<p>Just in terms of selectivity how does oberlin compare to colleges such as barnard, tufts, boston college, wesleyan, kenyon, trinity college, pomona college, bates, haverford, cornell, wisconsin, michigan and colgate?</p>
<p>you can go to the common data sets for each school and figure out the admission percentages for the class as a whole and by male and female (which vary considerably for some schools). it also has the data by SAT percentiles.</p>
<p>Don’t quote me on this, but I would say about equal to Barnard, Kenyon, Trinity, Bates, Wisconsin, Michicgan, and Colgate, a little bit harder than BC, just SLIGHTLY easier than Wesleyan and Pomona (but not by much!) and easier than Haverford and Cornell. (just from what I know from people @ my school in the past). Oberlin is quite selective, and a great school.</p>
<p>As a first cut, here are numbers for percentage of all applicants admitted and the approximate median SAT score of the matriculated first-year class from the website of that company that administers those tests:</p>
<p>Oberlin College - 33%, 2040</p>
<p>Barnard - 31%, 2040
Bates - 29%, 2020
BC - 30%, 2020
Colgate - 32%, 2050
Cornell - 21%, 2100
Haverford - 25%, 2100
Kenyon - 31%, 2010
Michigan - 50%, 1980
Pomona - 16%, 2200
Trinity - 42%, 2010
Tufts - 26%, 2130
Wesleyan - 27%, 2080
Wisconsin - 53%, 1890</p>
<p>Note that at large state universities like Michigan and Wisconsin, the numbers can be very different for those who are applying from within the state vs those applying from out of state.</p>
<p>another consideration regarding “selectivity” is that not all schools are selecting for the same things; some want across the board high scores, others may take “lopsided” applicants with strong creative writing or other talents…Oberlin looks for students they think will be a good fit and so there will be instances where the same student is accepted at University of Chicago/Barnard/Vassar but not at Oberlin - or the other way around. Then there are some students who will be accepted at Brown and Oberlin but not Pomona.
(Pomona is one of the hardest admits these days.) Much of this has to do, as well, with location and size of some of the LAC’s - Haverford is smaller, for example.
These types of comparisons are of very qualified value at best. The bottom line, though, is that at any one of these schools, a student can get a first rate education and if he/she does well, have many great opportunities for the future. So it is best to have options and to select the school where the fit (social, academic, and financial) is best.</p>
<p>trinity’s accept rate is not 42%. I believe its around 33%. Trinity and Oberlin are comparable in terms of selectivity I think.</p>
<p>Here are the numbers for Trinity from their own site:</p>
<p>[Trinity</a> College: Admissions Facts](<a href=“http://www.trincoll.edu/orgs/planning/publicdata/Admissions.html]Trinity”>http://www.trincoll.edu/orgs/planning/publicdata/Admissions.html)</p>
<p>It seems that their accept rate varies quite a bit from year to year. It was 34% in 2008 but 42% in 2009, for example.</p>
<p>I think it is also helpful to look at the percentages of students admitted who are in the top 10% of their class.</p>