<p>I'm not an administrator and could not care less about any extra paperwork they have to do. I'm on the faculty, and I'm the father of eight children, six of whom have either gone to college or are in college. So, I'm looking at this from the standpoint of a parent making a decision.</p>
<p>As I've pointed out in detail, I don't find most of the numbers you think are useful to be at all useful to me as a parent, and I think that certain numbers, such as the stats on admits instead of matriculants, to be inferior and misleading.</p>
<p>I have no trouble with providing more data, but I do question the value of providing data that are of little real value. GPA data, for instance, without some sort of norming, are about as useful to me as knowing how many kids in the entering class have blue as their favorite color.</p>
<p>I would like to see admitted AND matriculated SAT / Class rank. Brown, bless its heart, publishs this and I keep pointing kids at it as a reality check. USC did at one point, but I haven't been able to find it recently.</p>
<p>One young friend of ours applied to NU - approved of by the GC. Decent SAT's, but he just didn't have the grades/rank, and this coming from a public hs that sends very few kids out of state, let alone to highly competitve universities. The admitted / matriculated data would have at least given him a clue that this particular application was a reach. Nothing wrong with reaches - just better to have a clue that they are reaches.</p>
<p>The student chooses (or not) to apply to SL. S/he then needs to jump throught SL's hoops to get considered. SL is getting ranked by US News without choosing it, as has happened to Reed, with bogus numbers being inserted. Something is wrong with this picture.</p>
<p>And SL can refuse to respond to USNWR and USNWR finds that unaccpetable and deals with it by assuming the worst of the school. Sounds farily symetric to me.</p>
<p>Data on admitted as opposed to enrolled students is pretty worthless.</p>
<p>why?</p>
<p>A huge argument around here- is that the "gifted prgram" is successful * because of peer "quality*, that the teachers are the same as other programs the only thing that is quantitatively different is the cohort.</p>
<p>So why would that not be the case in college?</p>
<p>I wouldn't be attending a school with students who were "accepted", I would be attending a school with students who decided to attend, so why would't I want to know who my classmates would be?</p>
<p>Data should be for matriculating students not admits. It should also be disaggregated into two groups, one for URM's and the other for regular admits. These two groups do not compete head to head in the same pool at most selective universities. It would also save a lot of whitebread kids from the delusion that they have any chance whatever of getting in if they aren't above the median with SAT and/or GPA. The bottom half of admits is composed almost exclusively of special admits, atheletes and URMs. To many kids are wasting time and effort and setting themselves up for disappointment by aiming where they have no chance. GPA's should also be reported unweighted.</p>
<p>Finally the number that would be most useful would be a standardized test given first semester freshman year and just before graduation. If we had such a beast we could directly compare what students learn at school "A" and school "B". I have a feeling such a test would be an incredible eye-opener for a lot of people and a tremendous boon to a lot of schools that currently get little or no recognition.</p>
<p>Maybe it shouldn't be up to SL or any other college to determine what should be relevant data for a prospective student to enquire about. In what other market do we criticize consumers for asking for data from sellers. USNWR is like Consumer Reports for college applicants.</p>
<p>I am saying that there is a difference. I beleve that the interesting data (enrolled students) is the cohort as you say. I think we're on the same side. Thanks for noticing Tarhunt.</p>
<p>I get more objectivity from Consumer Reports. US News seems to be moving an agenda and it's not one I support. An example would be peer review. This is meaningless and the people who do it are aware it is (meaningless).</p>
<p>Seems to me that the enrolled student data is of interest to a student who is trying to get a sense of the students who are actually at the school -- if a student has an SAT is 1200 and the enrolled student SAT average is 1350, then that student knows that they may fall closer to the bottom academically -- (assuming I believe the SAT represents this).</p>
<p>The admitted student data is of interest to help determine whether it is worth applying to the school, and determining whether said school is a safety, match or reach. If a student's SAT is 1250, the enrolled student SAT is 1300 and the admitted is 1400 -- I think that would be worth knowing.</p>
<p>I applaud Myers for what she is saying -- I think it is ridiculous that USN makes up numbers based on assumptions that don't seem totally logical to me. I wish schools would join forces and stop submitting the information. Dream on.</p>
<p>"People need to stop buying the magazine. I know; I'm a dreamer...but I'm not the only one..."</p>
<p>And then you would have even less information on which to make an informed decision. A flawed USNWR ranking system is still better than none. You are already at a huge information disadvantage when dealing with these schools. I may be able to see a lot wrong with USNWR rankings but that doesn't mean I see a lot of merit in SL's position.</p>