<p>“After reviewing the last edition and reading the obnoxiously misleading article by Morse, I have requested the refund of my annual fee, and will donate it to a better cause.”</p>
<p>Can you please summarize what Morse said that was so obnoxious to you?</p>
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There could be no more USNews or Morse anymore, so you could save your money anyway. 
The ranking to me is like the sex education to the priest.</p>
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<p>Mac! Mac! Mac!</p>
<p>EDIT: Hey! Why doesn’t the system let me write SEC and MAC in all caps?</p>
<p>SECOND EDIT: Hey! Why does it let me do it once, but not three times???</p>
<p>Does it seem to anyone else here that just about everybody who is posting here has had a few cocktails? The “Dormers” getting a late-night goo job seems to be the tip of the iceberg.</p>
<p>Does anyone have the scores of schools 13-25?</p>
<p>kleibo in post #7 gave the scores for the top 12, down to Northwestern</p>
<p>mom2collegekids:</p>
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<p>UC reports bare-bones gpa for all its schools, capped weighted UC gpa, so as not to deter someone from a low score API high school (limited resources, limited AP’s) from applying. </p>
<p>The UC campuses themselves along with the UC reports un-superscored SATI. This is because they don’t want to deter someone with limited income from applying if, say, scores were reported elevated.</p>
<p>UC and its campuses want as many people, as long as they are minimally qualified, to apply so they can work their holstic magic wrt diversity. </p>
<p>And since the ability to increase one’s score possibly implies a take with moderate prep and later a retake with much more with at least a decent total $$$ spent on test prep over possibly many takes, this could -> wealth’s influence on scores. UC and the individual campuses don’t want this. </p>
<p>Here’s the UC’s comment on this approximately: </p>
<p>Grades represent the most important marker in a student’s gaining admission to UC because it represents a longer-term accomplishment over one’s SAT scores.</p>
<p>Add that uwgpa is the most important factor to be inclusive towards those who don’t attend well-funded schools with much AP and honors. </p>
<p>But we know that if someone attends a “wealthy” high school, then grades and scores are not often enough to gain admission to the toughest UC’s, Cal and UCLA. </p>
<p>Factor in the personal statement, and one sees numerous students trying to pull at the heartstrings of admissions officers to gain admission, especially if they don’t meet seeming standards. And undoubtedly some of this is very real. But this has caused Beverly Hills High students to engage in likewise even if they live in $15M mansions … eg, the Shah’s fall, exile, etc, even if they were born here many, many, many years later … very strange phenomenon.</p>
<p>Miami (FL) has gone from 50 in 2010 up to 38 in this years rankings. They have the location and rising prestige to become the new USC in my opinion</p>
<p>*Quote:</p>
<h1>Cal and Berkeley are the coolest, most amazing schools</h1>
<p>I agree. And Cal + Berkeley is the coolest, most amazing school.*</p>
<p>Good catch…these old eyes read that as UCLA and Berkeley and didn’t catch Lottie’s boo boo.</p>
<p>*I realize that the UCs (and some other schools) do not superscore the SAT (or ACT) for admittance…HOWEVER…do we know if they also stop short of reporting best scores for sections for ranking and other reporting purposes?</p>
<p>if so, then that should change. I understand not super-scoring for admittance, but not for reporting if others are doing it.</p>
<p>============================
UC reports bare-bones gpa for all its schools, capped weighted UC gpa, so as not to deter someone from a low score API high school (limited resources, limited AP’s) from applying.</p>
<p>The UC campuses themselves along with the UC reports un-superscored SATI. This is because they don’t want to deter someone with limited income from applying if, say, scores were reported elevated.*</p>
<p>Ok…so the UCs (and I guess other non-super-scoring schools) are afraid that those with more modest scores will not apply if the reported scores (for USNews, Collegeboard, etc) are super-scored to have better middle quartiles. I can see that. </p>
<p>But, if doing so makes a school look like its middle-quartile is much weaker than its peer schools’ middle quartiles, there are going to be some negative consequences. </p>
<p>When School A takes a student’s 3 SAT sittings and creates a new score that is 150+ higher than his best single sitting…and does that for all of its students creating a middle quartile that is 100+ better for both 25 and 75, then unsuspecting prospective students/parents are naturally going to conclude that School A has a more academically strong student body than School UC does with its weaker looking quartiles.</p>
<p>And, don’t think people aren’t going to make this mistake in judgment…especially if they’re looking for strong STEM schools. People frequently look at that middle quartile to determine what the classroom make up will likely consist of.</p>
<p>You’re preaching to the choir, mom2collegekids…</p>
<p>And there’s no reason for UCLA and Cal to reject 3.8+/4.3/4.7/2100+ kids from wealthy high schools either, holistics or not. </p>
<p>And don’t give jcb any ammunition by giving him props. The Cal/UCB reference was a softball pitch, probably a setup for him by the person making those remarks.</p>
<p>;)</p>
<p>The whole superscore principle breaks down with ACTs. Only some of the top schools do so: [Colleges</a> that superscore the ACT - College Admissions Counseling](<a href=“http://www.collegeadmissionspartners.com/college-testing/colleges-superscore-act/]Colleges”>Colleges that superscore the ACT - BS/MD Admissions by College Admissions Partners)</p>
<p>When you compare schools who don’t superscore the ACT (yet still have a lot of students who submit ACT scores) like Rice, Northwestern and JHU, to state schools like UMich, UNC, and UCLA…the difference is dramatic (from US News, the non -superscored ACT average of those private schools is 32 vs. 29 or worse at the public schools mentioned above - a 130 point SAT difference). Some top privates report non-superscored composite SATs in addition to the highest superscored SAT verbal and math sections. The difference is a few points (i.e. not dramatic like some of you think).</p>
<p>U.S. News & World Report: Geneseo Tops Up-and-Coming,’ ‘Best Undergraduate Teaching’ Lists for Regional Universities in North</p>
<p>[U.S</a>. News & World Report: Geneseo Tops ?Up-and-Coming,’ ‘Best Undergraduate Teaching’ Lists for Regional Universities in North | SUNY Geneseo](<a href=“http://www.geneseo.edu/news_events/us-news-world-report-2012-ranking]U.S”>http://www.geneseo.edu/news_events/us-news-world-report-2012-ranking)</p>
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<p>Umm, not quite for the purposes of this thread. USNews uses the school’s common data set which is generally construed by the vast majority of colleges to be unweighted gpa. (A few schools like UMiami, however, interprets the direction to mean weighted.)</p>
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<p>Do you have a source for this?</p>
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<p>They do at our HS, or at least 3.8 (ELC) 2050+.</p>
<p>USNWR 2012</p>
<p><em>fap fap fap fap fap</em></p>
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<p>I’m not an expert but I am not ignorant and clueless as well. I don’t think USC is superior to Michigan, and thus, shouldn’t have been ranked higher than Michigan. </p>
<p>USNews fails! Just as it did when it ranked Columbia higher than Stanford and Caltech, and Emory higher than Berkeley. But then again, no ranking is perfect, and criteria are oftentimes, arguable.</p>
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<p>I honestly don’t see why Brown, Cornell, Penn, Chicago and Duke are in the list and Northwestern, JHU and Berkeley, for example, are not.</p>
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<p>If USNews would rate the countries around the world and rank them from best to worse, I’m sure USA would hardly land in the top 5, let alone, top 3. I’m almost sure that countries like Singapore, Switzerland, Norway and Sweden would outrank USA.</p>
<p>*You’re preaching to the choir, mom2collegekids…</p>
<p>And there’s no reason for UCLA and Cal to reject 3.8+/4.3/4.7/2100+ kids from wealthy high schools either, holistics or not. *</p>
<p>Well… UCLA and Cal (and the other UCs) have to heavily weight GPA and Top 4% (or whatever they use now) so that their schools are not completely filled with non-URM kids from suburbia. </p>
<p>The UC’s can’t use a strict “UC GPA and test scores” formula…they have to throw in a few subjectives into the mix…and even by doing those admissions gymnastics they still can’t come up with student bodies that reflect Calif make-up.</p>
<p>That said, it is absolutely silly that a Calif Val/Sal with fabulous stats can’t consider UCLA or Cal as a likely school. Even UCSD rejects kids with high stats.</p>
<p>Baywatch #113:</p>
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<p>Wrong, youre way off in left field somewhere…</p>
<p>US News is using data set C10, not C11, % of graduates in top 10% of high school. It doesnt even consider C11. Cal reported a C10 of 98% in 2010-11. I would hope you know this would be way too high. And so youll know, I stated that UCLAs 97% should be ~ 80% … essentially, all us overstate this %, with some overstating it by a lot more than UCLAs ~ 17% differential.</p>
<p>Maybe you joined mom2collegekids and my conversation a bit late and arent comprehending. My point wrt the above is UCs various sites report UC gpa, which is 10-11th, capped weighted gpa, a-g. This will manifest itself in Cal having a mean gpa of 4.10+ and UCLA around 4.08-4.10. If uncapped, 10-11, of the matriculating classes for both would be 4.30 for Cal and 4.24-4.27 for UCLA. The third gpa I noted below, the 3.8/4.3/4.7, would be final grades thru 12th grades, which would be even higher, 4.6+ for both if pure stats were involved instead of holistics. Final wgpas at certain high schools for the top echelon reach 4.9 and in some rare cases 5.0.</p>
<p>Let me list the various grades again and approximates for each u:</p>
<p>Cal:</p>
<ol>
<li>UW UC gpa, ~3.83 (10-11, a-g)</li>
<li>UC gpa, ~4.12 (10-11, a-g, capped at 8)</li>
<li>Uncapped UC gpa, ~ 4.30</li>
<li>Final W GPA ~ 4.50 (10-12 as reported by high school) </li>
<li>Final UW GPA < 3.83, probably ~ 3.81</li>
</ol>
<p>UCLA:</p>
<ol>
<li>UW UC gpa, ~3.81 </li>
<li>UC gpa, ~4.09 </li>
<li>Uncapped UC gpa, ~ 4.25</li>
<li>Final W GPA ~ 4.45<br></li>
<li>Final UW GPA < 3.81, probably ~ 3.79</li>
</ol>
<p>Grades 1 and 3 are presented to the readers. Grade 2 is an eligibility marker only, not used in admissions decisions. So when someone asks what someones UC gpa is for UCLA and Cal, its irrelevant: one, because UCLA and Cal rarely admit according to the eligibility index, and two one can just eyeball whether someone is qualfied. 4 and 5 are relevant in preventing senioritis or taking a non-rigorous senior sched. The motivation behind maximizing 4 would be to enter UCLA or Cal with as many AP college credits as possible.</p>
<p>My point wrt the above noting UCs reporting of UC gpa in my conversing with mom2, was that UC understates gpa as not to scare away those with lower grades. It was just a little twist and turn in our conversation related to UCLAs pedestrian 25th SATs as reported by USN. </p>
<p>And dont try to corner me into something the board mods might consider off the threads topic. Im just providing info on trying to help those interested mainly in how UCLA admissions most likely works. Some of this is certainly educated guesswork. </p>
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<p>The UC application asks for specific dates to line-item component scores (individual sitting), which of course they verify.</p>
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<p>That was my point, that they do but shouldnt. </p>
<p>Btw, ELC means essentially nothing to UCLA and Cal, unless one or both wanted a student from an underperforming high school who was top 9% of his/her class but didnt manifest particularly high stats wrt statewide 12.5%. Most ELC and non-statewide qualifiers have to go elsewhere.</p>
<p>Mom2collegekids #118:</p>
<p>My gripe isnt with the lower qualified students UCLA admits; its more in the highly qualified students, almost on a seemingly arbitrary basis, it rejects. UCLA should essentially never reject a 3.8/4.3/4.7/2100+ person; it should offer a spot for them in L&S at the least.</p>
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<p>I dont like the formulaic either. This produces robot kids, etc. This is why I like how UCLA integrates the performing arts and flim majors on campus. </p>
<p>But as you noted for STEM majors, a u needs pretty high standards. Therefore, a lot of the economically disadvantaged kids who are admitted to UCLA with lower scores (mainly, somewhat in uw grades also) and end up in social-science majors with sociology majors, etc. Soc is a good pre-law or even pre-MBA, but its not a real compelling major for much of anything.</p>
<p>The infusion of wealthy non-residents obviously complicates matters on campus wrt mirroring the economic (and ethnic) makeup of CA. Mirroring CAs demographics would be an ultimate goal of the administration, but this might mean a 50% Hispanic enrollment in the now, which would be pretty hard to duplicate on campus. </p>
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<p>Absolutely… </p>
<p>Blah2009:</p>
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<p>You have to factor in the public-school commitment, in each public u you mentioned accepting lower-tier students from poorer background who dont have the means to improve their scores. I would think that the public u students at the 25th and probably at the 50th wrt scores would have a greater chance to improve them than the 25th and 50th of the private-u students you listed. </p>
<p>One other thing to possibly consider. If 85% of, say, UCLA students report an SATI, and 40% report an ACT, then there isnt an either/or situation occurring wrt reporting to the U, assuming close to 100% do report scores. In other words, if almost 70% of UCLA students best foot forward is SATI and almost 30% is ACT, this would mean selective blocking of a students low score. Granted theres some scores on both that would be similar. My questions are:</p>
<p>1) Does UCLA report all SATs and all ACTs presented?
2) Do private schools report only the students best score between the two?</p>
<p>You have to remember that UCLA and UC likes to under-report stats to coddle kids psyches. UC and the individual campuses want as many to apply so the admissions people can work their holistic magic (Ive said this twice now, apologize).</p>
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<p>Perhaps, but I was referring to the reported gpa’s which appear to be unweighted. (I never made a comment about top decile.)</p>
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<p>Huh? I just asked for your source about which I clearly highlighted was your weighted gpa comment, not decile. (I’m all for “twists and turns in threads” – I’ve contributed plenty myself over the years – but not need to…)</p>
<p>Again, this thread is about USNews rankings and for that they use the gpa in the CDS, which I gather is point #5 in your list. (Which even you admit is unweighted.)</p>
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<p>Do you have a source for this statement, or is it just “educated guess work”?</p>
<p>btw: I met with a real live UC campus adcom over lunch a few years ago and asked specifically what she reported on the CDS wrt to top decile. Hint: it was NOT based on weighted gpa.</p>