<p>A lot of people on here tend to quibble over the differences in student quality among Top 20 schools. I think that the "average" SAT score can be misleading, since some schools are more legacy or athlete-focused, whereas others are more personality/essay focused, causing the 25th percentile scores to often lower a school's average SAT score. The top 25% of SAT scorers reveals (roughly) how talented the best students are at any given school, and surprisingly, the 75th percentile score (out of 1600) at many top 20 schools tends to deviate a bit from what USN&WR would lead prospies to believe about the "best of the best" at any of these elite schools.</p>
<p>Harvard 1590
Yale 1590
Princeton 1580
Caltech 1580
MIT 1560
Dartmouth 1550
Stanford 1550
Duke 1540
UChicago 1530
Rice 1530
WashU 1530
Columbia 1530
UPenn 1520
Northwestern 1520
Notre Dame 1510
Carnegie Mellon 1510
Cornell 1500
Johns Hopkins 1500
Georgetown 1490
Vanderbilt 1480
Emory 1470
UC Berkeley 1460
Virginia 1420</p>
<p>Notable anomalies (according to USN&WR rankings):
overrated - UPenn, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Virginia
underrated - Dartmouth, Rice, Carnegie Mellon</p>
<p>I think being "underrated" according to these data would suggest that top students choose such schools based on factors other than perceived prestige. This would indicate that "underrated" schools have a lot to offer students outside of strict academic advancement, since highly qualified students choose them over other, probably more [superficially] prestigious options.</p>
<p>This also shows that you don't have to go to an ivy league school (or Stanford/Duke/MIT/Caltech) to be surrounded by really talented people. Look at Rice, WashU, Chicago, Northwestern, Notre Dame, and Carnegie Mellon--they all boast 75th percentile scores over 1500.</p>
<p>Cornell's 75th percentile SATs in Arts and Sciences and Engineering are about 1530. That might account for its higher rating in US News Peer Assessment. That and research productivity.</p>
<p>You can extrapolate that argument to many of the above mentioned schools, though.</p>
<p>Any of the above schools with many students enrolled in non-arts/sciences/engineering schools, which could include communications, education/social policy, or business, would have deflated numbers (since let's be honest--people majoring in Management aren't exactly required to have the same SAT-testable competence as an Electrical Engineer). So Cornell isn't the only one that suffers on this ranking list from its diversity of programs.</p>
<p>Also, as an addendum to the above list,</p>
<p>Brown 1530</p>
<p>The specialty schools (non-CAS and Eng) at Cornell comprise 56% of its freshman class. I don't think that's true elsewhere.</p>
<p>Indeed. I think the only other school on this list for which such a consideration can be made is Northwestern.</p>
<p>I also think it is important to take absolute numbers into consideration. For instance, there are more students at Cornell with over a 1450 SAT than the entire number of students at Dartmouth. So if you want to surround yourself with <em>very</em> smart people at the larger colleges (UVA, Cornell, Northwestern, Berkeley), it isn't very hard to do.</p>
<p>Northwestern has 8,000 undergrads, so it's hardly a larger college.</p>
<p>Great list except for the couple of school omissions already mentioned. I think that your analysis is absolutely correct and gives another great slant on how to look at the schools.</p>
<p>@Cayuga: Even the smaller schools like Dartmouth, Rice, and CMU have still got around a thousand students in the incoming class. I can't imagine that most people can keep track of a social group larger than around 200 so what do you mean by "surround"?</p>
<p>That's a good point.</p>
<p>I wasn't thinking social groups per se, but more along the lines of majors, lectures, and different extracurricular activities. These seems to be a bias on these boards against the top publics due to their "weaker" student bodies, but I don't doubt you can have an academic experience at Berkeley or Michigan similar to one of the top, smaller privates.</p>
<p>It's also partly a reflection of my experiences at Cornell. You could "surround" yourself with vain, practical minded Hotelies and AEM students. Or you could "surround" yourself mostly with very bright students in the theoretical majors interested in going on for a PhD. Not that the two groups are mutually exclusive (there was a Hotelie in my Real Analysis class), but the students tend to be on different parts of campus, in different social groups, etc. I imagine the same is true for Michigan, Berkeley, and UVa.</p>
<p>If I let you hang out with a person for a year, by the end of the year, can you tell me if that person has a 1500 or a 1530 SAT score? There can be huge differences in the quality of certain departments b/w various schools (for example, Cornell Engineering is much better than Penn Engineering) but I think you're splitting hairs comparing schools with a 20 pt. difference in the SAT's.</p>
<p>
[quote]
If I let you hang out with a person for a year, by the end of the year, can you tell me if that person has a 1500 or a 1530 SAT score? There can be huge differences in the quality of certain departments b/w various schools (for example, Cornell Engineering is much better than Penn Engineering) but I think you're splitting hairs comparing schools with a 20 pt. difference in the SAT's.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Actually, your observation is one of the main points I was trying to make in posting this data: that at many Top 20 schools, the top 25% of each student body is <em>roughly</em> equivalent in SAT-measurable talent. So people saying "WashU is TOTALLY overrated" or "Georgetown is WAY underrated" really have no idea what they are talking about with respect to student quality.</p>
<p>Also, going along with this idea, there is hardly a difference in SAT-measurable talent between the top students at non-ivies such as Notre Dame/Northwestern and non-HYP ivies.</p>
<p>However, I think these data also show that the reputations of HYPSMC are well-deserved.</p>
<p>^I would agree with your observations, except when you made a claim that Cornell is overrated. Let's not forget that there are other important aspects of measuring a college's quality in addition to the caliber of student body at each institution. You would need to carefully assess each school's strength of academic programs, research outputs, etc, when evaluating a school's reputation or ranking for that matter. Cornell happens to offer top notch education in such a diverse range of academic interests, having most of its academic programs, such as engineering, hotel, architecture, CAS majors, to even law, mba, phd programs and others all ranking within top 15-20 in the country. Considering these facts, why would Cornell be overrated at its ranking at #12?</p>
<p>Patlees -- If you read the post, it wasn't the OP's opinion that Cornell is overrated, rather, the point was made that relative to this ranking, Cornell is overrated in U.S. News.</p>
<p>And I made the point for that the two "traditional" colleges at Cornell, Arts and Engineering, Cornell no longer appears to be overrated, fitting comfortably in with Columbia, Duke, UPenn, Northwestern, Brown, and the like.</p>
<p>^oh, sorry. I read it wrong. I just saw the phrase "overrated - UPenn, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Virginia."</p>
<p>haha you guys are obsessed with Cornell.</p>
<p>Bescraze-
An obsession is an irrational preoccupation. It is YOU who has the irrational preoccupation.</p>
<p>We all have ties to Cornell, personal experience and knowledge, reasons for our interest in Cornell.</p>
<p>out of following schools where do you think i can get into with a 3.72 unweighted gpa, good e/c, and sat scores at 1450(800 on math 650 cr)</p>
<p>uva
unc-chapel hill
cornell
upenn
emory
michigan</p>
<p>Given that SAT scores only bear less than 7.5% weight of the US News rankings, its not possible to say student quality of xyz is not deserving of its rank on usnews list just based on its 7.5% factor. </p>
<p>Plus, deviation of 30-50 points on the SAT between two colleges would affect the 7.5% factor extremely negligibly. Probably contribute less than 2.5% affect on US News ranking.</p>
<p>Stupid to quantify the methology self-proposed to determine student quality where was student quality used by US News is given minimal weight and incorporatse variety of factors ranging from percent of students in top tenth, average GPA, et.c..</p>
<p>
[quote]
Stupid to quantify the methology self-proposed to determine student quality where was student quality used by US News is given minimal weight and incorporatse variety of factors ranging from percent of students in top tenth, average GPA, et.c..
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I have no idea what you are saying.</p>
<p>I forgot one other school...</p>
<p>Alabama State University 860</p>