Looking at selectivity from the bottom up

<p>Yeah…</p>

<p>Petersen’s data is from the middle 50th percentile of ACT and SAT scores. Hawkette is once again, using the bottom up statistics, trying to enhance the value of the top schools by implying that people who go to lower ranked schools will be going to college with dullards, who by her definition are people with scores below 30 or 600 on the SAT, which we all know is a falsehood on its face. </p>

<p>Petersens’ Directory is an excellent starting point, as is Barron’s for researching colleges, their preliminary admissions data, and everything you want to know about a college on a page or two. But they are often inaccurate on the specifics of admissions data. </p>

<p>Ranking colleges by SAT scores (or ACT scores) is also highly dubious. Most professional admissions directors at colleges would agree with that. </p>

<p>I have long proposed that colleges not publish their data in detail but state unequivocably that below a certain number that chances of admission are substantially curtailed. Not impossible, but frankly rather unlikely. Just put it out there and do away with the silly games of encouraging massive numbers of applications to enhance their selectivity rating and “elite” position and thus USNWR ranking. </p>

<p>Many colleges are doing away with SAT and ACT scores as requirements for admission, because they have found through their own experience that SAT scores do not necessarily equate to student success in college. </p>

<p>Finally, the mission of every college is unique. Many are not 'in the business" of trying to educate elite students only. They are in the business of educating people from their community, or from a particular social subset, or a group of people who wish to have a particular kind of college education, such as religious, sectarian, private, rural or whatever. </p>

<p>Its my view that colleges can admit who they please for whatever reason they please, so long as they are not engaged in overt discrimination. Its not a right, but a privilege. And they are free to “experiment” by taking kids further down the SAT ladder and see if they can succeed. </p>

<p>As an example, Judge Sotomayor who has been nominated by the President to be the next Justice of the Supreme Court, was admitted to Princeton and later to Harvard Law with lower SAT and LSAT scores than her classmates, and she came from a single parent home, in the south Bronx, with a latino (Puerto Rican) heritage. She graduated Princeton Summa Cum Laude and from Harvard Law Summa Cum Laude. </p>

<p>She is but one example of success in college irrespective of SAT scores. (Irrespective of how you may view her political views and legal opinions.)</p>

<p>So to me, Hawkette’s “statistics” only point to one thing about the top schools, and its not good.</p>

<p>Re the SAT as a measuring stick, let me explicitly state (again!) that I consider it a very blunt measuring stick for evaluating student bodies. However, of the measurements that we have publicly available to us (others are Acceptance Rate, % of Students with Top 10% students, sometimes GPA), it is the best. Not perfect by a long shot, but IMO certainly the best. </p>

<p>My conviction is that there is often a high correlation between students with high standardized test scores and other strong parts of their college application. There is no question that there are exceptions to this. I don’t see standardized test scores as the holy grail, but rather as one fairly reliable clue to a student body’s strength. Point out the shortcomings of using standardized test scores if you like and think that would be helpful, but leave behind the repeated mischaracterizations of my posts. I’m not the issue. </p>

<p>Let me also repeat that the data in this thread is NOT part of the USNWR rankings methodology (or any other ranking that I am aware of). Perhaps posters who claim that the USNWR 25/75 numbers are false will be more accepting of these numbers as a rough measure of student body strength.</p>

<p>Can somebody explain to me why a school with thousands of courses is not going to be challenging if there are students at the school with ACT scores below 30?</p>

<p>If I’m a math major, why do I care if other students score below 30 on the math portion of the ACT? They are not going to be in my math classes. Maybe they bring something else to the table besides math scores. Maybe they are even smarter than me in other areas. I might be able to learn from them. .</p>

<p>Exciting game.</p>

<p>definitely. that was a real close finish too. fluery had two saves in the last six seconds!</p>

<p>and to answer your rhetorical (I think) question: a few of those lower scorers really won’t affect you, even if they are actually less inteligent than you in all areas, which is highly unlikely. This is just a bad overall ranking. It’s more a measurement of how much a school pays attention to test scores than anything else.</p>

<p>dstark,
Let me answer your question with a question. Do you think a student would benefit more from being in class with the student body at Harvard and MIT or with the student body at Boston University and Northeastern? </p>

<p>If you think Harvard and MIT can add something to the undergraduate’s experience as a result of a more talented and/or more intelligent student body, then you agree with me. You may disagree with whether the SAT/ACT is an appropriate measuring stick, but what would you suggest we use in its place?</p>

<p>Yeah. I’m glad I watched.</p>

<p>Fiirst off, I think I would leave Northeastern off the comparisons. The school’s mission is very different than the other schools.</p>

<p>The answer to the rest of your question, depends on the student, depends on the class, depends on the professor, depends on the environment the student wants.</p>

<p>For example, if I could take a class taught by Elie Weisel, I would jump at the opportunity and I really wouldn’t give a @@@@ who my classmates were.</p>

<p>And as you know, your list isn’t comparing Harvard and MIT with BU and Northeastern.</p>

<p>And you didn’t answer my questions…It’s not my thread…my lists …</p>

<p>I would appreciate you answer my questions…and I have additional questions.</p>

<p>Can somebody explain to me why a school with thousands of courses is not going to be challenging if there are students at the school with ACT scores below 30?</p>

<p>If I’m a math major, why do I care if other students score below 30 on the math portion of the ACT? They are not going to be in my math classes. Maybe they bring something else to the table besides math scores. Maybe they are even smarter than me in other areas. I might be able to learn from them. .</p>

<p>Your list for ACT math scores below 30…</p>

<p>0% , Harvey Mudd
1% , MIT
1% , Wash U
2% , Princeton
2% , Yale
3% , W&L
4% , Columbia
4% , Northwestern
4% , Notre Dame
4% , Rensselaer
4% , Pomona
5% , Stanford
5% , U Penn</p>

<p>I should go to Harvey Mudd instead of Duke if I wanted to be a math major? Would I get a better education at Harvey Mudd than Duke? I would benefit more by the student body at Harvey Mudd compared to Duke?</p>

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<p>Could you explain where did you get this info?</p>

<p>Umm… didn’t she go to law school at Yale?
I think the point of view hawkette presents is valuable. I wouldn’t want to send my kid to Amherst with a 600 Verbal, or to CalTech with a 600 Math. Even a 700 at either school would have me worried. There is a social value in focusing on this.</p>

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<p>Isn’t spending your free time on a forum about school sad too?</p>

<p>Well, Hawkette messed up the math too. At least to take average of CR and Math, not simply adding them. Again, directly combining those two is not that meaningful, which is like to add the price of a pen and the price of an eraser. Those two scores have their own mean and standard variation. Use the P-value of the total score, CR or Math is probably the correct way to use the SAT scores.</p>

<p>Ewho,
I presented the detail for the individual CR and the Math sections in my opening post. Some folks might prefer to see how students perform on both sets of tests and that is why I created the CR + Math numbers in # 5.</p>

<p>Dstark,
The ACT scores are for the composite, not for the math section. </p>

<p>My suggestion is not to look at this too literally. Modest differences aren’t what I’m highlighting. As I stated in # 5:</p>

<p>“Perhaps one could argue for an individual college to move up one group or be pushed down one group, but rarely more than that. For those who like tier measurements, I don’t think that these are too far off in judging the quality of the various student bodies”</p>

<p>You’ll have to decide whether you want to accept standardized test scores as an appropriate proxy for measuring student body strength. You will also have to decide if having a stronger class is of value to you. I personally accept standardized test scores as a reasonable proxy and I definitely prefer the strongest class of peers.</p>

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<p>I do not buy into the premise that SAT scores have much to do with intelligence or talent, but merely a somewhat helpful gauge in deciphering whether a kid with a 3.3 from one school is the same as a kid with a 3.3 from another school (or the like). I don’t believe that getting A’s in college is as much about intelligence is it is about hard work and passion for the subject matter. Applied intelligence is simply understanding that a little hard work in high school or college beats a lot of hard work after the fact. </p>

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<p>I disagree. If folks want to look at see how students perform on both sets of tests they need to look at both individual tests. The sum of both tests is only helpful in comparing schools relative to each other and to the resultant tiers.</p>

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<p>Then, why are IBs, consulting firms, HFs asking candidates for them after college graduation? Not to mention grad schools requesting similar tests (GRE, GMAT, LSAT) to assess applicants.</p>

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<p>For illustrative purposes of comparing schools, there is no difference between adding the scores and adding them. </p>

<p>I would echo the sentiments someone expressed on here that differences in recruiting for sports in comparison to class size is going to have some effect on how these numbers turn out; especially in making comparisons among schools. Not to mention optional SAT schools like Bowdoin, Hamilton, Bates, Holy Cross that have already cherry-picked the results by not including their lowest scoring students by pretending they don’t actually have low SATs will come out artificially high by these measures.</p>

<p>Actually Bowdoin requires all students to give them scores upon matriculation and publishes all the student bodies scores in there reports.</p>

<p>What matters is not the average SAT score of the actual attending students, but the SAT score of the applicants and the admissions rate of the school. For example a school could receive 1000 applications from students with 2400s on their SATs and accept all of those applications. Another school could receive 1000 applications from students with 2400s but accept only 500 of them, along with 500 other students with good extracurricular achievements but lower scores. Assuming that every accepted student chooses to attend, does this mean that the first school is more selective than the second one? I think not. </p>

<p>A better measure of selectivity, although one not readily available, would be the SAT score of the lowest scorer who would be accepted if the school based its decision only on scores. For example, a school that accepts 2000 students a year would be judged based on the 2000th highest SAT score among its applicants.</p>

<p>“I should go to Harvey Mudd instead of Duke if I wanted to be a math major? Would I get a better education at Harvey Mudd than Duke? I would benefit more by the student body at Harvey Mudd compared to Duke?”</p>

<p>Actually, yes. What field of mathematics are you into? HMC is one of the best undergraduate programs for applied mathematics (check MCM/ICM results over the past 15 years). If you are into pure mathematics, HMC also represents itself ridiculously well in the Putnum competition every year. My junior-year roommate (math/CS major), for instance, was one of the ~10 published in 2008 in Harvard Mathematical Review for undergrads. [Why</a> Mudd?: Impressive Facts](<a href=“http://www.math.hmc.edu/program/department/facts/]Why”>http://www.math.hmc.edu/program/department/facts/)</p>

<p>Anyways, about Hawkette’s methods:
There is actually some good statistical significance to looking at the lower-echelon values for top-end skewed test scores. The data tends to be a discrete version of the log-normal distribution… so the lower test scores tend to give better resolution than the higher test scores, leading to higher statistical significance.</p>

<p>But I do find it remarkable that WashU is WAY up there. Damn.</p>

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In my opinion, that would be a big step backward.
If the metrics are flawed, then improve the metrics. Don’t stop measuring, and don’t stop publishing the results.</p>