<p>
</p>
<p>Some high school kids need to care about graduate programs a LOT, because they will be pursuing graduate degrees. And some kids applying to some colleges have already, through dual enrollment, </p>
<p>[Dual</a> Enrollment of High School Students at Postsecondary Institutions: 2002-03](<a href=“Resource Library Search | IES”>Dual Enrollment of High School Students at Postsecondary Institutions: 2002-03 | IES) </p>
<p>completed much of an undergraduate degree sequence in their favorite subject before graduating from high school. (I know such young people personally in my town.) So for some kids in some families, the level of graduate courses and the amount of leading-edge research at an undergraduate college matters a lot, and is one of the most important selection factors. </p>
<p>My general comment about lists of colleges by SAT score ranges is that CC participants who are savvy know the difference between a college that gets high-scoring students, because that college wants to stay high in numerical rankings, and a college that gets high-scoring students because that college gets students who have it all. The most conspicuous difference between the top three to five colleges in the United States (I’m not committing myself to listing them here) and the next half dozen to one dozen colleges in the United States is NOT test scores, as all those colleges have high test score ranges, but rather deep extracurricular involvements. At the very most selective colleges, the admitted students not only post high test scores, but also gain national recognition in a tough, academic extracurricular before leaving high school.</p>