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<p>Look at ME, everybody. Look at MEEE…</p>
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<p>Both Penn and Columbia manipulate the USNWR rankings and massage their admissions stats.</p>
<p>Penn admits nearly half its class thru ED and will not hesitate to admit less qualified top 10% (or unranked) high school graduates over more qualified ones who do not meet that arbitrary criterion. Columbia excludes the (higher) acceptance rate of its engineering school, but has no problems including the (higher) SAT scores of its engineering students.</p>
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Care to define your terms (e.g., “more qualified”) and cite any hard evidence to support this?</p>
<p>Lots of schools fudge their data. People have to know this by now. Its hard to believe that some people still don’t believe this. Although this is purely heresay, I think Wash U and Penn really manipulate their data. I believe Chicago did that one year and jumped in the rankings.</p>
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Well, for starters, 45%'er attended Penn and you gotta admit, a 45% score would hardly qualify for top 10% :D</p>
<p>kwu, </p>
<p>A school without prestige is almost useless and I guess I don’t have to expound this why. </p>
<p>If you will remove PA, then USNews ranking would have very little credibility. </p>
<p>I would maintain that schools must be measured by this criteria:</p>
<p>Academic reputation
Student selectivity
Faculty Caliber
Quality of Graduates / Opportunities of graduates
Research
Financial Resources
Students per academic staff member
Citations in international journals</p>
<p>“Do you wish to argue that UCLA is a superior undergraduate institution than Brown or Dartmouth?”
A tenable case can be made</p>
<p>"Academic reputation
Student selectivity
Faculty Caliber
Quality of Graduates / Opportunities of graduates
Research
Financial Resources
Students per academic staff member
Citations in international journals
RML is online now "</p>
<p>SAT/ACT scores a the only standardized metric of student selectivity, yet account for a minute part of US NEWS ranking- something I see as a major flaw in their system.</p>
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As Einstein explained, it’s all relative! Didn’t they teach you that at Berkeley? :rolleyes:</p>
<p>^ Heh, of course they did. For all I know, your 45% name could be referring to your average investment returns over the past 10 years. ;)</p>
<p>^ Shhhhhhhhh. (Trying to keep that quiet. 
)</p>
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<p>this is incorrect, both for the purposes of the US News ranking and on columbia’s admissions website:</p>
<p>[Admission</a> Statistics | Columbia University Office of Undergraduate Admissions](<a href=“http://www.studentaffairs.columbia.edu/admissions/applications/stats.php]Admission”>http://www.studentaffairs.columbia.edu/admissions/applications/stats.php)</p>
<p>prodigalson wrote: "“Ppl” in Asia know about schools like UCLA as well. Do you wish to argue that UCLA is a superior undergraduate institution than Brown or Dartmouth?? "</p>
<p>Actually, yes, at least in my field, Linguistics. And that’s precisely the problem with “whole school” rankings. An aspiring engineer, or linguist, or any other concentration needs to evaluate a department within a school just as much as the strength of the broad array of class offerings and the student quality.</p>
<p>alam1 wrote: "Lots of schools fudge their data. People have to know this by now. "</p>
<p>Probably so. The exception would be the Publics, who have a different set of motivations and mission. Not only have I never read any mention of Public university data manipulation, on the contrary, they stubbornly persist in reporting “single sitting” SAT scores to their own metric detriment.</p>
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<p>I stand corrected. Let me try again:</p>
<p>Columbia excludes the (higher) acceptance rate of its General Studies school, and has problems including the (lower) SAT scores of its GS (non-traditional) students.</p>
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<p>At least 99% of Penn’s admitted students graduated in the top 10% of their high school class. It’s probably safe to assume that those who did NOT graduate from the top 10% are severely underrepresented, especially in light of the fact that every other ivy has at least 5x the number of such admitted students. Unless you want to argue that Penn’s admissions policies are profoundly different than those of the other ivies, it’s clear that Penn is operating under such policies with the USNWR rankings in mind. Unlike public institutions which are required by state mandates to admit top 10% high school graduates, Penn is under no such obligations. Yet the percentage of Penn’s admitted students who graduate in the top 10% exceeds that of even the UC’s.</p>
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<p>This is a laughable statement, especially in light of the UC budget cuts/tuition hikes and their consequences. </p>
<p>On UCLA’s campus, there is low morale (not to mention general stress and discontent) due to among other things: lack of access and availabilty of classes (esp. in “impacted” majors) as well as faculty freezes and/or exodus. </p>
<p>I bet many UCLA students are now regretting their decision to turn down, say, USC or Harvey Mudd…</p>
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<p>You may want to recheck your facts:</p>
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<p>[Penn:</a> Facts and Figures](<a href=“http://www.upenn.edu/about/facts.php]Penn:”>http://www.upenn.edu/about/facts.php)</p>
<p>Additionally, most students accepted to Penn (and other top schools) come from high schools that don’t even provide class rank.</p>
<p>The differences between the percentages of top-10% admitted students in Penn’s class and other top schools are, statistically speaking, negligible.</p>
<p>prod,
Many schools will use statistical cutoffs in their reviews of college applications. This is SOP for many publics, including many of the most highly ranked ones. </p>
<p>If U Penn has such a cutoff (and I’m not at all sure that they do), why should we care? I really don’t think (hope!) that anyone is judging U Penn to be better than Harvard because it has a higher percentage of Top 10% scorers. </p>
<p>The distinctions among top colleges are infinitesimal. Tiny differences in Top 10% scorers or standardized test scores are not very telling, particularly for colleges known to practice holistic admissions.</p>
<p>BTW, I think that gadad’s initial post about the impact of PA scores understates their effect. In my calculations, it is far more pronounced.</p>
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<p>According to the lastest issue of USNWR, it reads 99%.</p>
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<p>I believe I already addressed that: </p>
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<p>Of course, Penn has no problems admitting “unranked” students. They do not affect the USNWR rankings in any way.</p>
<p>Here’s the difference between you and me: I am neutral with respect to Penn; you are not…</p>