 92.0% 1390 Wellesley College
66.17 92.6% 1400 Carleton College
66.14 89.3% 1350 Barnard College
66.03 78.2% 1185 Hope College
65.77 86.2% 1310 St. Olaf College
65.62 91.2% 1390 Haverford College
65.56 81.9% 1250 Illinois Wesleyan University
65.03 83.2% 1280 Furman University
65.02 81.6% 1255 Skidmore College
64.83 76.2% 1175 Juniata College
64.80 86.2% 1330 Wheaton College
64.79 93.9% 1450 Swarthmore College
64.70 82.8% 1280 Dickinson College
64.64 79.8% 1235 Willamette University
64.63 77.2% 1195 Wofford College
64.56 86.2% 1335 Whitman College
64.36 93.6% 1455 Pomona College
64.10 70.5% 1100 Sweet Briar College
64.05 88.7% 1385 Washington and Lee University
64.04 86.1% 1345 Macalester College
63.95 83.8% 1310 Bryn Mawr College
63.90 88.5% 1385 Bowdoin College
63.89 86.9% 1360 Colby College
63.85 86.5% 1355 Grinnell College
63.77 89.3% 1400 Claremont McKenna College
63.58 77.9% 1225 Austin College
63.57 78.2% 1230 Sewanee: The University of the South
63.40 83.1% 1310 Colorado College
63.31 84.2% 1330 Kenyon College
63.17 81.5% 1290 Gettysburg College
63.07 81.4% 1290 Occidental College
62.43 78.7% 1260 Denison University
62.38 71.1% 1140 Presbyterian College
62.10 75.5% 1215 Ursinus College
61.81 71.4% 1155 Drew University
61.79 68.6% 1110 Hollins University
61.72 70.7% 1145 Albion College
61.59 76.1% 1235 University of Puget Sound
61.51 79.7% 1295.5 Thomas Aquinas College
61.24 81.1% 1325 Connecticut College
61.08 79.1% 1295 Beloit College
60.73 71.1% 1170 Birmingham Southern College
60.73 82.3% 1355 Oberlin College
60.59 74.5% 1230 Earlham College
60.52 71.0% 1173 Wabash College
60.19 68.0% 1130 Virginia Military Institute
59.96 72.6% 1210 The College of Wooster
59.32 77.7% 1310 Kalamazoo College
59.07 73.2% 1240 Centre College
59.02 69.1% 1170 Agnes Scott College
58.89 71.4% 1212.5 Allegheny College
58.53 79.6% 1360 Scripps College
58.44 72.2% 1235 Southwestern University
58.05 73.1% 1260 Rhodes College
57.84 71.4% 1235 Pitzer College
57.42 68.0% 1185 Ohio Wesleyan University
57.37 69.1% 1205 Millsaps College
57.15 66.9% 1170 Goucher College
56.39 84.3% 1495 Harvey Mudd College
55.75 71.6% 1285 Knox College
54.42 75.6% 1390 Reed College
53.11 65.6% 1235 Hendrix College
51.95 59.5% 1145 Hanover College
50.57 57.1% 1130 Mills College
48.23 52.1% 1080 Randolph-Macon College
46.26 56.7% 1225 Bennington College
45.09 50.5% 1120 Wells College
42.48 56.3% 1325 New College of Florida</p>
<p>Interesting, but until one factors in socio-economic status of the students, it only presents a limited picture of how well a school is doing at graduating its students.</p>
<p>Take two public schools for this real world example. School A has a slightly better graduation numbers but significantly lower admissions stats.</p>
<p>School A: Has a 80% acceptance rate, a freshman class with a middle 50% range on the ACT of 24-28 and class rank figures of 35% from top tenth and 77% from top quarter.</p>
<p>They also have an overwhelmingly white, upper middle class student body. 54% of their students come from families with 100K+ incomes (as opposed to 38% for selective public universities overall and 55% for selective private universities overall). Their student body has less than 10% of first generation college students (as opposed to 15% overall and 17% for public universities.)</p>
<p>School B: Has a 52% acceptance rate, a freshman class with a middle 50% range of 26-30 and class rank figures of 57% from the top tenth and 91% from the top quarter. Yet they have both a lower overall grad rate and predictably score lower on your index than School A. Now look at the difference between them and School A on factors of race, class and income.</p>
<p>They score far better on issues of socio-economic diversity than school A–or even their peers among selective public universities. Only 27% of their student body comes from families with 100+ incomes, and 22.7% of their student body is first generation college students. Additionally, they have a high degree of racial diversity on campus and have recently made lists of the best campuses in America for African-Americans (one of the few public, non-traditionally AA campuses included) and Hispanics.</p>
<p>Studies have shown that of two students with similar qualifications (i.e. scores, gpa and class rank), those students from comfortable financial backgrounds and whose parents are college graduates will graduate quicker and at a higher rate than the student from more moderate means and/or whose parents did not attend college.</p>
<p>Graduation rates are an important factor, but I feel they should be taken in context with other socio-economic factors; otherwise, you’re just rewarding schools for turning themselves into overgrown prep schools rather than engines of social advancement and mobility.</p>
<p>What grad rate are you using? I’m gathering 4-year, but I think that unfairly penalizes many of the engineering-focused schools (e.g., Carnegie Mellon, Case Western, Ga Tech), since an engineering degree is quite difficult to complete in four years under even the best of circumstances. Also, at a commuter-heavy campus like the Univ of Minn, many of the students are barely full time, taking just enough credits to remain a dependent (and usually juggling a work schedule. Not to mention the joys of trying to get registered for necessary courses when classes fill up quickly. A six-year grad rate is probably a more realistic measuring device for the large public institutions.</p>
<p>A great metric that takes aptitude and socioeconomic factors into consideration has been developed by the Washington Monthly – it looks at the degree to which a school’s graduation rate over/under performs after taking SAT scores and Pell Grant recipients into account.</p>
<p>Not only that, but some schools have popular five year bachelor’s + master’s programs, and those students (who are typically very successful students) will technically not have graduated in four years, as they receive their bachelor’s and master’s degrees together.</p>
<p>Hmmmm… per Washington Monthly, Harvard & MIT should be graduating 102% of their students, which is quite the lofty standard! That percentage must not have been derived by a MIT grad, ha ha.</p>
<p>I’m also not sure what SAT midpoint has to do with anything, here. Why would you divide graduate rate by SAT midpoint? Particularly since while the selectivity of a school does factor into rankings (sort of by definition), it does not necessarily factor into how effective a school is in graduating students, since you have a confound – those with lower socioeconomic status are more likely to have lower SAT scores, and they are also less likely to graduate from college. You’d have to control for socioeconomic status in order for your “effectiveness ratio” to work.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I like that my alma mater is at the top of the liberal arts list :D</p>
<p>ETA: I guess this is a good measure of “places that will foster your learning regardless of what your SAT score is,” maybe.</p>
<p>Actually, I read that there is no correlation between SATs and parent’s adjusted gross income at one large private university. Zero. I think the correlation between income and SATs is generally weak, less than .2.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the average income at this same university is higher for non graduates than graduates. Higher income means less financial aid. perhaps it is the wealthier families who are actually at a disadvantage.</p>
<p>One university does not a representative sample make. Research from large samples of university students has shown that students in lower socioeconomic classes get, on average, lower SAT scores and that they are also less likely to graduate from universities/colleges than their higher SES peers.</p>
<p>If it is true that lower income students have lower SATs, is there an ethical way to get less capable students through college without compromising standards? If you lower standards, the more capable students are going to graduate at higher rates too and the disparity will remain.</p>
<p>And any suggestion that it is the wealthiest families that are at a disadvantage will raise a lot of eyebrows. Even with lots of grant aid, students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds have a much tougher time completing school than their wealthy peers.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes. Look at the individual student’s achievement and not the SAT. The SAT can be very easily coached with high price tutors.</p>
<p>First, we’d have to assume that SAT scores are an accurate measure of “capability.” With the example of Spelman, for instance, their raw graduation rate is around that of universities whose average SAT score is 200+ higher than theirs. This is why colleges use admissions standards other than the SAT to evaluate applicants – GPA, essays, letters of recommendation, etc.</p>
<p>Even with that assumption, however, the ethical way is to provide services to those who need and want them. For example, let’s assume that SAT scores are accurate measures of capability, and let’s say that the reason why certain people with lower SES got lower SAT scores is because they weren’t effectively taught how to write in high school. One solution is to require a University Writing course or an English composition course at a different level out of students whose SAT writing scores were below a certain level, but whose other stats were excellent. Another is to establish a university writing center and encourage those students to go to it for help. Most universities have those kinds of amenities for their students – Spelman’s writing center, for one, was an excellent one. Similar standards could be had for math.</p>
<p>Another thing is that lower SES students often don’t have the resources to participate in study abroad and other enrichment opportunities, so schools can offer need-based aid and offer to meet 100% of a student’s need, if they have the capability. If you eliminate concern for money as one of the largest reasons why lower SES students do poorly and drop out, then they are able to compete at the same level as their richer peers.</p>
<p>I think your heart is in the right place but I am not optimistic about the potential for academic support programs to overcome the debilitating effects of poverty in any significant way. Such programs might rescue a few marginal students but the insidious impact of poverty is too permanent and pervasive. You are not going to reverse the damage by making 18-year-olds write paragraphs for one hour per week.</p>
<p>Colleges have had programs in place for a long time and there has been little change in graduation rates.</p>
<p>A child’s potential has to be nurtured from conception through good health care and strong families. But I wish you luck.</p>