<p>[quore] That is exactly the kind of misconception that SLC was trying to correct. My D applied to SLC last year and did not submit her SAT score (1580).
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<p>Two points:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Even if the SAT is on the old 1600 scale, this example is statiscally irrelevant. For instance, there are least two students attending Smith with very similar scores; their scores are nonetheless statistical aberrations for the school. At best, they balance students who score well below the school average. So, if we look at one example of a super high score, we ought to look at the other end of the spectrum as well. Fwiw, it would extremely hard to convince anyone that students who are attracted to SAT optional schools are from the highest scoring percentiles, especially if using the evidence at schools that went that route. </p></li>
<li><p>While I am not sure what "misconception" the SLC is trying to correct, it surely reinforces that schools that are SAT-optional or do not require any standardized scores should irrevocably remain unranked and not be included in the main rankings. To put it mildly, there are NO correct ways to replace scores that do not exist. Further the absence of SAT or other scores renders a number of other statistics invalid. How is USNews supposed to correctly assess the infamous "expected graduation rate" at schools that offer no basis to measure their freshman class? Should we allow the school to offer a completely arbitrary number when the USNews is merciless in its assessment of a school such as Harvey Mudd, when they ranked it DEAD LAST in this category because HMC has the highest SAT among all liberal schools in the country. Isn't that a misconception to expect one of the hardest ENGINEERING schools in the nation to graduate .. 99% of its class?</p></li>
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<p>The only decent and logical approach is to exclude schools that defy the norm from the basic rankings, and present them in their own separate group. After all, isn't that what they really want?</p>
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schools that are SAT-optional or do not require any standardized scores should irrevocably remain unranked and not be included in the main rankings
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<p>But reported SAT ranges are almost never commensurate; just two simple examples: a midwest LAC like Carleton (standardized testing required) gets SAT scores from just over 3/4s of their admits. The rest supress them in favor of ACT scores that are almost surely higher. Williams gets 99% SAT submission, even though their testing policies are identical to Carleton's. ConnCollege requires standardized testing, either ACT or or SATIIs (SAT-Reasoning optional). But guess what they report to USNews? You guessed it, the students who voluntarily submitted the SAT-Reasoning scores. There is no norm from which some schools deviate, just a messy continuum. If you really want the reported to ranges to reflect selectivity, you will always have to be making statistical guesses about numbers that do not exist, though in the case of a Williams the amount of guessing will be small, and in the case of SLC so large as to be impossible to overcome.</p>
<p>And yet these are the figures on which so much rides.</p>
In 1968, my mom bought me a large, soft-cover book that had the same sort of information that today's Fiske guide had: short profiles of "every" college from every state, along with of some sort of star rating which corresponded to academic quality and selectivity. </p>
<p>With a book like this, the focus was on reading about the school, and then taking a look at the rating to see where it stood -- not much different than choosing a hotel or restaurant out of the Triple A guide. The rating is important, but there are a lot of 5 & 4 star colleges to choose from, we figure out that the 3-star colleges are acceptable for safeties, and (for a high achieving student), those 2-star colleges probably are not going to provide sufficient challenge. </p>
<p>One can debate whether college X ought to have 3 or 4 stars, but once the focus is on the college itself, the precise rating diminishes in importance. Does anyone here even have a clue as to how many stars Fiske gives Smith or Sarah Lawrence, or the numerical academic or selectivity ranking (60-100) that Princeton Review gave them?</p>
<p>Since Carleton's biggest overlaps are Brown, Harvard, Macalester, Middlebury, and Williams, and the number of OOS students if high, I think it's a fair assumption that most of those non-submitting students have seen the SAT, but that with more of them from the midwest, there will be more kids with both ACT and SAT scores in hand so that they can compare and submit the better set. How many played their hands that way is unknowable, but that's just it . . .</p>
That statement really demonstrates a serious lack of imagination. I don't think anyone who knew the program that SLC offered or was familiar with their marketing strategy would think that anyone would be attracted to SLC specifically because they wouldn't have to disclose low test score -- if so, those students would quickly be deterred once they realized the intensity of the academic experience, with its tutorial and conference system.</p>
<p>I think most of the higher-end SAT optional schools tend to be smaller colleges or LAC's with holistic admission practices and often a very high emphasis on academic achievement and writing ability. There are a lot of smart underachieving kids who manage to pull off high SAT scores despite mediocre GPA's, but it's a lot harder to achieve consistently at a high level over 4 years in high school without also being high ability, whether or not that is reflected in test scores. No one is going to bluff their way into Bowdoin or Sarah Lawrence.</p>
<p>If anything, the focus on SAT scores is highly misleading even as to colleges that require and report the scores, because it can lead to colleges with more holistic admission practices ranking lower than colleges which are weaker academically (in terms of their offerings and expectations for enrolled students), but which heavily recruit and select for higher scores-- but in so doing exclude many extremely talented and capable students.</p>
<p>T26E4: Thanks for your candid remarks - but you are fighting a Quixotic battle. Unfortunately, many parents and students are hung up on the prestige of a school. And there are great schools out there that may never get into the top 100 but can still offer bright students many opportunities, as well as scholarships and financial aid. You should write an article on your experiences, IMO.</p>
<p>Question: Percent and number of first-time, first-year (freshman) students enrolled in fall 2006 who submitted national standardized (SAT/ACT) test scores. Include information for ALL enrolled, degree-seeking, first-time, first-year (freshman) students who submitted test scores. Do not include partial test scores (e.g., mathematics scores but not critical reading for a category of students) or combine other standardized test results (such as TOEFL) in this item. Do not convert SAT scores to ACT scores and vice versa. The
25th percentile is the score that 25 percent scored at or below; the 75th percentile score is the one that 25 percent scored at or above.</p>
<p>Answer
C9 Percent submitting SAT scores 81% 406 students
C9 Percent submitting ACT scores 54% 272 students</p>
<p>PS 504 freshmen enrolled at Carleton. 4450 Applied and 1405 were admitted.
PPS Carleton recommends the submission of SAT Subject Tests. You can't submit those without submitting the SAT.</p>
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That statement really demonstrates a serious lack of imagination.
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<p>Calmom, it is because of my lack of imagination that I have no choice but focus on the hard facts, also known as evidence. For what it is worth, I happen to believe that numbers do not really much imagination to yield a correct interpretation. </p>
<p>However, please do not let me stop from letting your vivid imagination paint a glossier --yet fuzzier-- picture of how the statistics related to the most selective schools in our country really stack up, or how those schools are classified.</p>
<p>Lastly, this is not a discussion about using a holistic approach or bluffing his or her way in a school; the subject is the impact of US News ranking.</p>
<p>PS SLC's SAT scores, before dropping the futile exercise of requesting them, were in the same ballpark as the ones at Dickinson, Skidmore, Beloit, or Hampshire College. Did the dropping of the requirement change anything in the quality of education or selectivity of its student body? Of course, that is one question that does require lots of imagination, especially if finding a positive spin is on the agenda!</p>
<p>^My figures were one year older, but the ballpark hasn't changed: there are still almost 20% at Carleton who don't submit SAT scores, and how many did so because they could submit ACTs were higher were is unknowable.</p>
<p>I just picked Carleton out of the hat as the highest ranked midwestern school. A better illustration of the underlying point would've been a school like Grinnell, which gets only 61% SAT scores/38% ACTs, far fewer SAT scores than Bowdoin, which is SAT-optional. How is anyone to compare those two numbers in the USNews chart and conclude anything about selectivity?</p>
<p>I see very little difference in the SAT ranges and percent in the top 10%, the two factors that make up 90% of the selectivity index (and 13.5% of the overall ranking). Presumably the acceptance rate, an easily manipulated factor, is responsible for the difference between the selectivity rankings of Princeton (#4) and Duke (#11). This is particularly dubious considering I didn't factor in Pratt, which has higher scores than Trinity. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Xiggi, I think you have some major fallacies in your reasoning -- you can't use the historic score range of SLC as an indication as to why the students applied or which students applied. SLC may very well have been historically rejecting higher scoring applicants in favor of lower scoring applicants even when scores were submitted. </p>
<p>Actually your entire post make no sense whatsoever to me ... I can't make heads or tails of your logic, so I'll leave it at that.</p>
<p>Oh, Calmom, let's not go in yet another circle. I'll make it less subtle.</p>
<p>Twist it as much as you want, but the selectivity of schools doesn't change overnight. SLC is still attracting the same candidates as it did in 2003, and is still accepting them in a similar range. Don't like the SAT? Then use the percentage of students from the top 10% as a guideline. What is it? 33%! You won't find a higher ranked school with such as stat. So we have lower SAT's and lower GPA in high schools? Did I miss anything?</p>
<p>Here's the reality that has been facing SLC ... as far as the USNews goes. You can't claim a spot in the so-called elite group while fighting to remain on the ... first page. </p>
<p>While today's rankings are a bit kinder to the schools ranked 40th to 50th, in 2003, the combination of historical SAT scores AND admissions' rate of 37% left SLC in a range that barely was keeping them on the first page of the LAC rankings. Falling below the 50th place would have meant a spot in the SECOND TIER. The alphabetical ranking would have left SLC somewhere between Agnes Scott, Albion and Wofford College.</p>
<p>Thee problem with a stars system like the Michalin system in Europe for restaurants, is that it implies a huge difference between all 2 and all 3 star schools which isn't alwasy true. A continuous ranking system like USNWR, when taken with the apporpriate grain of salt, is much better becasue it doesn't imply false cliffs in the rankings, except perhaps between the major tiers.</p>
<p>"Selectivity" can be determined by the percentage of students admitted. If the college selects based on SAT scores, then comparison of scores would give an applicant some idea of the applicant pool, to assess the competition. But if SAT scores are not considered, then that criteria is irrelevant.</p>
<p>The 2003 admissions rate for 37% for SLC means that year, it was more difficult for a student to get into SLC than Univ. of Chicago. Chicago's SAT scores have historically been higher -- but I think they probably admitted around 45% of their applicants at the time. (I don't have the numbers, but you apparently do -- so maybe you can check) Chicago, like SLC, places great weight on written essays, and claims to place little weight on SAT scores. So it is fair to assume that admission criteria were somewhat similar. (Although SLC also has arts programs, so it is likely that artistic talent was also considered by SLC but not considered heavily by Chicago -- which may account in large part for the score discrepancy). </p>
<p>Things have changed since then -- Chicago attracts many more students, so its admission rate fell from 40% in 2005 to 35% in 2006, whereas less students are applying to SLC, so its admission rate has gone up.... but as you so correctly point out, the "selectivity" doesn't change overnight. </p>
<p>But the US News numbers can change quite rapidly depending on whether a college is able to attract more applicants. Which simply shows that the colleges who are really playing games and manipulating data are those who succeed in attracting many, many more applicants, usually through outreach and mailing: Washington U, NYU, Tulane, etc. If those colleges also decide to place great weight on SAT scores, at the same time as sending out tons of mailing to students based on their test scores --- then they will end up looking a lot more "selective" and ranking higher than the colleges who don't play that game. Does that mean that the college has gotten better? If the profs and course offerings are the same, then I find it hard to believe that the overall quality of the college would be changed very much.</p>
<p>I think the best thing USNWR could do, would be to drop using the ratio of admits to applicants as a measure of selectivity. The SAT scores are a much more meaningful indicator of selectivity and harder to mainipulate.</p>
<p>Calmom, I don't disagree with anything in your last post. Please realize that I only commented about SLC's relation to the US News. and the school's SAT scores.</p>
<p>My point is quite simple: SLC should be not be part of the US News main ranking because its lack of standardized scores are not allowing a comparative analysis, and the school obviously objects to the "unfair" extrapolation. </p>
<p>I still don't see what the Prez of SLC would expect USNews to do. Grant them a number they never reached? And, more importantly, why does it matter THAT much? The school is what it is. People who spend as much time as you did to analyze its qualities should be oblivious to its rankings. I'm sure that the school does have a solid legion of supporters who love it for what it IS. </p>
<p>So, why try to make it into something it is not ... a school that is recognized as highly selective by a magazine that, for all purposes, should be insignificant, or a school known for its high SAT scores. None of the two is feasible, so why bother?</p>
<p>Again, my point is that it should be listed --as opposed to be ranked-- among its true peers in a separate and alphabetized list. The more I think about it, that is probably what will happen anyway.</p>
<p>I don't have a problem with the idea of US News simply listing SLC alphabetically in a "Could Not Rank" category -- I don't think Michele Myers would object either. At least that wasn't her complaint. Her complaint was that US News told her they would use false scores -- a number derived by dropping a full standard deviation from peer institutions. So not only was the number false, but it was punitively so-- based on faulty assumptions.</p>
<p>That would not be accurate -- as you said, SLC is still going to attract the same candidates. If there was such a "could not rank" category -- then its impact would be whatever it was -- some people might disregard it entirely, some people might view it as a place where they could find hidden gems. Maybe Reed would be happier in such a category than with its current ranking. Maybe other SAT-optional schools would similarly prefer to be on a short, "could not rank" list, then buried down below the 40 or 50 mark on a ranked list. And maybe if the "could not rank" category grew to be too large, US News might rethink its methodology, at least as to those schools. </p>
<p>As someone else pointed out above, a much improved system would be a database that allowed people to "rank" based on their own criteria. That would eliminate the need to separate universities from LACs, because people could just plug in the data that they wanted and a list would come up, ranking it based on whatever criteria they chose.</p>