<p>I don’t get it. There seems to be some discrepancies between PPC’s ranking and USNWR’s overall selectivity rank. Just looking at the National Universities.</p>
<p>I realize this list is just silly fun, but the SAT optional school are getting a huge bump here. Hamilton at 43 and Colgate 13 schools lower? Sorry, it doesn’t compute - those schools are essentially equal, with the selectivity going to Colgate.</p>
<p>Goblue-- don’t forget that my list (1) combines Nat U’s & LACs (so there are ~double the number of schools ranked…can’t compare to just USN’s Nat U Sel rank), and (2) I really don’t know how exactly USN applied their stated weighting factors to combine into one ranking, so I took a guess.</p>
<p>well, I think you have proven that whatever I did a few months ago (still looking for the spreadsheet…its here somewhere!)…does not precisely replicate what US News apparently does. Not too far off, but I won’t go to the trouble of calculating an R-squared. [Perhaps the combination of the 2 categories re-distributed the spread? If I find that pesky spreadsheet, I’ll try to replicate at least the Nat U’s separately.]</p>
<p>If you assume that the way I did it followed as best I could the narrative of what stats they used & respected their weightings, it does show how one can come up with different answers with the same input.</p>
<p>[Boy, they really don’t like Tufts, do they?]</p>
<p>And no, no one thinks that Stanford is less selective than Wash U; however, Wash U IS more selective based on the criteria that USNWR uses to form their rankings, which is clearly not the whole admissions picture.</p>
<p>No need. WashU spends thousands of dollars on marketing. If it didn’t get the apps in the door, they wouldn’t spend the money. </p>
<p>fwiw: Many colleges do the same, i.e., market to kids who have zero chance of admittance. The difference is that WashU puts a lot of marketing dollars behind their campaign, thus increasing their applicant pool relative to other colleges. It’s a great strategy that works for them.</p>
<p>I was looking for a ranking with lacs combined, and this was somewhat helpful… though was looking for one that was actually publish like USNEWS etc…
I do find it interesting that many LACS rank above public universities, though it seems like when speaking of their students getting top internship jobs, top graduate schools etc… I get concern that lacs lack in that area.</p>
<p>PPC,
The discrepancy is probably due to rounding error. For example, acceptance rate of 23.4% and 22.6% will be rounded to the same. That might cause enough differences in your calculations as compared to USNWR’s.</p>
<p>Does USNWR use the artificially inflated SAT numbers for SAT-optional schools like Hamilton and Bates in their calculations in compiling rankings? If so, it seems to blatantly reward dishonesty to me (you pretend not to have a low SAT and we pretend to not know you have one, instead of everyone submit SAT and then we decide how relevant they should be on a case by case basis).</p>
<p>Also, one reason I think Colgate comes out worse than what people may expect is that it’s one of the smallest schools with D-I athletics; so the presence of top athletes on campus goes a lot farther in bringing down SAT avg and % in top 10% of hs class than similar LACs that play D-III or even larger schools like Dartmouth or Brown that play on a similar sports level. This certainly would be a primary reason why 1,080 people a class D-I Dartmouth would have a lower % in top 10% of hs class than 1,400 people a class D-III WUSTL.</p>
<p>I completely agree with you: the test-optional policies of even a small handful of schools make all these rankings pretty much garbage. UC Berkeley’s reported SAT 25th-75th percentile figures are based on SAT scores from 100% of its entering class, according to US News. Test-optional Hamilton’s SAT percentiles are based on scores from 59% of its entering class; Bates based its percentiles on scores from 50% of its entering class. It only stands to reason that the 41% not reporting SAT scores at Hamilton and the 50% not reporting SAT scores at Bates are likely lower scorers than those who did report their scores. These are simply not comparable sets of figures.</p>
<p>Interestingly, though, this phenomenon extends beyond SAT-optional schools. Many schools allow submission of the ACT in lieu of the SAT, but they may be reporting their SAT and ACT medians differently to USNews.</p>
<p>I list these in rank order by SAT% + ACT% because that figure shows that some schools are reporting both SAT and ACT scores for students who submit both, while other schools may be reporting more selectively. Since in the vast majority of cases either the ACT or the SAT will be the higher score, the schools that report both scores are effectively dragging down their reported 25th/75th percentile scores by including the lower score in their reported scores.</p>
<p>Now consider Amherst. Amherst isn’t test-optional; it requires submission of either the SAT or the ACT. Yet the sum of those reporting SAT scores and those reporting ACT scores adds up to only 99% of Amherst’s entering class. Call it 100%, attributing the difference to rounding. But even so: are we to believe that NO applicant to Amherst submitted both SAT and ACT scores, while at the same time schools like Wellesley, MIT, and Michigan were getting submission of BOTH scores from upwards of 25% of their applicants, and even nearby rivals like Williams and Yale were getting double submissions from 12% and 16% respectively? It makes no sense. More likely Amherst is simply reporting only the higher of the two scores and treating the lower one as unreported, thereby artificially inflating its SAT and ACT medians relative to its rivals who are reporting all scores they receive. </p>
<p>There may be many more anomalies like this out there. But just a few—the test-optional schools for sure, plus a few more in the Amherst category—are enough to make garbage of the entire exercise, and the entire so-called “objective” component of the US News rankings.</p>
<p>good analysis bc…I had not noticed those percent reporting discrepancies before. Its amazing to me how many ways these numbers can be fudged…we need a Sarbanes-Oxley for CDS & IPEDS reporting!</p>
<p>One other anolmaly I’ve noticed over the years with respect to SATs & ACTs reported on the CDS. I’ve noticed that some schools report an ACT mid 50% bracket lower than the equivalent SAT bracket. Brown is the poster child here. Its not by much, but it makes me wonder whether certain low-scoring recruits are told to only turn in their ACTs, so they don’t pollute (and lower) the SAT pool. Here’s the Brown example (from most recent CDS)…</p>
<p>Percent submitting SAT: 92%
Percent submitting ACT: 30%
Total: 122%, so some overlap (i.e., they don’t appear to be in the Amherst category)</p>
<p>But…SAT CR+M midrange: 1320 to 1540
by the concordance chart, that SAT midrange equates to an ACT composite midrange of 29 or 30 to 34 or 35.
…yet, Brown’s reported ACT composite midrange is 28-33. </p>
<p>Again, not much (~50 SAT points, though, on a 1600 basis), but this discrepancy consistent with Brown over the years, and I’ve found other schools that don’t have this SAT-ACT discrepancy. Pure speculation on my part, but it does look a bit weird, and I could imagine how ACT-dumping manipulation could be used to improve ones position with the rankings.</p>
<p>“More likely Amherst is simply reporting only the higher of the two scores and treating the lower one as unreported, thereby artificially inflating its SAT and ACT medians relative to its rivals who are reporting all scores they receive.”</p>
<p>I believe it.</p>
<p>Amherst is hellbent on diversity, and it is willing to put aside SAT scores and class rank to achieve it. Evidence? Its steadily falling SAT ranges (of enrolled students); and, only 79 percent of enrolled 2012ers ranked in the top decile of their high school classes. Both of these criteria happen to be worth a stupid amount in Papa Chicken’s ranking. Also, me: I am living proof.</p>
<p>That doesn’t mean, however, that Amherst isn’t as selective as its peers. In fact, I would argue that it is even more selective than its brethren: the strongest, unhooked applicants can expect to be shafted because of diversity initiatives and heavy athletic recruiting.</p>