<p>No kidding - look the relatively low selectivity for JHU and Cornell compared to their USNWR ranking.</p>
<p>Acceptance rate does not matter alone, but combined with average SAT scores, high school class rank, profile of entering class, selectivity is very important</p>
<p>The strength of a college is determined by the strength of its students, so I'd argue selectivity is the most important factor</p>
<p>I'm not sure why Alex thinks having stronger students at the University doesn't matter. Students want to attend elite schools to be around really smart people which in turn makes the elite schools as good as they are.</p>
<p>WUSTL is so "selective" because it puts most of its quality applicants on its waiting list. Imagine being able to say that you turned away 400 valdictorians! (Or whatever - I pulled that out of the air.) WUSTL has a high yield as well because it expertly identifies those who are using it as a safety school (hence, the waitlist) and those who are most likely to attend if accepted. The REAL question is the quality of the school itself - and I'm confident in saying that Stanford's student body is probably getting a more rigorous education.</p>
<p>Selectivity can be a numbers game, and it can also be deceiving based on the kind of applicant pool a school gets. For instance (and this is my personal interest, so take it or leave it), the top women's schools appear not to be as selective as their co-ed counterparts - they take up to half of their applicants - BUT the women who go there are generally exceptional. Why is that? Because average students have no interest in going to those places and so don't apply. </p>
<p>Also, we've seen movement in the rankings over the past four years. No college changes "selectivity" that quickly. Chances are, a school that was ranked 50 last year and 40 this year is still the same school, with the same professors, learning environment, and type of student.</p>
<p>Selectivity says something, but it's far from the whole story.</p>
<p>"On its own, selectivity is meaningless."</p>
<p>I understand trying to defend yourself in the thread, but I really feel that you're off with this statement (and the rest that are sometimes contradictory). Selectivity does tell you something, and if it tells you <em>something</em>, it is not meaningless. This seems simple to me; I don't understand the confusion.</p>
<p>Thanks a bunch, Alexandre. And of course i'm not really taking this into consideration, but it does clear up a few things.</p>
<p>Out of curiosity, are the public school rankings specifically for oos or in-state, or for the school as a whole? meaning, for example, is it harder for an non-michigan resident to get into Umich than johns hopkins or cornell? it seems odd that some of the publics are so high to me.</p>
<p>"WUSTL has a high yield as well because it expertly identifies those who are using it as a safety school"</p>
<p>actually it has statistically a very low yield, at 34%</p>
<p>that being said, those rankings are pretty innaccurate, USC and UCLA are too high, etc.</p>
<p>To the extent that "selectivity" is influenced by yield or by the percentage of applicants accepted, it is not a reliable indicator of the relative abilities or competitiveness of the student body. As others have pointed out, yield and pecrcentage of acceptance can be manipulated by rejecting or waitlisting applicants who are far more qualified than the average matriculant. Selectivity also is affected by mass solicitation by some schools of students with good, but not great, PSAT scores who are led to believe that they fit a school's profile when they do not. The acceptance percentage also is affected by the "what's to lose" mentality encouraged by the common app. Finally, a few of the top 50 schools are more selective than they appear because applicants self-select, that is, only qualified students apply. Except for those whose primary reason for selecting a university is perceived status, sometimes referred to on this board as "prestige", the selectivity ranking should weigh into the decision somewhere between the distance to the student parking lot and the ratio of washers and dryers per student.</p>
<p>"the selectivity ranking should weigh into the decision somewhere between the distance to the student parking lot and the ratio of washers and dryers per student."</p>
<p>lol</p>
<p>Well, of course the selectivity of some schools can be off based on their admissions process, but there are two good reasons for seeing this:</p>
<p>1) applicants who can only get into a school that's so good can see what ones are out of reach (to a certain extent)
2) you can get a sense of schools whose placement on the overall list is out-of-whack for whatever reason. Example: harvey mudd is #1 selective, but #14 overall. That tells me that it's probably only ranked so low because of the fact that it is strictly math/science and is ridiculously small.</p>
<p>alexandre:</p>
<p>I'm not in the least confused. I know the difference between a simple relationship and a correlation. I also know the difference between that which has no meaning and that which has some meaning, but is not the be all and end all of meaning. I also understand when two statements are mutually exclusive, and you made them.</p>
<p>As for "leaving statistics out of it," how would one do that? The idea of relevance in this case is mathematical in nature. Besides, by your own admisson, you're so incredibly advanced in mathematics that I would think you would welcome the chance to put this into a more precise language than words.</p>
<p>So, since it's so simple, why don't you explain it to me? How is it that the following two phrases, both used by you in this thread, can both be true?</p>
<p>"On its own, selectivity is meaningless."</p>
<p>"... typically, there is a correlation between selectivity and quality of student body ..."</p>
<p>Clendenenator, the selectivity rankings of the USNWR are for the entire class, inclduing in-staters in the case of state universities. </p>
<p>Tarhunt, if you read my first post, I said that selectivity RANKINGS, on their own, are meaningless. Selectivity as a factor plays a minor role in that it sometimes determines the strength of the student body, which in turn plays a role in the quality of an institution. </p>
<p>thethoughtprocess, can you please show me where I said that "having stronger students at the University doesn't matter." I agree that your definition of "stronger student" and mine differ, and that we do not agree on the importance of of the quality of the student body, but I clearly stated that the quality of the student body matters. Not as much as the quality of the faculty and the strength of the curriculum, but it matters.</p>
<p>I've always thought that the quality of the student matters at least as much, if not moreso, than the quality of the faculty and 'the strength of the curriculum', which is a empty statement to me and don't know what you mean by this. Recruiters are coming to these schools because of its students, not its professors. Grad schools are evaluating the students from these schools more than professors or the nebulous strength of curriculum. Not to mention the most important aspect to me is that your interaction with fellow students is what is going to define and shape your experience and your progression onward in life more than interaction with the faculty (which is even harder to pinpoint as to what is high quality than it is for students anyway). Certainly, prospective students want faculty that are of high quality, but this means different things to different people, is very hard to rank in any objective, meaningful manner and, at least, to me not as important in the first place. In general, the difference in thinking on this topic is one major factor in what draws one to large, public schools versus smaller, private schools. Besides, cost and location of course, which however for people on CC seems to be less of a factor.</p>
<p>Why bother to try to show that the strength or quality of a school is due to students or due to professors, unless it's for the sake of academic argument here? It's the bottom-line quality of the education received which is important to high school students and parents reading here, and there are many contributing factors.</p>
<p>Gellino, companies do not recruit on campuses because they have good students. They recruit at top universities and programs. It so happens that top universities and programs attract top students. Companies and graduate schools will not give special consideration to students at one top university over a student at another top university merely because the student body at one of those universities is allegedly better. The recruiters and adcoms will expect all applicants to prove themselves as individuals. They recruit at a particlar program or institution because the students are taught well and the curriculum is demanding. But beyond that, it is up to the individual student to distinguish her/himself.</p>
<p>As for interaction between students, it is definitely important. But students are generally able to find their niche no matter what school they go to.</p>
<p>^^ dude, that's like the chicken or the egg question though,</p>
<p>who knows if good schools are good because of the students or because of the programs. Do good students make good programs? or do good programs attract good students?</p>
<p>One way out of the chicken and egg quandry is to think of selectivity as a measure of academic potential. By the time the grad school and corporate recruiters roll in four years later, some schools (and departments)--not always the prestigiuos ones--will have done better, on average, at maximizing that potential.</p>
<p>Alex, from what I've seen I would mostly disagree. Companies like Morgan Stanley and Bain are not recruiting at Brown or Dartmouth because they have 'good programs', whatever that means. They are recruiting there because they have a history of getting smart students there who have gone on to do well at their companies in the past. To me, it has nothing to do with if you're taught well. What difference does it make if you're taught well in history or poly sci? That has nothing to do with how you're going to do on the job. Finding a collection of very smart students to choose from is why these companies are going to these schools. I agree with you that it's up to the individual student, which is consistent with the study of the Princeton profs who found that students that were accepted at top schools, but chose to go to 'lesser' schools for whatever reason still ended up doing just as well as the other 'top school' graduates. If you take what you're saying to be true then the top applicant, who isn't "taught well" in a "particular program" is not as capable of being sucessful and this is not what the profs found, nor does it make sense that they would.</p>
<p>"To me, it has nothing to do with if you're taught well."</p>
<p>Somehow, I don't think you mean to claim that college is irrelevant, that you don't mean that top students simply arrive smart and then later leave smart, regardless of whether they have learned a lot from good profs, or nothing from bad profs. That's how this arument comes across.</p>
<p>Gellino, I said instititions and programs, not just programs. Top talent is to be found at both...as is great instruction.</p>