Sarah Lawrence & US News - another monopoly

Parents Forum
21

<p>But because SL attracts so few strong math/science kids, their SATs will definitley be lower than other LACs. Of course they don't want SATs focused on in rankings -- they'd be toast. The verbal side might look fine. But because the SAT writing is so formulaic, even their most talented & creative writing majors would possibly score poorly on that new section. The SL application heavily weighs writing samples, so they have adjusted & found a process for selecting the students best suited to their institution.</p>

<p>The SATs are not friendly to the typical SL applicant. SL has nothing to gain from the USNews ranking formula, but they don't like that plain & simple fact. It reminds me of one-dimensional kids with perfect SATs complaining when they are rejected from an ivy.....the school has a holistic admissions approach and the kid will not shine under those circumstances. But the kid won't accept that & wants the rules changed to suit him.</p>

22

<p>It's not true that you need grades to get into grad school or med school or law school. Antioch College doesn't do tests or give grades and they have a very respectable acceptance level into grad, med and law schools. Students get written evaluations instead of gtrades. Almost everyone I knew there did go on for additional degrees and everyone I know who wanted to get into med school was accepted.</p>

<p>Sarah Lawrence is an excellent school and I think it's disgraceful and just plain stupid that US News is planning to insert made up "data" into it's ranking formula.</p>

23

<p>A 25-75 range means that 25% of students fall below the range. Prospies who fall below can decide whether to apply or not.</p>

24

<p>But US News is telling them that they need the data or they will drop it down a standard deviation. They are presenting their rules. If SL feels they will not be served well by the rules, then they should opt out. I think SL is quite aware that their SATs are not as impressive as other LACs, so naturally they are not thrilled with the situation.</p>

25

<p>Since I doubt that anyone applies only to SL, almost all of these students will have taken the SAT's or ACT's. So SL can collect SAT's from admitted students and report them. It's easy. They don't have to use them in admissions. USNWR has to have an incentive to prevent schools from gaming the system by withholding scores when they are below average. Absent some kind of service like USNWR, what we would be left with is a stack of glossy leaflets prepared by professional PR types.</p>

26

<p>How would they be aware that their SATs are lower if they never see them?</p>

<p>And my understanding is that Reed has opted out and it still gets ranked with hilarious innaccuracy, imo.</p>

27

<p>curious</p>

<p>Prospies and their parents could look at real world outcomes...like what their grads end up accomplishing in life.</p>

28

<p>Bethievet, </p>

<p>They collected the data at one time. If USNWR just used average peer scores for schools who stopped reporting test scores, schools whose test scores fell below average would have an incentive to stop reporting (or collecting) the data. I don't see the harm to SL from collecting the data after the fact and reporting it.</p>

29

<p>Bethievt,</p>

<p>That would be interesting data (carreer outcomes) if collected and reported in some systematic way. The list of half a dozen famous people does not impress me.</p>

30

<p>curious, it is very possible that many applicants do not, in fact, have SAT scores --because there are number of somewhat similar colleges to Sarah Lawrence that are test-optional; for example, Bard would attract a very similar demographic. So there are kids who simply decide to forego the process and apply to test-optional schools. SLC would have no way of forcing the students to submit scores after being admitted in any case -- all they could do is request voluntary submission (and I assume offer to reimburse the costs -- because I don't suppose many students are eager to pay more money to College Board at that phase of their education). </p>

<p>So SLC would end up with the same skewed-sample that the test-optional schools now have. Only a small percentage of students would elect to provide that information.... and there would be a strong incentive to collect that after-the-fact data only from high-scoring students.</p>

31

<p>SLC does provide some career-outcome information:
[quote]
Alumnae/i Career Direction</p>

<p>25% are self-employed
25% work in medicine, psychology, and science
20% are involved in the performing arts and film
16% pursue careers in the visual arts
50% do volunteer work in addition to pursuing career and educational goals

[/quote]

<a href="http://www.slc.edu/index.php?pageID=3686%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.slc.edu/index.php?pageID=3686&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

32

<p>
[quote]
curious, it is very possible that many applicants do not, in fact, have SAT scores --because there are number of somewhat similar colleges to Sarah Lawrence that are test-optional; for example, Bard would attract a very similar demographic. So there are kids who simply decide to forego the process and apply to test-optional schools.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I don't know much about these schools, but they're still fairly selective? You'd have to be pretty confident because most "safety" schools for these students would still require SATs.</p>

33

<p>I've mentioned this before on other threads, but a friend's daughter who was accepted by Harvard was rejected by Sarah Lawrence last year.</p>

34

<p>the CDS from Reed is helpful- of course- it only gave us the impression that D was not in their league- however- they also use information that is subjective- smaller schools can take more time with evaluating applications as to what students will succeed at their school.</p>

<p>I don't think that most schools will drop out of trumpeting their US News rankings on their websites. Whether they are ranked top 10 : Regional university, LAC in the South or National University, schools seem to depend on using USNEWS scores as a PR tool.</p>

<p>I don't know a lot about SL- our neighbor transferred to SL after two years at a community college & my impression was her degree was in computers- but not sure.</p>

<p>I think some of what US News gathers is helpful- however I agree that if they are making up numbers- or inaccurately reporting data- as has been reported in more than one instance- that is much more of a concern than if they are simply stating that
* these schools are comparable to each other*
like with National Universities/Regional universities, etc.</p>

<p>Its interesting that as Reed for example gets much more competitive with applicants- their "tier" has dropped again.
The year that USNEWS did a profile on Reed, they were in the "top" LACs, but now I think they are again considered in 2nd tier- even though if you took things like- SAT score they would be higher.</p>

<p>Some schools really push to rank high- when alumni are hit up for donations and told that if they only give $1. then they will boost the school, because the percentage of alums that give is what counts- other schools while they do fundraising campaigns, might not be so relentless in their phone calls and mailings, resulting in then lower rankings.</p>

<p>Diver from Reed- actually seems to like reporting SAT scores- something that I thought was interesting but disagreed with, since I have two kids- who don't necessarily work well in that setting.
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/18/opinion/18diver.html?ex=1316232000&en=a7f8b9daf2b21994&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/18/opinion/18diver.html?ex=1316232000&en=a7f8b9daf2b21994&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&lt;/a>
I understand how test scores and grades can be helpful, but also kids come from such different backgrounds- that I wonder if SAT scores, say as much about the relative affluence and background of students parents, as it does about their ability to benefit from college</p>

<p>From what I have heard about SL it does sound very quirky and likely attracts students who aren't necessarily slaves to the USNEWS tier model, but it also sounds like, SL is interested in raising their "ranking" by getting more applicants so their yield can decrease, but is also resentful that by being a self selected sort of place, that isn't likely to happen.</p>

<p>Oh well ;)</p>

35

<p>bethievt:</p>

<p>Understand that some applicants are rejected because a school if fairly certain they are a backup school. Other reasons could be because one school got a terrible rec and another didn't. Another reason is that a kid says he wants to major in an area a school doesn't have. And etc.</p>

36

<p>Actually what we need are some alternarive rankings. The critics are correct that there is a lot wrong with the USNWR rankings but unfortunately they fill a void and a need.</p>

37

<p>I don't think SLC cares about raising their ranking -- I think that they are concerned about having the ranking deflated via punitive measures for not playing the game the way US News dictates. US News could simply say that without data, they would remove the college entirely from the ranking list -- but they aren't saying that. The are going to invent artificially depressed numbers and then assign a lower rank to the college based on fake numbers. </p>

<p>Tarhunt -- the admissions criteria for SLC are different than for Harvard. You can hypothesize all you want, but the most likely explanation is that the kid did not have the profile that SLC is looking for.</p>

38

<p>
[quote]
Tarhunt -- the admissions criteria for SLC are different than for Harvard. You can hypothesize all you want, but the most likely explanation is that the kid did not have the profile that SLC is looking for.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Isn't that a hypothesis on your part?</p>

39

<p>The quickest remedy to this problem would be to force USNews to not rank schools like Reed or SL at all. In essence, these schools are getting free advertisement when ranked, whether it be positive or negative. However, schools that don't want any part in it should have the right to be excluded. At least with Reed, USNews has an asterik indicating that the college did not participate in the survey.</p>

40

<p>I think they should list them separately. There should just be a list that says, "The following colleges chose not to participate"--- then they should be listed in alphabetical order with only demographic data (city, state, # of students) - nothing that pertains to selectivity or quality at all. </p>

<p>That way, colleges that don't want to participate simply don't get ranked -- the separate listing is merely for the convenience of the users & subscribers, so they will be aware of why the colleges are not included.</p>

<p>US News already has a category called "unranked specialty schools" -
<a href="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/rankunranked_brief.php%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/rankunranked_brief.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>so they could just add a "non participating" list to that page.</p>