I noticed that Vanderbilt’s SAT average/range is similar to those of Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and MIT. I was under the impression that Vandy wasn’t quite as academically strong as those schools. Does Vanderbilt put a disproportionate amount of stock in SAT scores/national merit scholarship, or am I simply wrong in my thought that vanderbilt wasn’t quite on par with those other schools?
https://virg.vanderbilt.edu/virgweb/CDSC.aspx?year=2016
Section C7. You can google the Common Data Set for other schools and see how they compare.
Vanderbilt has an average GPA of 3.8
Harvard has an average GPA of 3.9
Vanderbilt has an average ACT of 33
Harvard has an average ACT of 33.5
What do you think?
Vanderbilt is a top 20 research university in a sizable, fun city. HYPSM will no doubt have higher average student stats. Maybe OP should accuse HYPSM of putting a “disproportionate amount of stock in SAT scores/national merit scholarship.” Just kidding, though you know they do! HYP can also use generous FA to grab the students they want. Nothing wrong with that either, though they have an unfair advantage, one might say, owing to their historically large endowments.
Here is how I look at it and why. My eldest had a 35 ACT, but did not qualify as a finalist for national merit which was premised on the PSAT, and still received a very generous merit scholarship to Vandy. So maybe Vandy does not put “disproportionate stock” in NMF? My kid would have gotten NO help from HYPSM because we don’t qualify for FA… so my kid passed on two Ivies and another top 10 university to take the best deal. The Vandy scholarship was not merely stat based but premised upon leadership and community service with an expectation that these will continue throughout college. I think my kid will have a lot to offer the Vandy campus for 4 years both academically and through ECs. I suppose the adcom and school that awarded the scholarship feel the same way. OP might be concerned that Vandy may be “padding” their stats somehow? I am not concerned because all the schools try to attract top students and Vandy does well in this regard, including seeking out students that have something to contribute to the campus. To the OP, I would suggest researching Vandy, as you are doing here on CC, and consider filing out an application if you like what you see.
As far as whether Vandy is not quite as academically strong as HYPSM, this is probably true as a general rule not only of Vandy but of all other schools in the country. The stats listed by @ConcernedRabbit seem to support this. No shame in that. Of the remaining top 20 schools, I don’t think there is much of a meaningful statistical difference. Though obviously every school will have its own academic and social vibe and choosing one that fits the student best is important. One more thing, you could probably say there is not much difference between the top 30 universities if you wanted to do…and throw in the top 15 LACs if you chose to do so. Just depends what you are looking for, where you choose to draw the line, and which school makes the most financial sense. At any elite school, a student can choose to pursue academics at a very high level. It depends on how hard you want to work. Good luck with your college search!
Is it the incoming students that are academically strong, or is it what the school does for them over four years? I hear the two being mixed up. Without a standardized “(GRE/LSAT/GMAT/MCAT/etc) / (SAT/ACT)” list it’s hard to comparatively know objectively what schools do for students academically.
Just want to point out that you get additional scholarship for being NSF at Vandy, nothing at Ivies and other top schools. Even U Chicago’s NSF package is worse starting this year.
Don’t let ranking and prestige fool you. Vandy’s students are ambitious. (and happy). With the school’s recruiting efforts, many of D’s friends at Vandy gave up Ivies, and other top schools. I think maybe Vandy’s only problem now is that they didn’t play admission games like U Chicago? 
You meant NMF? NSF is for grad school (National Science Foundation Fellowship). Also, it clearly does play admissions games. How and why do you think it suddenly got its SATs so high and its admit rate so low over the past decade. It used the exact same tactics as Chicago, but I guess you were being cheeky. “Recruiting efforts” = money. Yes, money should be able to sway students when all elites cost over 60k when you include fees. Could mean very little with regards to quality and ambition once you through in the money factor. Hell for graduate school I was very tempted to take a fellowship at a place that was not as good an academic/research fit as the one I ended up choosing.
Also happiness is relative. Students at other schools may choose to put more academic stress and pressure on themselves (again, part of the evidence of this is how Harvard had 120 freshmen applications to what would be considered an upper division or graduate biophysical class at other even elite schools: http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/9/4/College-introduces-LS50-course/ )and naturally thus rate themselves less happy at some points in time. Students at such schools seem to reap the benefits of a slight sacrifice later though and do end up very loyal to their institution. I think the “happiness wars” really just reflects differences in institutional culture as related to intellectual climate and academics. The more intense the latter on average, the less students tend to claim to be happy (competitive environments can contribute as well). I think most of said students knew what they were doing when they chose a less happy route. They like academic pressure even if it may ding their social lives some.
I don’t measure it by those because students could test well but overall be less ambitious than students who tests less well or equally. When available, I like to check the enrollment of freshmen into honors and very advanced level courses as this indicates not only an ability to test well but a fearlessness and willingness to push themselves (or at least try) to very high levels academically at the very start of the college career. It seems that the very elite school (like most top 10s) have larger demand and enrollment in these types of courses, especially the advanced offerings in STEM. This is how I measure academic. Outside of SATs/ACT scoring, enrollment patterns and post-graduate prizes put most of the schools between 15 and 25 or so on par with each other. So when you look at prestigious privates in the top 20, this makes Rice, VU, Emory, and WUSTL pretty similar.
@nb1999 : Many schools outside of the super elite have migrated to that sort of admissions scheme (WUSTL and Chicago kind of started this trend) and yes, of course most are not HYPSMs. They are vastly different. “Par” depends on your values. If you want easyu access to the sort of intensity you see at HYPMS or some top 10s for example, then no, but if you want strong teaching, a solid amount of rigor, and good quality of life. Then the paradigm at many “new Ivies” does just fine for many. Many students do not want the intensity or level academics at some other schools. They would rather have academics/academic environment that train them enough to be competitive for a decent range of careers, but will not overly interfere with traditional college socialization. As evidenced by VU and WUSTL, there are many very high scoring students who want this alternative to the environment some of the Ivy/Ivy Plus schools.
@Sam-I-Am : I feel academic strength has less to do with differences in scores and more with their endowments, course offerings, academic innovation at the UG level rigor, co-curricular opps, and academic resources. There are plenty of places with lower stats than HYPSM that have all of those and deliver on UG education better than many top 20 privates (so hint: many are top publics). Stats. seem to depend on marketing tactics, and lay prestige. It is so obvious that admissions schemes can quickly change to emphasize things like the scores, but that does not mean that the schools’ academics are changing to accommodate all these super credentialed folks. Top publics have always been good at it and places like HYPSM are notorious for their abilities to cater to the very top talent academically as well. The differences seem to be derived from how each school handles its talented student body (especially the most talented among the talented lol). Some schools just do it better, and at some schools, it matters less because the students, though talented, are mostly not demanding much academically. They pretty much settle for the “extremely well-done basics”. If they get anything better, then it is greatly appreciated. At some places, students more actively demand quality academics.
Vandy’s reported test scores are WAY up there. No question about it.
Based on the most recent CDS data, Vandy’s ACT range was 32-35. Same as Notre Dame, Princeton and Yale. Better than Stanford at 31-35. And Duke (Sad!!) at 31-34.
But test scores are only one factor, and test scores can be “managed” a bit by each school’s admission policies. So don’t read into or rely upon the score data too much. And the fine distinctions between the prestigiosity/selectivity of schools at this level is a very bad way to make a college decision. You should pick the school that is the best fit for you (and which you can get into and also pay for).
Schools can weight test scores more or less in their admissions process. My hunch is that ND and Vandy dig high test scores more than some of their peers. Allowing applicants to super-score tests also boosts the reported numbers.
Offering merit scholarships (which Vandy does a bit more than its peers) allows Vandy to enroll high stat kids that might otherwise enroll elsewhere without the sweet financial deal. And taking more kids off the wait list (which Vandy does a bit of) can also boost the reported numbers a bit.
I wouldn’t say Vandy is the equal of HYPS. But it is a great school and also a great fit for my kid. So it is all very good.
@northwesty : How is Duke’s range of 31-34 sad? That is a damned good range. It doesn’t need to be higher. Duke is clearly really optimizing the talent of those students better than many others with similar or higher ranges including VU. My alma mater Emory has a a lower range than all of them and competes with ND, VU, and WUSTL in post-grad prizes. I just don’t get the craze over these score ranges. If anything, folks should look at them and see if a school is putting out what its inputs say it should. If it was so important, Duke should not have been kicking so much behind for so long. Neither should Stanford or Penn. It is really about what you do with the students and how much you empower them with the various resources available. All top 20s have excellent students, some just do better at optimizing their talents and empowering the students to go really big, and yes, sadly this often costs those schools some “happiness” points (Duke apparently used to have the same reputation as VU, but now it looks a lot more like its top 10 counterparts academically than it did before and the types of students it gets now reflects that. They are among a few schools outside of that HYPSMCt block that can now pull a share of Seimen’s finalists or even International Olympiad competitors or medalists though I imagine the latter to be much rarer than the former) It is still fun I would imagine, but it isn’t necessarily notorious for it anymore outside of the bball antics).
" How is Duke’s range of 31-34 sad?"
That was a joke. : )
Duke’s obviously an awesome school by every conceivable measure.
I think Vandy attracts the best of the best like the Ivys, Chicago and Duke. I do believe one has to have overall high test scores, but even that is not a given to get in. My daughter is starting this fall and gave up an Ivy (and other Top 10 schools) to attend Vandy because she just felt a good fit. She went on many tours, talked to many people at certain colleges and in the end, wanted a true college experience with football, greek like and a great freshman living situation (the Commons).
@hcmom65 : Not all Ivies are created equal (I hate dropping that term as if it they are some monolithic gold standard. There are now many schools that offer better or similar academics to many of the Ivies, some of these schools are ranked above said Ivies and some below). And again, it is values based. Some students care more about “traditional” (let us please avoid calling it “true” college experience. This implies that only college experiences mimicking the “Animal House” movie or “American Pie” are “true” college experiences and I strongly disagree and even slightly resent that idea. This is what makes people who don’t care about that scene as much feel guilty or weird for not caring about it. These students are labeled as or label themselves as “missing out”. The reality is that we are mostly talking about sizeable, diverse research universities. There should be a variety of experiences that could be considered “true college experiences” and are great alternatives for those not into the traditional scene shown in the media) college experiences and quality of life. And some students are more hardcore about the academics and will get over having more “traditional” accommodations (dorms and stuff) at the top 10 schools for some of the more unique opps that those schools offers. Students at the top 20s are all bright regardless of if they got into an Ivy or top 10 or not (so I also want to stop using this as some benchmark of how “awesome” a student is because many awesome students and deserving students will NOT be made an offer from any of the Ivies, Top 10s, or even Top 20s. I know some people on this board want to so believe that basically all denied students were simply less deserving, but come on…).
The differences in culture at each school reflects the values of the students, not their intrinsic talent (though maybe how much and how they would like to use whatever talents). However, there is no doubt that many of the top 10s clearly attract those with very deep talents (as in talents that go beyond just being a great testing, well-rounded student) with a high degree of success. This partially explains their academic offerings (like you have a million tiers of math and physics at places like H. You have completely different life science courses. They can do less traditional curricula because they have students who can handle and are more willing to deal with that level of intensity from the offset). It is different strokes for different folks.
I personally am a person that prefers more intensity, but I was also aiming for graduate school, so my level of training in and out of class mattered because I will be held accountable in a research group or graduate division course. If I was just going to get a job or go to professional school (and not a specialized program at a professional school such as HST at H), then not as much. High grades, good enough teaching, and a good time would be more than sufficient. Traditionally some schools have attracted students who were my type better than others. Often these are some of the very top research universities and great LACs (these places have been high producers of those pursuing a doctoral degree in a discipline). There are many students who are sort of “in-between”(I kind of view this as those types who will happily take on or stumble into academically stressful and challenging situations, but definitely do not do it with the intentionality of some Harvard students. Like these schools are also not going to have 125 students vying for a biophysical chemistry course as a freshman, but there is a solid threshold of students that will for some reason, intentionally sign up for first year courses in their area of interest with noticeably more challenging instructors, especially if they have a good teaching reputation. Tougher courses are unusually popular at said school, but there is still so much risk aversion academically that most students will say…forfeit their AP/IB credits in classes known for difficulty in order to “refresh material”) about this and it looks like this “in-betweeness” occurs at places like my old stomping ground and other D-3 schools that are also pre-professional factories (WUSTL and JHU, though JHU has also traditionally produced lots of students pursuing doctoral degrees).
Either way, this just reiterates that now-a-days score ranges and stuff are converging at top schools. However, differences in campus, academic, and social culture among undergrad student bodies still persist because of differences in career aspirations and attitudes in those student bodies. Once you attract a certain type, you will like continue to attract those types but with higher stats over time unless university administration (or alumni and current students for that matter) decide they would like to see a shift in some aspects of that culture (which can be a painful route to pursue. Dartmouth anyone? A purely top down effort that is on the strugglebus and may be misguided. Dartmouth IMO is like a smaller, more LAC like version of VU in terms of culture).
Hmmm, I don’t hear people complain that H,P,Y, Caltech, or MIT are overly concerned with SAT/ACT scores.
@bud123 :
Uhm nice try, but a nuance is that I do believe at some point in time those schools used to publish admitted student data. Guess what? The admitted students were very similar to the enrolled students (Also sense the yield at all of these is pretty high, you can pretty claim this is the case). So if H has a 1410 for the bottom quartile of enrolled students, it likely had it for admitted students (so it SELECTED a bottom quartile of about 1410). VU, WUSTL, Chicago, and the other schools (including NU, ND, and JHU) who have joined the scores race (it will really only work for JHU, Chicago, and maybe slightly ND) have bottom quartiles starting more like at 1500 for admitted students. This means that they all SELECT at higher score levels than HYP,M, and Ct and then end up enrolling at the same levels. By definition, this suggests that HYPMCt, and Columbia emphasize scores less than that block of schools. Therefore what you say is untrue.
https://admissions.vanderbilt.edu/vandybloggers/2017/03/class-of-2021-regular-decision-summary-statistics/
Like for RD, VU SELECTED students with a bottom quartile of 1510!
All old SATs
Now let us assume HYPM (let us exclude Ct actually) break even and get who they select:
H:https://admissions.vanderbilt.edu/vandybloggers/2017/03/class-of-2021-regular-decision-summary-statistics/ 1430 bottom quartile last year
M:https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/college-university-search/massachusetts-institute-of-technology
MIT comes in at 1460…ooh that is high, but still not 1510
Y:https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/college-university-search/yale-university
Comes at 1420, again not a 1510
P:https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/college-university-search/princeton-university
Princeton coming in at 14 flat!
*Also, Caltech and MIT are STEM. We know that traditionally STEM institutes put emphasis on the scores (and those going into STEM tend to have higher scores. So you add this to an elite niche school and you obviously have self-selection of students applying to those schools. Unlike H and them, they do not receive near 30k applicants every year.
Hell, MIT may be in the low 20s or high teens), especially the math portion. However, when you look deeper, Caltech and MIT also attract apps from lots of “prize winners” and those who went deep into STEM before applying. The same could actually be said about schools with lower stats.
Let us be generous and assume that VU, when you factor in ED maybe has its bottom quartile fall between 1450 and 1470…awfully close to MIT. Is VU a STEM school? Naw, statistics nor do the curriculum structure bare that out though it does perhaps have a larger engineering enrollment than HYP. But even then, I would have to look it up, but the amount of STEM majors outside of that (engineering), is probably higher at those 3 (I would definitely expect H and Y to have more as they have a huge number of pre-meds. Y and P also have super strong undergraduate physical sciences and math training that attract tons of very top students).
Also I meant it will slightly work for NU…but point is, now that a decent chunk of top 20s (even those ranked below 10) are doing it, the strategic advantage it will provide will cool off soon I predict. These schools should now go back to focusing on their UG academic infrastructure or whatever other priorities. This scores race is becoming futile, and clearly means very little as scores converge at most of these top schools. You are honestly just splitting hairs by focusing so much on the scores in the selection process, especially if most students are not even pursuing super rigorous academic programs (in which case you have a fairly large range of test takers that can do fine and even thrive. Any selection by scores to “even the playing field” is really just ranking games. At most even elite schools, the student with a super high ranked GPA, solid AP/IB performance, and a “meh”…say sub 1350-1400 SAT/ACT equiv can easily do really well. When a student claims they want to do STEM, by all means, the school should heavily scrutinize SAT/ACT as well as related APs because research shows a more direct correlation between those and rigorously run intro. STEM courses) and furthermore, I really hope most students at elites are NOT taking tons and tons of courses (no matter the discipline) where teachers give assessments that are mostly multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, and true/false. That would be embarrassing, but in said case, I guess SAT/ACT would matter more sadly. If you want a high throttle student body, you get an acceptable score range (could go as low as UCB), select for the best EC profiles you can, and then train the students really well or create and throw all possible resources at them.
The USNWR rankings include a “selectivity” score which is 10% admit rate, 65% test scores, and 25% percent of enrolled students in the top 10% of the HS class.
Lots of objections you can make about that formula, including the opportunity for some “management” of the data set by a school’s admissions practices (ED, superscoring, wait list, etc. etc. etc.).
Subject to all those caveats, here’s what USNWR says:
1 – Chicago, Caltech
3 – Yale, MIT
5 – H, P, S, Columbia, Penn
10 – JHU, Brown, Vandy
13 – Duke, Dartmouth, NW, Rice, WUSTL
18 – ND, Tufts
20 – Cornell, UCB
22 – Gtown
23 – Emory, CMU, UCLA
FWIW.
@northwesty
That’s what @bernie12 is suggesting. Vandy’s Admitted SAT scores put them with UChicago ( around a 1530+). However there enrolled stats drop about 60 points, while HYPSMC stays the same.
The schools from ND to UCLA tend to drop no more than 30 points between admits and matriculates.
@northwesty : Those are selectivity right? No wonder…the test scores count so much within it (though I don’t think selectivity is worth that much in the overall ranking right?) so I guess that does explain why more schools (not just VU, Chicago, and WUSTL) have joined the scores race. Makes sense now. Thanks for the info. Also, most non-Ivies below 10 do not do that well with top 10%
Yes that is a selectivity metric/formula. 12.5% of the overall USNWR score. So test scores alone would be about 8% of the total score formula.
Since it is based on the CDS data, that means it is the stats for the enrolled students, not accepted students.
Which is obviously the meaningful data – the smart kids who actually attend the school vs. the smart kids who turn that school down to go elsewhere.
@northwesty : Yeah, but we were just talking about the selection process. Again, it makes total sense that non-Ivies and non-top 10 schools have to try harder to get the same range as some top 10s, but it does nonetheless mean that they have to have a much more stringent score range (so they have to cherrypick scores more) in the selection process .I guess this scheme helps schools that cannot rely as much on their reputation scores, endowment, and faculty salary alone, but it is nonetheless a scheme…something in their control(It seems that an admissions dean who wants to enter the scores race pretty much can do so by dramatically changing marketing and communications scheme. Some are just choosing not to go this route, but it is mainly the schools that do not have to). The 12.5% is far more significant than I imagined (I thought it was like 5-10 for selectivity).
Also, this is “selectivity by the specified, quantifiable metrics” which does not appear to include AP/IB success and number, SAT 2s, academic competitions, etc. So it is merely one formula to do this. If someone were to find a way to incorporate those into a measurement, then the first like 2-3 brackets would disappear and those below it would shuffle simply because some schools select and enroll well-rounded students who happen to be very “pointed” (developed beyond AP/IB, SAT, and even HS offerings). Again, like some schools will certainly have a bias towards recruiting students that maybe have done research/a serious project in their specified area of interest or have won/done well in multiple national or even international competitions in some key academic areas associated with strong majors/undergraduate programs at such schools. . Like my alma mater had a student who actually ended up at VU medical (I think she just graduated VU med. actually), but was a writer of childrens’ books so much that one of her books was supposed to use as the basis of a Disney series. Some other schools likely have more of her as a norm than my alma mater which actually has more of those who kind of dabbled in and did solidly/well in everything and had good scores. However, merit scholarship programs allows for more schools outside of the super elite to successfully enroll some of the types I described. And then the STEM institutions select an abundance of those with very high aptitude in STEM that exceeds AP/IB. There are schools below 10 that dabble in this more than average as well. Like WUSTL and Emory seem to like the Seimens Finalists so try to pull them from very tippy top schools when they can (even without using the scholarship). They likely want a threshold of these pointed types of students to support specific programs. Some other places seem less interested in this or will just bank on the scholarship program hopefully yielding a couple of them, but it certainly isn’t a priority.