@merc81 Perhaps. but if the average ACT is 28 and 97% of the kids are in the top 10% it doesn’t say good things about the strength of the sample. So why should that metric be given a 40% weight in the case of UCLA. Using UCLA SAT average scores reveals the same. It means the high schools on average are rather weak.
Below are USNWR top 50 RUs and top 50 LACs where 90% or more of freshman enter from the top 10% of their HS graduating classes.
Pct in T10% … College
100% UCSD
100% UCSB
100% UC Davis
99% Cal Tech
99% MIT
98% Chicago
98% UC Berkeley
97% Harvey Mudd
97% UCLA
96% Stanford
96% UC Irvine
95% Harvard
95% Yale
95% Princeton
95% Washington U
95% Haverford
94% Penn
94% Brown
93% Columbia
92% Pomona
92% Georgetown
92% UVA
92% UWashington
91% Northwestern
91% Tufts
90% Dartmouth
90% Duke
90% Notre Dame
Olin and Cooper Union would belong in this group (but they are not among the USNWR T50 national universities or T50 national LACs).
- These numbers come from each school's USNWR "Ranking Indicators" page. This requires a subscription to view. However, you should be able to verify them in each school's 2013-14 Common Data Set, section C10 ... except for schools that do not publish a CDS (Chicago, Columbia) or that have not made the 2013-14 edition available. Sample CDS: http://studentresearch.ucsd.edu/_files/stats-data/common-data-set/c.pdf
In some cases, these percentages are based on fewer than 51% of enrolled freshmen.
Examples: Dartmouth, Georgetown, Haverford, Stanford
That list continues to show how meaningless that metric is. Notre Dame is last but has a middle 50% ACT of 32 - 34 with 90% scoring at least a 30, while UCSD is 26 - 31 with just 38% scoring at least a 30. There are dozens of other examples where the top 10% is much lower than ND’s 90% but the student profile is much stronger than some schools ranked better.
“It means the high schools on average are rather weak.”
From what I remember of what I’ve read, this is why the system was adopted. California decided that high school students who have excelled in the environment they found themselves in should be given a good opportunity to continue their education at the college of their choice.
For what it’s worth, USNWR has brought the HS standing metric down to a 25% component.
@merc81 Fair enough but the only point to all this is that those schools are overrated because that metric is used so liberally in rankings. 25% is still too high.
Among those who reported class rank.
100% of UCSD students admitted submitted class rank and all were in the top 10%. That says that evidence that a student is in the top 10% of their HS class is a requirement for admission to UCSD.
Only a third of students admitted to CalTech submitted class rank. Were 99% of all students in the top 10% of the class? It’s hard to know. Does CalTech look for things UCSD doesn’t such as research experience or evidence of leadership? Again, it’s hard to know.
Somewhere out there, and I can’t remember how to find it, is a site that shows how schools do in one-on-one admissions match-ups. IOW, if a student is admitted to CalTech and Stanford, which are they more likely to attend? Does anyone here have a link?
Here’s an old version of what I’m talking about. This one only covers a few schools but it’s still interesting.http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/09/17/weekinreview/20060917_LEONHARDT_CHART.html
Parchment.com has the ,one on one matchup
@Sue22: If you follow “college revealed preferences” you will get to a private company that has “match-ups” as well as an overall ranking. To the extent that I’ve considered it, these match-ups and rankings seem to be among the least scientific I have seen.
^ Sue22, you may be referring to this college matchup site:
http://www.parchment.com/c/college/tools/college-cross-admit-comparison.php
Parchment also does a ranking based on student enrollment decisions:
http://www.parchment.com/c/college/college-rankings.php
These comparisons are very different from selectivity measurements. In many cases a student will choose a less selective college just because it’s cheaper. Or, in other cases, s/he won’t even bother applying to a more selective school s/he considered, after deciding a less selective school is more desirable. The cross-admit data cannot capture these latter cases.
The one I’m thinking of wasn’t from Parchment but it was similar. Parchment’s information seems to be very limited. I did a search for a number of common match-ups and the site said they didn’t have results for those matches.
I can’t place a lot of credence in the Parchment rankings. I love my alma mater, Bates (ranked #22), but there’s no way on God’s green earth that the majority of students cross-admitted to Bates and Amherst (ranked 27) or Cornell (ranked #34) choose Bates.
The company’s full rankings also shows highly suspect year-to-year changes – 242 places in one example I saw.
With respect to schools that do not make Common Data Sets public, wouldn’t websites like this that reveal a subset of Common Data Set information be useful for those looking for information in that subset?
http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg02_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=327
Regarding the UCs and class rank… class rank as determined by your high school is not included or used in the UC admission process. However, they are probably using ELC data as an approximation of class rank for this reporting purpose, since ELC data is a reranking of the top 12.5% of each high school using UC-weighted GPA. Being in the top 9% of your high school by this reranking is supposed to assure admission to some UC (in practice, UC Merced).
Does it also follow that being outside the top 9-10% of one’s HS class might effectively bar one from consideration at most of the California public universities?
@merc81 Not the California State Universities (CSU’s), but yes for the UC system.
Thanks, @Yomama12. I need to learn the language better. I did intend to refer to the UC system. Thanks, precognitively, for the great detail, @ucbalumnus.
Assuming you mean the 9 UCs that admit frosh, in theory no, but someone outside the top 9-10% probably does not have the GPA needed to be competitive at the most selective of the UCs. Remember that the UC system is intended and sized to admit frosh from the top 12.5% of high school graduates in California. Obviously, the top 12.5% statewide is unevenly distributed among high schools, but it does give an indication of the relative size of a given UC campus compared to the number of potential applicants.
However, the California public universities include the 23 CSUs, who are intended and sized to admit frosh from the top 33.3% of high school graduates in California. The non-impacted majors at non-impacted campuses admit at baseline CSU eligibility, described at https://secure.csumentor.edu/planning/high_school/cal_residents.asp , while impacted majors and campuses have higher standards (though the three most selective campuses are probably about as selective as UCI, UCR, and UCM).
The California public system also has a relatively robust second chance in a relatively good and inexpensive community college system, and a large volume of transfer admission from the community colleges to UCs and CSUs.
Most Selective ~100 colleges - Top Quartile
WAR = Weighted Average Rank (50% SAT Rank + 40% T10 Rank + 10% ADM Rank)
1st pair of parens enclose the 3 ranked data points per college;
2nd pair of parens enclose the corresponding ranks)
Data Source: USNWR “Ranking Indicators”
(which should correspond to the 2013-14 Common Data Set numbers*)
- Chicago and Columbia apparently have no published CDS files
Anyone who wants to verify my numbers should be able to do so easily.
If you cannot view the subscription USNWR pages, and cannot find a CDS, try other sources such as collegedata.com.
Anyone who wants to try re-computing the WARs, using a different formula, should be able to copy these rows, paste them into a spreadsheet, and have at it. I’ve delimited the fields with parens and commas to facilitate this.
LACs are in bold
WAR … COLLEGE … SAT … T10% … ADMISSION … SAT Rank … T10% Rank … ADMISSION Rank
3 Cal Tech ( 1545 , 99% , 10.60% ) ( 1 , 4 , 13 )
4 Chicago ( 1515 , 98% , 8.80% ) ( 2 , 6 , 9 )
5 MIT ( 1500 , 99% , 8.20% ) ( 6 , 4 , 8 )
7 Harvard ( 1505 , 95% , 5.80% ) ( 3 , 12 , 2 )
7 Yale ( 1505 , 95% , 6.90% ) ( 3 , 12 , 3 )
8 Princeton ( 1505 , 95% , 7.40% ) ( 5 , 12 , 5 )
10 Stanford ( 1475 , 96% , 5.70% ) ( 12 , 10 , 1 )
12 Washington U ( 1485 , 95% , 15.60% ) ( 9 , 12 , 25 )
12 **Harvey Mudd /b ( 11 , 8 , 36 )
13 Columbia ( 1485 , 93% , 6.90% ) ( 9 , 20 , 3 )
17 **Pomona /b ( 14 , 21 , 18 )
18 Penn ( 1450 , 94% , 12.20% ) ( 18 , 18 , 15 )
18 Vanderbilt ( 1490 , 88% , 12.70% ) ( 7 , 32 , 17 )
19 Northwestern ( 1470 , 91% , 14% ) ( 13 , 26 , 19 )
19 Brown ( 1435 , 94% , 9.20% ) ( 22 , 18 , 11 )
19 Dartmouth ( 1460 , 90% , 10.40% ) ( 14 , 28 , 12 )
21 Duke ( 1455 , 90% , 12.40% ) ( 17 , 28 , 16 )
23 Tufts ( 1445 , 91% , 18.90% ) ( 19 , 26 , 35 )
24 Rice ( 1460 , 87% , 16.70% ) ( 14 , 35 , 27 )
24 **Swarthmore /b ( 20 , 31 , 20 )
26 **Haverford /b ( 33 , 12 , 44 )
26 Georgetown ( 1410 , 92% , 17.10% ) ( 30 , 21 , 29 )
27 **Amherst /b ( 20 , 37 , 20 )
27 **Williams /b ( 22 , 32 , 31 )
28 UC Berkeley ( 1375 , 98% , 17.70% ) ( 44 , 6 , 33 )
28 Notre Dame ( 1430 , 90% , 22.30% ) ( 26 , 28 , 42 )
Most Selective ~100 colleges - 2nd Quartile
WAR … COLLEGE … SAT … T10% … ADMISSION … SAT Rank … T10% Rank … ADMISSION Rank
29 **Bowdoin /b ( 22 , 39 , 23 )
31 Cornell ( 1420 , 87% , 15.60% ) ( 29 , 35 , 26 )
31 JHU ( 1430 , 84% , 17.10% ) ( 26 , 38 , 29 )
33 Carnegie Mellon ( 1435 , 80% , 25.50% ) ( 22 , 43 , 47 )
36 **Carleton /b ( 26 , 46 , 41 )
36 **Wellesley /b ( 30 , 39 , 54 )
38 USC ( 1380 , 88% , 19.80% ) ( 42 , 32 , 37 )
38 **Claremont McK /b ( 30 , 55 , 14 )
40 **W&L /b ( 38 , 43 , 34 )
41 UVA ( 1355 , 92% , 30.10% ) ( 53 , 21 , 56 )
43 UCLA ( 1320 , 97% , 20.40% ) ( 71 , 8 , 38 )
44 GA Tech ( 1385 , 81% , 41.1% ) ( 38 , 40 , 86 )
44 **Middlebury /b ( 38 , 55 , 31 )
45 **Wesleyan /b ( 33 , 61 , 38 )
47 Boston C ( 1360 , 81% , 32.20% ) ( 50 , 40 , 61 )
47 **Hamilton /b ( 38 , 57 , 53 )
47 W&M ( 1365 , 80% , 33.20% ) ( 47 , 43 , 65 )
47 **Vassar /b ( 35 , 63 , 45 )
49 Emory ( 1365 , 76% , 26.50% ) ( 47 , 51 , 50 )
50 UCSD ( 1290 , 100% , 36.80% ) ( 84 , 1 , 76 )
50 Rensselaer ( 1389 , 72% , 41.20% ) ( 37 , 57 , 87 )
51 **Colgate /b ( 50 , 51 , 52 )
51 **Scripps /b ( 46 , 53 , 72 )
52 Northeastern ( 1390 , 64% , 32.30% ) ( 36 , 69 , 62 )
52 Davidson /b ( 63 , 40 , 48 )
Most Selective ~100 colleges - 3rd Quartile
WAR … COLLEGE … SAT … T10% … ADMISSION … SAT Rank … T10% Rank … ADMISSION Rank
54 Michigan ( 1380 , 65% , 33.30% ) ( 42 , 65 , 66 )
54 **Barnard /b ( 61 , 48 , 40 )
55 Rochester ( 1350 , 75% , 35.70% ) ( 53 , 53 , 73 )
55 Case Western ( 1375 , 67% , 41.90% ) ( 44 , 61 , 90 )
56 UCSB ( 1250 , 100% , 39.80% ) ( 95 , 1 , 82 )
59 Wake Forest ( 1325 , 77% , 35.20% ) ( 65 , 48 , 71 )
60 UC Davis ( 1210 , 100% , 41.30% ) ( 101 , 1 , 88 )
60 Brandeis ( 1350 , 65% , 37% ) ( 53 , 65 , 78 )
61 **Oberlin /b ( 49 , 76 , 57 )
61 **Macalester /b ( 53 , 69 , 68 )
61 NYU ( 1360 , 63% , 32.40% ) ( 50 , 74 , 63 )
62 **Colorado College /b ( 65 , 63 , 42 )
62 **Colby /b ( 59 , 69 , 49 )
63 UNC ( 1305 , 78% , 26.70% ) ( 79 , 47 , 51 )
64 UMiami ( 1325 , 72% , 40.50% ) ( 65 , 57 , 84 )
65 UC Irvine ( 1165 , 96% , 41.10% ) ( 104 , 10 , 85 )
65 **Bryn Mawr /b ( 61 , 65 , 83 )
68 UWashington ( 1230 , 92% , 55.20% ) ( 99 , 21 , 98 )
69 **Bates /b ( 59 , 86 , 46 )
70 **Kenyon /b ( 71 , 65 , 81 )
71 **Smith /b ( 63 , 76 , 92 )
72 UIUC ( 1355 , 55% , 62.40% ) ( 53 , 88 , 102 )
72 **Richmond /b ( 77 , 69 , 59 )
72 **Grinnell /b ( 71 , 74 , 69 )
Most Selective ~100 colleges - 4th Quartile
WAR … COLLEGE … SAT … T10% … ADMISSION … SAT Rank … T10% Rank … ADMISSION Rank
74 **Union /b ( 77 , 69 , 79 )
75 **USAFA /b ( 74 , 88 , 24 )
75 U Florida ( 1265 , 77% , 46.60% ) ( 93 , 48 , 95 )
76 Lehigh ( 1315 , 60% , 30.80% ) ( 75 , 81 , 58 )
76 **Mt Holyoke /b ( 65 , 84 , 96 )
76 **Gettysburg /b ( 87 , 60 , 89 )
77 **Pitzer /b ( 79 , 88 , 22 )
77 **Whitman /b ( 70 , 80 , 100 )
77 **Connecticut Co /b ( 65 , 93 , 75 )
77 **Bucknell /b ( 83 , 76 , 55 )
79 **Franklin & Marshall /b ( 75 , 86 , 74 )
80 **Holy Cross /b ( 79 , 84 , 64 )
81 **USNA /b ( 89 , 91 , 5 )
83 Boston U ( 1290 , 58% , 36.90% ) ( 84 , 82 , 77 )
83 **Lafayette /b ( 91 , 76 , 67 )
84 **USMA /b ( 88 , 98 , 10 )
86 **Bard /b ( 91 , 82 , 80 )
87 **Occidental /b ( 79 , 95 , 91 )
90 Wisconsin ( 1290 , 51% , 51.1% ) ( 84 , 95 , 97 )
90 **Trinity /b ( 96 , 91 , 60 )
94 **Dickinson /b ( 90 , 98 , 94 )
95 **Skidmore/b ( 96 , 100 , 69 )
97 **Centre /b ( 99 , 93 , 103 )
98 **Sewanee /b ( 94 , 102 , 101 )
99 **Soka /b ( 101 , 97 , 93 )
99 Yeshiva ( 1235 , 45% , 82.20% ) ( 98 , 100 , 104 )
103 Penn State ( 1175 , 36% , 55.50% ) ( 103 , 103 , 99 )