Sarah Lawrence & US News - another monopoly

Parents Forum
401

<p>xiggi, </p>

<p>After nearly 5,000 CC posts, how can you be so ill-informed on this topic? </p>

<p>SLC doesn't make SATs optional, they simply don't use them, don't consider them, and don't record them. The original uprising occurred when USNews decided to manufacture a number for SLC's SAT data point by using a statistical average and cutting 200-points from that. Who's playing the game here? USNews or SLC? I think all schools realize rankings are inevitable but they just want a level playing field without made-up stats. There are a number of SAT-optional schools that did not suffer the same fate in the USNews rankings as SLC. Is their SAT data accurate enough for ranking? Under your assumption, only the higher SATs would be recorded. I'm not even getting into the question of how SAT scores indicate the job a school does in providing an education for kids.</p>

<p>To infer poor SAT performance because a school doesn't use that criterion but instead actually critically reads essays and looks at the strength of a students courses is absurd. We have enough empirical evidence among this parent group to know that's not the case with SLC. (Remember, I'm the father of a NMS finalist who got wait-listed at SLC with an 800 SAT-II Writing.) </p>

<p>All this really shows is that USNews can't do the leg-work involved in offering a true ranking of quality, but instead relies on stats anyone can find and compile. When a school doesn't fit their narrow formula, it's off to never-land for them. It's too easy, and the power they've managed to concentrate over the application process in this manner is what schools are objecting to.</p>

<p>


</p>

402

<p>"Do Fiske and PR rank? How do they list the colleges? Alphabetically? By region? Size?"</p>

<p>Alphabetically. The Fiske Guide may look large, but it's quite reader-friendly, i.m.o. Seems to appeal both to students & parents in its chatty, narrative descriptions of each campus (limited to the 'more selective' ones, so it is hardly exhaustive). We already knew that D wanted to go to a very selective, demanding U, but she was particular about 2 things: campus culture & academic major/resources for those majors. We felt that the fiske guide provided the qualitative descriptions -- portraits, if you will -- that were more informative about how life is actually "lived" at the place -- as well as near the place (conveniences, if any, aesthetics, etc.) Nitty gritty data about incoming students (stats, geographic distribution, gender distribution, was available via websites, CDS, etc.) Fiske Guide has a gray reference box summarizing some spare data, including "favorite majors," (which was also helpful).<br>
There are lots of quotes from students ("This campus really isn't for the ____ type of person," or, "Intellectuals will really find a home here, but sports enthusiasm is thin," -- that kind of thing.) And there are more specifics from students, as well. Lots of important data to us on residence halls (whether funky, new, dirty, A/C, you name it). Comments on the social scene were important. </p>

<p>(We didn't use Princeton Review)</p>

403

<p>So SLC does not use the SATs at all. But it wants to be ranked among colleges that use the SATs. It wants to be ranked based on its own criteria. Why should an exception be made for SLC or any other college. SLC is absolutely free to use whatever criteria it wants. But it should not ask to be ranked on criteria other than those used for other colleges. As StickerShock commented, SLC wants to have its cake and to eat it, too.</p>

<p>Epiphany: That's what I suspected. And if I had a D to put through college, the Fiske guide would probably be my second stop after I had drawn a list of 25 or so colleges based on the information provided by USN&WR. And then, I would hit the college websites. But I still would use USN&WR first, as I don't think I would have the patience to wade through colleges A to Z (S1's list of colleges, courtesy of his GC included Bowdoin but also Wesleyan. I'd heard of Wesleyan but not of Bowdoin, before.</p>

404

<p>


Yes, useful for seeing if your kid meets the guidelines of that particular school, but should it be used to rank schools? That's the point. Why do you think SAT scores of students attending a school make it "better" than a school that doesn't use SATs for admission? And you, too, forget or don't understand that SLC doesn't "not report" SAT scores, they don't ask for them, don't use them, don't record them, so they have none to report. Is this such a difficult concept to understand?</p>

405

<p>Prouddad: See my post above.</p>

<p>I DO NOT care about ranks. But SLC obviously does. And why should it be ranked using different criteria than other colleges?</p>

406

<p>Okay. It's all coming back to me now. I may as well slam my hand in a door. Call me a slow learner but this is now the third time I've left this thread in frustration. The original topic was about the monopoly that USNews has created. The fact that all of you use the USNews ranking as your jumping-off point shows how pervasive that monopoly is. To shove SLC behind the milk in the fridge just because they don't use SATs for admission is just stupid and has nothing whatsoever to do with the education they deliver. Here's what I said two months ago when I hit this wall:


</p>

407

<p>"The fact that all of you use the USNews ranking as your jumping-off point shows how pervasive that monopoly is."</p>

<p>Hey, PD, don't put me in that group. USNWR wasn't our "jumping-off point." (Fiske was, although technically I guess the college websites were, since if it didn't have her intended major, in spades, she wasn't interested.)</p>

<p>It will never be our jumping-off point, for that matter. (not for D2, either)</p>

408

<p>Epiphany:</p>

<p>You already know a lot about colleges, so it's not like some parents and students looking at colleges for the first time. Most will have heard of HYPSM and perhaps a few more, often through a random process of acquiring information. Let's assume these first-time parents have a bright but not outstanding child. How would they navigate through Fiske? How should they choose which college website to look up? Is it any wonder that parents harp on HYP if that's the only colleges they've heard of besides their flagship school? </p>

<p>I think that USN&WR used in conjunction with guides like Fiske and the school website can be extremely useful. They are obviously different. As I said, the ranks do not matter to me. But the list provides a means of selecting which among the many entries available in Fiske one should read unless one wants to read every last one. As I said, I'd be happy if USN&WR broke down its list into sections within which colleges would be listed alphabetically. It does, to some extent, but not for the top 100, I believe.</p>

409

<p>


</p>

<p>Proud Dad, while this topic might be frustrating to you, this is hardly an excuse for calling others ill-informed, especially based on an obviously faulty reading. </p>

<p>There is a very good reason why this issue arose in the 2008 US News rankings. The first class subject to the new standradized testing requirements of Sarah Lawrence College was the high school graduating class of 2005. </p>

<p>For the record, I very well knew that Sarah Lawrence College dropped the requirement to submit standardized test scores in November 2003, in a protest about the introduction of the Writing component of the SAT. </p>

<p>Please read my posts about the "other" schools that are SAT optional and have been allowed to keep playing games. While I applaud the decision by USNews to list SLC in an unranked category, I lament that too many escaped the deranking that is called for. </p>

<p>I still fail to understand why the issue of being ranked is important to a school that despises the process. Is it because there isn't sufficient company in the misery of being unranked?</p>

410

<p>Oh, Proud Dad, here's one that won't help much the ill-informed understanding the definition of transparency used in Yonkers.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Noted President Lawrence: “Because we believe in transparency and think it is important for prospective families and the general public to have comprehensive, comparable information about colleges, we encourage prospective families to consult the various college guides, including the Fiske Guide to Colleges, Princeton Review, and Kaplan/Newsweek, which include narrative sections along with objective data, but do not rank schools on a single numeric scale. We also will be posting additional data on our own Web site, as well as through the Web sites of national higher education organizations.”</p>

<p>Sarah Lawrence will participate in U-CAN, a data comparison of institutions of higher learning soon to be launched by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Let's u get this straight? Everything will be more transparent in the data shared by U-CAN, a soon to be launched and nebulous affair? More transparent or more data cooking? </p>

<p>It is quite OBVIOUS where a school that refuses making its Common Data Set public or having a semblance of an Instutional Research Department stands! </p>

<p>So since Mrs. Lawrence believes in transparency and think it is important for prospective families and the general public to have comprehensive, comparable information about colleges, why not start disclosing the information about her OWN school? With the abundance of CDS on the web, most of us should be able to do our own comparisons and, maybe, cure our symptoms of ill-information. </p>

<p>Voila!</p>

411

<p>


They list alphabetically -- and they each provide some sort of rating or designation indicating academic standing or range of selectivity and other factors. PR gives a numerical score of between 60-99 on a variety of factors -- so here are some sample ratings of ten schools - I included a range of schools so you could get a sense of how this system provides more useful information than the monolithic "ranking" of US news:</p>

<p>Selectivity Rating: Harvard 99; Brown 99; Barnard 98; Chicago 97; NYU 96; Reed 96; Rhodes 93; Sarah Lawrence 90; St. Johns (MD) 88; Columbia 60*</p>

<p>Academic Rating: Reed 99; Harvard 98; St. Johns; Barnard 97; Chicago 97; Columbia 96; Sarah Lawrence, 96; Brown 85; Rhodes 90; NYU 86; </p>

<p>Quality of Life Rating: Barnard 98; Brown 97; Columbia 96; St. Johns 94; Reed 93; Harvard 92; Chicago 87; NYU 80; Rhodes 71 Sarah Lawrence 66 </p>

<p>Fire Safety Rating: St. Johns 87; Barnard 80; NYU 80; Sarah Lawrence 73; all other colleges 60* </p>

<p>Financial Aid Rating: Brown 95; Chicago 95; Harvard 95; Barnard 94; St Johns 94; Columbia 91; Sarah Lawrence 91; Rhodes 85; Reed 77; NYU 76</p>

<p>Note: Schools get the bottom score of 60 when they have not supplied sufficient data to support a ranking - however this does not affect order of placement in the book. The "Fire Safety" rating is fairly new, which may be why data was unavailable for so many colleges. The above numbers are from the 2007 book - the 2008 numbers will be released next week (Aug 21) - typically there is not much movement from year to year on the above number.</p>

<p>I personally found the PR selectivity ratings the most useful for my daughter -- I just told her to ballpark colleges that were 97+ as "reaches", those that were about 93-96 as "matches", and those that were 91 & below as probable safeties. (Of course I came to that conclusion based on my daughter's stats - but this was a lot more reliable than looking at SAT scores)</p>

<p>PR also provides a number of short lists on which it "ranks" the "top" 20-30 colleges that show up as the most distinct on a number of different measures, ranging from serious to somewhat flippant. The 10 colleges are each currenty listed among the top 5 on the following lists (I'll leave it to you to guess which ones) - these categories do tend to shift around somewhat from year to hear:</p>

<ul>
<li>Best College Library (Academics)</li>
<li>Best Overall Academic Experience for Undergraduates (Academics)</li>
<li>Gay Community Accepted (Demographics)</li>
<li>Happiest Students (Quality of Life)</li>
<li>Students Dissatisfied with Financial Aid (Academics)</li>
<li>Students Ignore God on a Regular Basis (Demographics)</li>
<li>The Toughest to Get Into (Academics)</li>
<li>Great College Towns (Social)</li>
<li>Class Discussions Encouraged (Academics)</li>
<li>Town-Gown Relations Are Strained (Social)</li>
<li>Their Students Never Stop Studying (Academics)</li>
<li>Dodge Ball Targets (School Type)</li>
<li>Nobody Plays Intramural Sports (Extracurriculars)</li>
</ul>

<p>I admit that some of these categories seem kind of silly, but they are extremely useful tools for getting a sense of "fit".</p>

412

<p>


And that is exactly what does not typify SLC students -- you are talking about a student body strong on literacy and arts, not so keen on quantitative analysis.

[quote]
The SAT range is different. It helps students determine: Do I have a chance? Should I even bother to apply there.

[/quote]
But the point is -- they don't. They certainly will let student know if the school is a big reach -- but they mislead many others who assume that their chances are good because their SAT scores are in, or above, range. It leads student to focus on prepping for and retaking the test instead of focusing on academics and the enriching experiences of life that make them desirable candidates for the Ivies. It is like trying to assess a students chances of playing varsity football by looking at their height and weight -- it is true that linebackers tend to be big, but their weight is muscle - while for most people, extra pounds are simply fat.
[quote]
So students would see what SAT ranges would be acceptable for Harvey Mudd (heavy on math) and SLC (heavy on verbal).

[/quote]
But the point is... the scores don't matter at SLC. A 700CR is fine, but so is a 480 (if the student can write despite the poor score). It's irrelevant. And looking at a score range for a school that doesn't look at scores is silly.</p>

413

<p>


I don't think SLC wants to be ranked or cares if it ranked -- I think it wants to be listed among its peer institutions. I think it would be equally happy to be included on an alphabetical list of liberal arts colleges broken into groups by region, or by broad considerations of selectivity ("most selective" "very selective" etc.) </p>

<p>I also don't think that they are fretting as much as you think about the US News decision -- they knew there was a consequence when they stopped submitting data. That's why they have made clear that they are actively involved in the Annapolis Group Initiative to provide data in a more usable and informative way. </p>

<p>The net result of the US News rankings is that it encourages colleges to focus too much attention on manipulating data rather than on issues related to the quality of education and campus life that they offer; and it discourages students from asking the type of questions that would lead to better choices in targeting schools in terms of identifying their best fits. Some of the best educational values in this country end up in purgatory simply because they don't fit within the US News data manipulation game, which is always fudged so to ensure that the big names come out on top. That's why I included St. Johns on the list of colleges I identified above. FWIW, here are the US News Rankings of those 10 colleges:</p>

<ul>
<li>Harvard - #2, National Universities</li>
<li>Chicago - #9, National Universities</li>
<li>Columbia - #9, National Universities</li>
<li>Brown - #14, National Universities</li>
<li>Barnard - #30, Liberal Arts Colleges</li>
<li>NYU - #34, National Universities</li>
<li>Rhodes - #49, Liberal Arts Colleges</li>
<li>Reed - #54, Liberal Arts Colleges (PR Academic Rating: 99)</li>
<li>St. John's, Tier 3 Liberal Arts Colleges (PR Academic Rating: 98)</li>
<li>Sarah Lawrence - unranked, Liberal Arts Colleges (PR Academic Rating: 96)</li>
</ul>

<p>I've juxtaposed the Princeton Review academic ratings for the bottom 3 because it illustrates the folly of the ranking system. Academically, these are some of the strongest colleges in the country -- but the vast majority of US News readers will never figure that out, at least not until they go to another source. That does leave some great opportunities for the type of students who actually enjoy cracking open a book, whether to research college choices or to occupy their time once they actually get to college. </p>

<p>But it doesn't provide very reliable information about college selection and chances of getting in. Which is probably why so many posters on this board fret about the seeming capriciousness of the system. It's not that the system is unpredictable -- its just that the rankings have created the false illusion that score ranges have more significance than is true at most of the highly competitive colleges.</p>

414

<p>Calmom:</p>

<p>A list, by its very nature, is hierarchical. It can start at the bottom, at the top, it can be drawn alphabetically, but there must be a logic to how the items on the list are listed. An alphabetical list is not useful for someone who does not want to read about 3,000 colleges. And despite your crack about students uninterested in reading not fitting in at SLC, not every tome is worth reading from cover to cover. The Fiske Guide hardly compares with War & Peace after all. </p>

<p>At any rate, the virtues of the Fiske and PR Guides are irrelevant. SLC wants to be listed somewhere on USN&WR. The question is where, and on what basis should its place on the list be determined. There would be no discussion, no controversy at all, if SLC decided that a listing in the Fiske Guide or PR was adequate.</p>

415

<p>Imagine a high school student who honestly believes in learning for learning's sake and chooses not to pay attention to grades or to assignments which do not meet that that goal. I think that student would expect to pay a price with the admissions departments at most colleges.
Sarah Lawrence does not seem to want to pay a price for its principles.</p>

416

<p>ProudDad:</p>

<p>I get the 'Proud' part, but have trouble following the rest of your post.</p>

<p>
[quote]
The fact that all of you use the USNews ranking as your jumping-off point shows how pervasive that monopoly is.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Perhaps true, but what few studies exists seem to show the contrary. Do you have support for your assumption? [fwiw: our family's jumping-off point is our local UC and then the flagships, Cal and UCLA. I would guess that to be true of most Californians, as well.] </p>

<p>
[quote]
But the point is it's [rankings] not gospel, it's flawed, and it penalizes schools who place more importance on independence and independent learning in the liberal arts tradition.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Are you trying to imply that schools that do participate in the rankings, do NOT value independence and independent learning?</p>

<p>
[quote]
Many of you over-simplify and stereotype those schools. That's unfair.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Please post evidence to support your assertion. </p>

<p>Do rankings teach kids how to "shut their minds"? If so, how?</p>

417

<p>


Opened them? I bought them all, read them all, dog-eared them all, and highlighted them all. Heck, I still read about the schools I care about when the new editions come out. Did it last night at the bookstore. This stuff fascinates me even when my kid is done (or I guess done-ish. Well, done with UG selection anyway. )</p>

<p>I'm just proud I had the restraint to put back the 5 Medical School admissions books I had out. (Waiting for the new editions or else I'd have probably bought them. They were all 07's. ;))</p>

418

<p>The new 2008 Princeton Review college book is out, so I thought I'd check online (where all info is available free of charge, unlike US News), and post how Sarah Lawrence fares under a system that doesn't tie SAT scores to ranking:</p>

<p>Sarah Lawrence appears on 12 "top 20" lists (bearing in mind that not all lists refer to features parents or students would necessarly consider positive). It has this position on lists geared to positive, academic factors: </p>

<p>#1 Class Discussions Encouraged Academics
#4 Professors Get High Marks Academics</p>

<h1>12 Best Classroom Experience Academics</h1>

<p>(The other lists are focused on social or demographic factors).</p>

<p>The SLC academic rating is now 95, admission selectivity rating is 89 -- both numbers represent a slip of one point since the previous year. </p>

<p>I think these numbers probably are much more accurate in reflecting the true impact of SLC's no-tests admission policy -- and it leaves plenty of good information for students whose top priorities include an intimate classroom experience with dedicated profs. Reed, another college given short shrift over the years by US News, appears on the same three lists-- it is #1 for "Best Classroom Experience" -- but there's not an Ivy to be found on those lists, though of course the Ivies dominate "The Toughest to Get Into" list.</p>