<p>confidentialcoll, I already agree that NYC is a better place to live than Duke. You are assuming a better place to live might, eventually, mean better stats in the incoming class. This isn't the case. Duke, as well as Dartmouth, Brown, and Yale have higher average incoming student stats than Columbia despite living in a less desired location.</p>
<p>Now, I agree that it 'may', at some point, lead to better stats for Columbia students. In 2006 this was not the case.</p>
<p>For Duke, Class of 2009 enrolled stats were 1360 - 1540 (US News August 2006), for class of 2010 stats were 1380 - 1540 (collegeboard.com). </p>
<p>For Penn, Class of 2009 stats were 1340 - 1520 (US News August 2006), Class of 2010 stats were 1330 - 1510 (collegeboard.com).</p>
<p>For Dartmouth, Class of 2009 stats were 1350 - 1550 (US News August 2006), Class of 2010 stats were the same.</p>
<p>For Columbia, Class of 2009 stats were 1340 - 1540 (US News August 2006), Class of 2010 stats were 1320 - 1520 (collegeboard). </p>
<p>Hawkette...Of course I know that the schools that I referenced have a lower PA. I thought I established that that stat is important for me. The point is that selectivity is often driven by factors extraneous to the quality of education...not the quality of applicant.</p>
<p>surely people on these forums are smart enough to realize that commercial ranking publications are first and foremost desiged to sell magazines and make money! I'm not just blindly slaming the rankings... there is clearly a difference between the No 2 school and No 102 school, but this idea that year after year there is major jockying for position with schools leapfrogging each other is a load of nonsese. </p>
<p>Publishing "Yeah, well given that in 52 weeks time it's really unlikly that we could in anyway honestly publish a wholly new and in anyway statistically accurate reassesment of the nation's schools the list hasn't really changed since last year" dosen't sell magazines and make money! </p>
<p>Good to see that the old American tradition of making a quick buck of people who are willing to buy just about anything is still going strong ;-)</p>
<p>i think everyone acknowledges that rankings need flux from year to year to sell, but at the same time the only reason usnews is discussed so much, is because rankings do not change wildly from year to year, and in general represent a reasonable order of college quality on some objective, quantifiable scale. you cant substantiate an argument over quality but quoting a 1 or 2 rank difference but I'd say the rankings are more precise than 2 vs 102, more like 2 or 3 vs 10, or 10 vs 20, or 25 vs 45. </p>
<p>the rankings are very much statistically grounded, a 75% weightage is based on numbers alone, now i dont think the ranking methodology is a good way to assess colleges, but few ways are better. it is an objective way of assessing them, and you and many others might not like it, i too see severe limitations to objectivity, because the decision to go to a college is often a subjective one, and one's education and personal growth too depends on a whole bunch of intangibles. </p>
<p>but the reality is, usnews rankings have a large influence in america, several parents (and students) i know, value rankings considerably, because they tend to be less in the loop than students, and need a way to decide where their child should go. rankings in large part form the basis of prestige, and entice or discourage applicants, and acceptees from applying and going there. so a college's future is affected by rankings (the relationship is cyclical). there are many other rankings on the web, but people barely even know of them, because they simply arent as credible, fluctuate much more annually (too eager to sell), are not as grounded in statistics, or use too few indicators.</p>
<p>It has been pretty well proven that SAT scores are not a good predictor of college or later success and more reflective of family income than anything else yet people here worship SAT scores by school. Hmmmmmmmm. What is the real excrement?</p>
<p>
[quote]
It has been pretty well proven that SAT scores are not a good predictor of college or later success and more reflective of family income than anything else yet people here worship SAT scores by school.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Who said I was a big fan of the SAT's ability to predict anything? You can criticize the SAT all you want but at least the SAT scores are an objective measure. Period.</p>
<p>GPA, SAT, class rank. Give me standard, objective measures over subjective measures like the PA anytime.</p>
<p>look how high the class rank statistics are at california schools where the teaching quality and competition is a complete joke (to the point where i just saw a show on TV about a valedictorian from a california public school who went on to be a hairdresser)</p>
<p>compared to elite private schools who take many students from top prep schools like andover, exeter, deerfield, etc. top 40% at some of those schools would probably make valedictorian in a california public school.</p>
<p>SAT = based on students who enroll, and are objective, that is the difference</p>
<p>Anyways, who said SAT isn't a good predictor of college or later success? The higher it is, the smarter you are in general (unless you are a bad-test taker or something like that, which is true for a few people). What if the causal relationship between income and SAT is pointing the other way?</p>
<p>the SAT is meant to predict success in the freshman year of college alone. there is quite a bit of research available which shows that while it does work to some extent, it is statistically not very accurate.</p>
<p>"What if the causal relationship between income and SAT is pointing the other way?"</p>
<p>there is a huge coorelation between students of high income families and high SAT scores. you are right in the sense that causation is not proved either way, but that's irrelevant because it's not necessary in this case to prove the point.</p>
<p>SAT's are an easily quantifiable measure, and one that nearly all colleges accept. I would say, that they are like the usnews rankings with more variance in the correlation. Many 2100 kids are smater than some 2400 kids, but take 5000 kids that get 2100, and 5000 that get 2400, the 2400 group would get into better colleges (and probably earn more on average). now let's not get carried away and say that higher SAT's cause higher earnings or indicate college success well. they might affect earnings indirectly but only because those kids get into better colleges. Take kids from within a single college however, and you probably will not find more than a mild correlation (if any) between SATs and success there, or job and grad school placement.</p>
<p>class rank has that serious pitfall, which hurts students who enter competitive schools. college say they see performance in context to competition, but this methodology would make them think twice before accepting an under top 10% student from a great high school.</p>
<p>confidentialcoll, if all universities reported SATs the same way and relied equally on SAT scores, I would agree that when looking at the collective, SAT averages and ranges could determine quality of student body. </p>
<p>But State universities do not rely as heavily on SAT scores as private universities do, which means that many students who attend state universities do not prepare nearly as diligently for the SAT as students who attend private universities. I personally prepared a great deal for the SAT. Most of my friends who attended private universities alslo prepared a great deal (many of us even took prep courses) for the SAT. Almost all of us took the SAT several times, each time focusing on a particular section of the test in order to enhance our SAT superscore. On the other hand, most students I knew at the public university I attended never took any prep courses for the SAT and sat for the SAT just once. They knew before their college search began than they were going to attend one of the state schools in the state. They knew that the primary determinent would be their GPA. As such, they really did not sweat the SAT.</p>
<p>As I touched on briefly above, most private universities superscore whereas most public universities do not. Most people I know scored anywhere from 30-100 points more on the SAT when superscored (and that's on a two section SAT). </p>
<p>When you combine the differences in the importance placed on the SAT by different institutions and the differences in reporting styles, it renders any comparision between SAT scores at private universities to SAT scores at public universities useless. Obviously, those two factors cannot explain away a 300 point SAT gap between a public university and a private university, but it definitely begs the question when there is a 50 or even 100 point difference in the mean SAT score between a public and a private university.</p>
<p>good point Alexandre, I didn't know state schools place less of an emphasis on SATs, I would have thought they put more of an emphasis, because they tend to have many more applicants, and would need a quicker standardized way of comparing them. </p>
<p>and does US news actually not reconcile these differences in reporting? if they accept a superscoring average from one place and a normal or best single sitting average from another, it's blatantly unjust.</p>
<p>Even GPA is questionable really. I'm sure everyone has that impossible Chemistry teacher at their highschool that NEVER gives A's. Or flubbed a big test or paper in a class that they otherwise did very well/loved/learned a whole lot in. How teachers grade is often somewhat subjective, favoritism, giving more/less points to kids who speak up in class, etc. All these numbers might tell us SOMETHING about SOME kids, but they are really not cold, hard facts by any stretch.</p>
<p>confidentialcoll,
Please be aware that the practice of not accepting superscoring is not a standard practice at all public universities. It varies by school.</p>
<p>More importantly, the use or not of superscoring is for admissions purposes. It is also my understanding that the reporting of SAT scores via a school's common data set IS reflective of a student's top score on that section. The USNWR and collegeboard.com data reflects the CDS info and thus provides an apples-to-apples comparison with schools that accept superscoring in admissions.</p>
<p>Re:#349. Relative to what? I’m sure if we compared raw GPA's and SAT scores as single variables the SAT would be a better predictor? What is your source? There is a study that says if your have SAT II's and GPA's and class rank, that the addition of SAT I's does not add a lot of explanatory power. Making this work as a system would require that everyone take the SAT II's (presumably a similar set of exams). I have a feeling that this system would satisfy few if any of the complaints of the anti SAT crowd.</p>