The "Smartest" Colleges--A New Ranking

<p>I found a new and interesting ranking in Business Insider. The article reads:</p>

<pre><code> "Schools are constantly ranked on everything from the beauty of their campuses to their party scenes, but rarely on their students' intelligence. Exclusively for Business Insider, Dr. Jonathan Wai, a Duke University Talent Identification Program research scientist and psychologist, computed a new ranking of America's colleges and universities based purely on smarts, as shown by the student body's average scores on standardized tests.
Though these tests are often criticized, research shows that both the SAT and ACT are excellent measures of general cognitive ability, and the scores of a school's student body give an accurate snapshot of their abilities."
</code></pre>

<p>The top 25 schools are:</p>

<ol>
<li>Caltec</li>
<li>Princeton, Harvard, Yale</li>
<li>Chicago</li>
<li>Harvey Mudd, MIT, WUSL</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Northwestern</li>
<li>Vanderbilt</li>
<li>Duke, Dartmouth</li>
<li>Swarthmore</li>
<li>UPenn, Notre Dame, Willimas, Rice, Pamona</li>
<li>Tufts, Amherst</li>
<li>Bowdoin, Carleton</li>
<li>Brown</li>
</ol>

<p>To begin with, I am no fan of any ranking. But I think this ranking is at least more revealing and actually better than the mighty USNWR rankings. It shows the present of each school (and perhaps indicates the future) rather than largely reflecting the past as USNWR does. It seems to me that this ranking is closer to reality: it shows what the highschool kids, parents, and teachers think of the schools today rather than what some 60+ year old "peer reviewers" tend to believe. I am very very impressed at the intellectual talents of kids at WUSL, Northwestern, and Vanderbilt. As a new fan of Vanderbilt, I am positively surprised that only HYP and Columbia among the Ivies can claim "smarter" students than Vanderbilt. Simply amazing!</p>

<p>Some schools conspicuously absent. Like Cornell. UCBerkeley. Haverford. UVA.</p>

<p>And looks like methodology changed from last year.</p>

<p>The concept makes sense (these are stats we all look at). But yeah, I’d want to understand the data & the methodology before getting too excited about this particular ranking.</p>

<p>For instance, it’s quite likely that STEM-oriented schools will be higher on the list than liberal arts oriented schools, and you see some of this above. Also, I’d find it very hard to argue that Swarthmore, Williams, Amherst students as a group are less “smart” than HYP students – I don’t believe it’s true, in fact the opposite might be the case, based on my non-statistical information about those schools.</p>

<p>This is what they say:</p>

<p>“These rankings are based on the average of each school’s reported SAT scores (math plus verbal) and ACT scores (converted into equivalent SAT scores) of first-year, degree-seeking students in 2012 as reported to U.S. News.”
(Read more: [Inside</a> The Smartest Colleges Ranking - Business Insider](<a href=“http://www.businessinsider.com/inside-the-smartest-colleges-ranking-2013-9]Inside”>Inside the Smartest Colleges Ranking))</p>

<p>This ranking tried to eliminate any subjective criteria by using statistical data only. You may question whether standardized test results can really show the smartness of students. But the people who developed this system think so. To me, their methodology is more reasonable than many other ranking systems. This ranking is at least a better indicator of the schools that are actually preferred by the brightest highschool kids now. Nevertheless, it seems to be unfair to compare small residential colleges (especially those STEM-oriented schools as vandyman pointed out) with much larger schools. Smaller schools can do quality control a lot easier than much larger universities.</p>

<p>Honestly, I did not know that Vanderbilt attracts statistically “smarter” kids than some of the Ivies and Duke. That is a (pleasant) surprise.</p>

<p>Even though I want to attend washu. There is no way WashU is that high. I would say around ~20ish on the rankings (LAC+Private+Public)</p>

<p>Did WUSL cheat on data? Well, I don’t believe so.</p>

<p>Yes there are several universities that don’t want this list getting out.<br>
When you look at college student based rankings in areas like happy students, best quality of life, how well the school is run, & professor quality the same schools keep showing up. The students like Vanderbilt, Stanford, Rice, WashSL, Yale, & Dartmouth.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, these smart students at Vanderbilt are just dumb enough to get sucked up into Vanderbilt’s regrettable Greek life. Gag.</p>

<p>SAT and ACT measure different things. Study should have picked a lane.</p>

<p>Is Vanderbilt Greek scene that bad?</p>

<p>One of the wonderful things about VU is that there is something for everyone, whether Greek or independent. Of my two kids, I had one of each and I view #8 as just an inflammatory comment. Given that recruitment doesn’t occur until the spring semester, I think the Commons experience gives students a chance to ground themselves with a diverse group of friends before making that choice.</p>

<p>On the issue of rankings, it’s always nice to see Vanderbilt in the top 20 of most any ranking list, even if they are subjective. VU has inched up a bit since oldest applied, but I don’t think for a minute that the rankings are what is driving interest and enrollment. I went back to check the number of apps for S’s entering class and it was just below 10,000. Applications have pretty much tripled since that time and I think it’s due to several other factors, but largely to the no-loans policy implemented in 2008-09. </p>

<p>Also, it’s a proven fact that schools draw more interest when their sports teams perform well and mens and womens basketball have had some very solid results in the last 10 years. Of course, football is coming on strong now. The sports announcers give Vandy a compliment practically each time they play mentioning that they are a selective school that competes in the SEC. In an era where social media exposure plays a big role, it also doesn’t hurt that Willie Geist has been seen wearing his Vanderbilt shirt in the Today show obstacle competition, talking about Vandy, andd tweeting about the school on a regular basis. I doubt students are paying attention to him, but I’m sure more parents are hearing about VU as a result in areas where it’s not been a well known school.</p>

<p>Obviously, there are lots of other factors that come into play, but those are just a few of the big and small things driving VU popularity, IMO. I think they’ve always been a “smart” school, but more competitive admissions certainly is allowing them to improve the student profile with more high achieving students.</p>

<p>Vanderbilt also decided to market themselves aggressively several years ago. That first glossy brochure showed up at our house when our son was in 9th grade. I really don’t know if we would have looked at the school if the marketing wasn’t there.</p>

<p>Once we were aware of what the University had to offer, it became a contender. Once we visited it went to the top of the list.</p>

<p>I believe a large factor in the increase in applications to Vanderbilt is the acceptance of the Common App. and no supplemental essays required.</p>

<p>Vanderbilt consistently places higher in these lists than on general university rankings. I remember last year, Lumoisty, a brain health/performance testing website, ranked colleges based on their performance on the site. Vanderbilt placed high on the list while beating out higher USNWR-ranked schools like Princeton, UChicago, John Hopkins, Brown, WUSTL, Cornell, etc. It’s certainly no coincidence.</p>

<p>The quality of the undergraduate population is simply improving on a much quicker pace than the university as a whole (in terms of research output, endowment, prestigious professors, job placement, etc). The university will catch up. Just takes time.</p>

<p>I agree with the general views that the VU rankings will rise. I tend to believe that one of the keys is to be able to attract talented HS students, since the correlation between that and future alumni success is obviously very high. (Another key is to have the funding to be able to attract those talented students, as well as talented faculty – VU is doing well there too.)</p>

<p>If all this pans out, future alumni success will create a lasting impression of VU’s quality. Meanwhile, we can relax and not get too hung up on all this ranking stuff.</p>

<p>Seems way overly simplistic to me. There is a proven correlation between SAT scores and success in college (I assume the same is true for ACT but I have not seen anything that proves it, although I am sure it has been shown or people would move away from it), but the correlation is hardly 100%. There is more than enough variability to belie the statement that these schools have the kids with the most “smarts” in this order. As a grouping, then yes it is no doubt fairly accurate. But of course success in college and in life is about a lot more than academic intelligence, although it obviously can help, especially with the former.</p>

<p>Why the SAT? Why not the PSAT?<br>
And is this the one-sitting SAT score?<br>
Some schools only take the SAT scores from one sitting (UCLA, UC Berkeley), so how can you compare UCLA’s one sitting SAT score with Harvard’s and other’s super-scored SATs?</p>

<p>If you want a direct comparison, you can look at ACT scores (which Vanderbilt doesn’t superscore) and the UCs still perform lower. </p>

<p>Vanderbilt’s incoming class scored 32-34 (25-75%) while Berkeley averages 31 and UCLA 28. So the 25% percentile of Vanderbilt students who submit ACT are scoring higher than the average incoming freshman at UC-Berkeley/UCLA.</p>

<p>It’s also worth noting Vanderbilt has a holistic admission process. Students admitted through RD for the 2017 class:
-100% received significant honors or held major leadership positions in high school
-67% held major leadership positions
-75% received the highest level of honor in an organization
-47% were varsity athletic team captains
-36% distinguished themselves in the fine arts holding lead roles and achieving state level awards</p>

<p>I feel very sorry that I created this post. All these college raking games are in a sense ruining America’s higher education, especially state colleges. They have been contributing to the skyrocketing costs (think about all the extravagant monies colleges spend to attract students), to public colleges’ endeavor to buy statistically smart students (researches show that wealthy students do much better in standardized tests), and thereby limiting college education opportunities for poor students. I’m glad that Vanderbilt is doing well, but hope that it will not be obssessed by rakings, and give more opportunities to kids from lower income families.</p>