<p>I could swear I read this article in Atlantic Monthly about three years ago. Someone put together a simple formula which contained some obvious stats: things like percentage of students admitted, average SAT scores, students in the top 10% of their high school class. And, it turned out a believable list of the 50 most difficult colleges to get into.</p>
<p>As I remember it there were no surprises, well only three that I recall: NYU, USC, and UCSD. The rest of the list included the ivies, the service academies, MIT, Swarthmore, Cooper Union, Stanford, UCLA, etc.</p>
<p>The problem is that I went to the Atlantic Monthly archives and I couldn't find anything that looked like this. That doesn't mean it's not there. I'm terrible at that kind of detail work and although I spent about an hour on it, it's possible I missed it. Or maybe it was in a magazine similer to Atlantic Monthly, like Harper's.</p>
<p>Does anyone know what I'm referring to? Or is there some other list of the 50 toughest admissions that has some credibility?</p>
<p>You might be referring to how they calculate the selectivity ratings in US News and World Report.</p>
<p>How We Do the Rankings
By Robert J. Morse and Samuel Flanigan
Posted 8/17/2007
Page 4 of 4
Student selectivity (15 percent). A school's academic atmosphere is determined in part by the abilities and ambitions of the student body. We therefore factor in test scores of enrollees on the Critical Reading and Math portions of the SAT or Composite ACT score (50 percent of the selectivity score); the proportion of enrolled freshmen (for all national universities and liberal arts colleges) who graduated in the top 10 percent of their high school classes and (for institutions in the universities-master's and baccalaureate colleges) the top 25 percent (40 percent); and the acceptance rate, or the ratio of students admitted to applicants (10 percent). The data are for the fall 2006 entering class.</p>
<p>how hard it is to get into X college has WAY more to do than just acceptance rate. Many top colleges are self-selective, so their applicant pools are a LOT stronger, yet they still accept 10-15% out of those amazingly qualified applicants. If you made Arizona State only accept 10% of their class, that would still not make it as hard to get into as Harvard, because the average applicant to ASU is not as well qualified as the Harvard applicant, and most Harvard applicants would still get into ASU even with this 10% acceptance rate.</p>
<p>I'd argue the opposite. The fact that top colleges have such low acceptance rates is a testament to the lack of self-selectivity in their applicant pools. Think about it: the top colleges have their names out there, so they're going to get more applicants. If many of the not-so-qualified students didn't apply to Harvard, its acceptance rate would be much higher. The same can be said of most of the top 20 (NU and Chicago are two examples where the applicant pools are somewhat self-selective).</p>
<p>
[quote]
The Harvard dean of admissions has stated publicly that 90 percent of applicants are qualified for entrance.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Did he go into specifics of what "qualified" means? I'm assuming not, because "qualified" could mean simply "a 2240 on the SAT." Statements like that are made by admissions all the time, and it's largely to make the applicants feel better (+ for good PR). Harvard has a high standard. If those who don't meet that high standard weren't applying, then that would mean the denominator--the total # applicants--would go down, but the ones who do meet the standard are still there. This would mean a higher acceptance rate.</p>
<p>This idea is supported by the fact that half of Stanford's applicant pool is gone in the first reading -- some are "clear admits" and the rest go on for a second reading.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Did he go into specifics of what "qualified" means? I'm assuming not, because "qualified" could mean simply "a 2240 on the SAT." Statements like that are made by admissions all the time, and it's largely to make the applicants feel better (+ for good PR). Harvard has a high standard. If those who don't meet that high standard weren't applying, then that would mean the denominator--the total # applicants--would go down, but the ones who do meet the standard are still there. This would mean a higher acceptance rate.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Or maybe there are just too many qualified applicants for a tiny number of spots.</p>
<p>like the guy said, what does "qualified" mean? half the kids i know that are applying to harvard are kids who couldn't get into boston college or tufts; they're doing it "just coz it's harvard".</p>
<p>i think that was kyledavid's point, and i think that that is understandable.</p>
<p>sure, "there are just too many qualified applicants for a tiny number of spots."
but being right isn't mutually exclusive hm?</p>
<p>
[quote]
The first point is the “sorting” point, where files are read by the most experienced members of the staff and sorted into competitive or noncompetitive piles. About half the files drop out of the competition at this point.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Clearly, half of the applicants are deemed "noncompetitive" in Stanford's first reading.</p>
<p>Consider that this half did not even apply. Stanford has received ~20,000 RD applicants this year. That means ~10,000 are ones that Stanford would seriously consider. Stanford accepts ~1700 RD. So that means Stanford would have a 17% admit rate. Funnily enough, that's virtually the same as the SCEA admit rate, and everyone knows that SCEA is much more self-selective.</p>
<p>Well thanks for all the responses, but I'm starting to think I may have imagined the article. 828 views as of right now and no one remembers the same article. It was definitely not USNWR, the big difference being that the list I saw dared to include both MIT and Amherst on one list. USNWR has 14 different lists, which BTW means that 700 colleges have a claim on top 50 status. Also the list I was thinking about just rated selectivity, no attempt to measure quality of the institution.</p>