<p>kemet: right, they have fewer citations. this most likely reflects the fact that the security doesnt waste its time. they only give a student a citation when they do something consciously disrespectful. thats my interpretation, atleast...</p>
<p>Of course we're straying off topic here, but:
[quote]
but omitting the sat entirely would leave colleges without any indication of pure test-taking intelligence
[/quote]
Isn't that already indicated by a four-year high-school record of achievement and classwork? Sure, it's not standardized, and SAT/ACTs will never go away completely, nor will H-S elected offices/popularity contests, or vapid achievements such as National Honor Society nomination.</p>
<br>
<p>kemet: right, they have fewer citations. this most likely reflects the fact that the security doesnt waste its time. they only give a student a citation when they do something consciously disrespectful. thats my interpretation, atleast...<</p>
<br>
<p>this is what I'm saying.</p>
<p>kemet: would they say otherwise???</p>
<p>straight from the president of reed college (NY Times Article):</p>
<p>The college isn’t doing any favor to applicants by pretending that these skills are not important, or that the beneficiaries of these policies will not have to compete with students possessing those skills in abundance. An institution that, commendably, seeks to enroll more minority and lower-income students can do so by giving less weight to SAT or ACT scores, either across the board or in selective cases. But concealing the applicants’ test scores is just willful blindness.</p>
<p>Making SAT scores optional is the latest instance of a disheartening trend in college admissions. In the rush to climb the pecking order, educational institutions are adopting practices, and rationalizations for those practices, unworthy of the intellectual rigor they seek to instill in their students.</p>
<p>sorry for the multiple posts, but this is also from the Reed College president: </p>
<p>I SOMETIMES think I should write a handbook for college admission officials titled “How to Play the U.S. News & World Report Ranking Game, and Win!” I would devote the first chapter to a tactic called “SAT optional.”</p>
<p>
[quote]
would they say otherwise??? straight from the president of reed college...
[/quote]
If you reread my post, I wrote that SAT-optional colleges would say otherwise. Last time I checked, Reed was not SAT optional.</p>
<p>Chicago, for example, puts very little importance on test scores (Libby has said they're the least important factor). Would you say that Chicago is lacking intellectual vigor????
[quote]
I SOMETIMES think I should write a handbook for college admission officials titled “How to Play the U.S. News & World Report Ranking Game, and Win!” I would devote the first chapter to a tactic called “SAT optional.”
[/quote]
That would probably be after "How to achieve notoriety by refusing to give USNWR information." :D</p>
<p>Kemet, i see your point. But why not just give less weight to sat's rather than make them optional??</p>
<p>Hampden-Sydney College
Christendom College
University of Dallas
Thomas Aquinas College
Virginia Military Institute
The Citadel
Washington and Lee
Colgate
Davidson
Bucknell</p>
<p>Perhaps Reed's president should spend more time trying to figure out ways to increase his school's pitiful graduation rate (57% in 4 years!) and less time worrying about why other schools are going SAT-optional.</p>
<p>Isn't Hampden-Sydney where the good ole boys can byog? (bring your own guns?)</p>
<p>Sounds like some of the rankings are now coming directly out of that book, "Choosing The Right College", where "Right" is emphasized in red ink on the cover but the true political undercurrent of the volume is not clearly described for the unwary. Great if you're (again) Ann Coulter, if you know what I mean. Anyone here buy that book without understanding its political bent? My neighbor did and when I pointed it out to them it was an "Aha!" moment that explained some questions about the book's rankings.</p>
<p>
[quote]
i am sure that swarthmore does not have that much, if any, less drinking that williams. swarthmore simply does not enforce harsh rules against alcohol abuse, as manifested in those stats.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That is simply not true. All colleges survey their students using a consistent "binge drinking" statistical measure. Thus, it is actually not that difficult to compare -- if the colleges release the information. The national average for this "binge drinking" measure is about 44% of college students within the two weeks prior to the survey. </p>
<p>Swarthmore is at the low end of the scale (in the 30% range). Other schools in this range are Smith, Pomona, etc. </p>
<p>Williams is in the 50%+ range, well above the national average.</p>
<p>You can confirm these trends by looking at the number of hospital visits where there is a huge difference between schools. Or, better yet, do an overnight visit on a Thursday night.</p>
<p>I think it's ridiculous to say that because Grinnell isn't selective it can't be in the top ten. I think Grinnell deserves to be in the top ten because of the high quality teaching and the earnest devotion to genuine academics that is found on campus. Also, because it's in Iowa the applicant pool is rather self selected, like the apllicant pool at an all-womens college. The actual freshman profile is pretty solid, though it isn't necessarily at the level of the top 4-5 schools. USNews doesn't have it far off of the top ten, it's no. 14 currently, but the people here seem to think it deserves a lower ranking.</p>
<p>I think when you're ranking the top 5 or 10, it all comes down to personal preference. No one can REALLY measure exactly what goes where. It's like saying: Rank Princeton, Harvard, MIT, Yale, Stanford, Caltech, etc. It's just unreasonable.</p>
<ol>
<li>Amherst</li>
<li>Swarthmore</li>
<li>Wellesley</li>
<li>Williams</li>
<li>Pomona</li>
<li>Bryn Mawr</li>
<li>Carleton</li>
<li>Middlebury</li>
<li>Oberlin</li>
<li>Vassar</li>
</ol>
<p>I agree with CuriousKid. I definitely think Wellesley is underrated because it's a women's school, but that's understandable because it can't provide opportunity to all blah blah.</p>
<p>bryn mawr as #6??? you've gotta be kidding. i mean it is a fantastic school, but i think 6 is pushing it.......</p>
<p>haha no bias there, I didn't apply there or even think of applying there, but I really think it deserves a spot that high. I believe Washington Monthly or some other publication with Washington in the title repeatedly puts Bryn Mawr in the #1 and #2 spots, so I'm not alone!</p>
<p>MarathonMan88 wrote:</p>
<br>
<p>The New Carnegie Foundation classification (which USNews uses to assign its categories) moved Wesleyan out of the LAC category (renamed Baccalaureate) into a category that includes schools awarding more than a handful of Masters degress. Also no longer classified as "LACs" in the original release of the classifications were Middlebury, Bryn Mawr, Smith, and others. As you can imagine, these schools went ballistic.<</p>
<br>
<p>While it might make sense from a magazine selling viewpoint to mix up these traditional categories, I can tell you from personal experience that one way to tell an LAC from a research university is at the end of the academic year when the LACs generally empty out. </p>
<p>Since >90% of their students go home for the summer, there is a distinct lull @LACs during the summer months. Universities (real ones, not just the LACs with Ph.D programs) have year-round student populations, e.g., Berkeley, Ann Arbor, Ithaca, New Haven, Cambridge, etc.</p>
<p>But Liberal Arts Colleges are not neccessarily politically liberal, which is the problem.</p>
<p>Whatever the New Carnegie Foundation says Wesleyan is an LAC. If you've visited the campus you can tell that in every practical way it's an LAC.</p>
<p>CreativeMind - Are you saying, it's a misnomer? The term liberal arts (as does the term liberal itself) precedes the modern political divide by several hundred of years.</p>