Like a lot of alumni on here, I’ve spent the past couple years hoping to see Wesleyan’s US News ranking go up. When the 2021 class profile went up, they reported that their incoming class had great SAT scores, a low acceptance rate and a decent (66) percentage of students in the top 10% of their high school class. I assumed this boded well for next year, but sometime in August, Wesleyan stealthily updated their top 10% metric, editing the page to say that the class consisted of only 60% of students in the top 10%. They’d updated the percentage of “students reporting class rank” from 34 to 40, which none of their peers do – every other top LAC reports a very low percentage of students reporting class rank. It seemed like Wesleyan had artificially lowered that statistic by hunting down and including students who were not in the top 10%. That seemed bizarre and self-defeating, so I assumed that couldn’t be the case.
Last week, they released their Common Data Set. In it, they report their highest SAT scores in a few years, which is a great thing to see, especially with the advent of the new test. However, the top 10% ranking has plummeted – they’re now listing it at 47% (!) with 52% reporting. This is drastically different not just from their peers but from their reporting in previous Common Data Sets, when they took the first statistic (from 30 to 40% of the class or so) and left it at that. Had they done that this year, they’d be at 66% of students in the top 10%, which is normal for their peer group and normal for Wesleyan’s admissions statistics in past years. If they report 47%, that’s a massive drop that foretells (I’d think) a massive hit in the US News rankings.
I’m struggling to see why they’re doing this. Is this what they’re reporting to US News? Are they really going to kneecap a big selectivity statistic for no discernible reason? I know there are people on here with insight into the administration’s thought process, so I’m curious to hear what they have to say. Just looking at the numbers, it seems like they’re about to incur a massive, self-inflicted wound, for no good reason. I hope that’s not the case.
I found it interesting that they took 108 kids off the waitlist. That means almost 15% of the freshman class are from the wl. Seems high. Wonder if they were conservative with initial admits, or if yield was lower than expected
Pure speculation here with no basis in facts—
But perhaps the last two posts are related? Waitlisted students may have been admitted over the summer who reported their class rank and were not in the top ten percent?
In any case, Wesleyan remains an amazing college!
Are you seriously suggesting that Wesleyan should artificially prop up erroneous figures just to elevate their US News rankings? That’s called cheating, and it did nothing to boost Emory’s reputation and recruitment in the past once they were outed. I think your priorities are in the wrong place.
Hi mommyrocks—definitely not suggesting that Wesleyan cheat. I may have misstated myself.
What I mean is: they’re clearly measuring class rank quite differently from the way their peers do and the way they did in the past. Every other college (and Wesleyan up until now) reflected the drop in class rank as a metric used across the nation. Students report their class rank in the admissions process at rates between about 15 and 40%. Because they asked for class rank in admissions, they knew by May or June what their stat would be. That’s why, if you look at peer schools or Wesleyan in the past, they’d report that statistic early on, and that would be the one 5hat appeared in the CDS.
This year is different. Wesleyan keeps revising that statistic downward. It didn’t happen in previous years and it isn’t happening for peer schools. Moreover, the waitlist issue can’t explain all of it — the only way that could cause such a jump is if nearly every student on the waitlist came from a school with class rank. Seeing as only around 30% of schools nationwide still record class rank, that seems unlikely, if not impossible.
Again — I absolutely don’t endorse cheating. I’m saying that Wesleyan seems to be measuring things very differently this year, to their detriment. Also, if they had to take a lot of students off the waitlist, how many of those would have accepted after late July, when they posted their initial numbers? For that to make sense, Wesleyan would have to have brought in 15% of its class in July or later, all of whom came from high schools that record class rank, and nearly all of whom didn’t score in the top decile or even quarter. All of that seems unlikely, and suggests that s something else is going on.
Very simple explanation, @farcry. Until August, the stats that were being posted on the Wesleyan website were for “admitted students”. Those stats have always been slightly more impressive than the actual “enrolled” students figures which generally aren’t reported until after the waitlist period, hence the July 1st dateline at the bottom of the report - which incidentally is the same date as the common data set report.
Wesleyan is actually more punctilious about its reporting than some of its peers that never clarify which set of figures they are publishing as their “class profiles”.
The math middle 50 and the 25th percentile for EBRW went up from 2016-17 to 2017-18. But, note that the 25th percentile for the ACT went down.
Keep in mind that the 2017-18 CDS requires concording Old SAT scores to New before adding them to the pot. If any significant portion of applicants submitted Old scores, the subsequent concording may artificially inflate the reported scores. In addition, the way the New SAT combines reading and writing may account for the higher 25th percentile for EBRW than for CR alone the prior year.
2017-18 CDS middle 50
SAT EBRW 660-740
SAT math 640-760
ACT composite 29-33
2016-17 CDS middle 50
SAT CR 620-740
SAT math 630-740
SAT writing 640-750
ACT composite 30-33
I see. Thanks, @circuitrider. So here’s my question: if that 47% figure is accurate, does that mean Wesleyan’s US News ranking is going to crash next year?
I don’t know. I personally have stopped paying attention to USNews. I think it encourages high spending and high sticker prices at the top contenders. High tuition sticker prices are a major disincentive to working class kids applying to private, nonprofit colleges.
Is class rank even weighted heavily in that ranking? I think Wesleyan just got a substantial gift to their endowment, which is a plus in the rankings race.
Wesleyan is test score optional. The general feeling is that if your SAT score is below 1400 don’t submit it. This will inflate that statistic, unless they report the SAT scores of only admitted students. From what I understand once you are accepted they will ask for your scores. But I may be wrong.
@filmandhistory You can find it by googling wesleyan “common data set” “2017-2018”. It looks unavailable, which is strange since I saw it yesterday. After you google, use the down arrow on the right side of the link to get the cached version of the link - the CDS is there.
Yes I tried that and I couldn’t find it. It’s not on their page with the others, although the google preview lists it. I’ll check back in a few days. I don’t have the option for the cached version for some reason. Maybe because I hadn’t accessed it before. There must be some mistakes or typos the are revising, like maybe 105 off the wait list, which is twice as many as the year before according to collegedata.com. Thanks for the post.
They might have made a mistake on the CDS. They did last year which got corrected after I emailed them. I would wait for final numbers. Only 47% being in the top 10% seems too low for Wesleyan.
Agreed…that number makes no sense…S was Class of 2013…
Hoever, IF legit, is it possible that Wes is taking many more kids from elite private high schools than before? Meaning still “top” students but some being top 25 vs. top 10 from those schools vs. publics?
That might definitely be the case. However, I did some math and figured out it CAN’T be legit, unless their initial numbers were totally off. My thoughts (please correct me if I’m wrong):
Originally Wesleyan reported 66% in the top 10 with 32% reporting. Solid, and totally in line with previous years. Then they updated that to 60% with 40% reporting.
Huh. So they tracked down another 8% of the class, and that lowered the average by six points? That means that only 36% of the students they added are in the top 10. Pretty weird, but then it gets weirder: the CDS claimed 47% in the top 10 with 52% reporting.
For that to be true, 16.6% of the students they added would have to be in the top 10. So, they originally recorded a (presumably representative) sample of students whose numbers resembled Wesleyan students past, then somehow added on a 20% of the class who almost all have class ranks below the average, drastically lowering their class rank statistic for… no reason, it seems. That seems insane, and it’s why I created this thread.
Anyway, the fact that they took down the CDS points to this being what the math says it almost definitely is: a mistake.
The 2017-2018 CDS is back online and the h/s rank number of entrants reportedly in the top 10% of their classes now matches the rate on the Admissions website - 60% with 40% reporting results. Other items of note: the number of freshmen who turned in ACT scores exceeded those who took the SAT for the first time in history - and by a substantial margin, 431 to 375.
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