Yield also comes into play with the accepted vs enrolled students which can be “adjusted” several ways. No question
that H,P,Y, MIT have well earned high yields for obvious reasons. I suspect VU like other top U’s use the bottom quartile of test scores to build a class which includes many students with unique talents that may not have top grades or test scores.
Don’t fool yourself into thinking all top universities aren’t concerned about their position in the academic ranking world. They all play the game to some extent. Some U’s have a built in advantage of wealth and reputation that were generated 100+ years ago. These wealthy elite U’s aren’t welcoming newer universities looking to become peers.
Some U’s use marketing and test scores. Others try to move up anyway, anyhow (report false data, or rank peer U’s low to boost themselves up, limit freshman class size then load up with CC transfers, large state U’s limit class size and force students to take 5 years to graduate to maintain their rank).
The top U’s use a merit based admission process and should not apologize for using grades & test scores as part of that process. VU is now is one of the 10 most selective U’s in the country (USNWR, Niche, Business Insider) and the most selective university in the southeast.
@bud123 : The main way to adjust yield is honestly to reject tons and just abuse the waitlist. Also, this “selectivity” you keep speaking of is irrelevant because the scores are seriously starting to converge…game cannot be played by us much longer. Period. It makes you look nice in “selectivity rankings” but not as much the overall ranking because the ranking agencies basically have figured out what all these schools are doing. Ultimately academic reputation will rule the day with every school pulling this stuff. Also, given all this stuff going on, I honestly must say that I do not trust any selective school’s reporting of data. I am sure plenty fudge or mess with numbers in a certain way but will deny it up and down. Hell, I remember when Emory got caught and VU was awfully quick to come out and say “that could never happen here” and it was one of the only schools to do all of that. I do not trust any of these places with any of this admissions stuff if they were to give me a million dollars to shut up about it. The only thing I believe are their endowments, faculty salary, and somewhat their PR scores. Also, I am sorry, VU, Rice, nor Emory are not more selective than Duke in the “correct” way. Duke so obviously is enrolling different students to maintain an edge (and enrollment patterns into certain courses provides evidence of this fact that they get students with deeper talents especially in certain fields). I would rather select their students than select the students that will make my school perform better in shallow selectivity surveys. Again I will take an abundance of Seimens Finalists, IMO, IPM, ICO medalists, debate champions, model UN winners, and other prize winners for 500 thank you very much. It is THESE students who will allow the school to more quickly enhance the rigor and quality of academic programs and thus build an actual academic reputation that it may not have had before. It also ensures an interest in the student body to continue to win prizes and you know actually learn s***. Like this: http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=2108589
Makes me wonder what type of “high throttle” students this tier of schools is admitting (and no VU ain’t the only in this tier to have this going on). This apparently a damned good and rigorous (something ochem needs at VU. He actually stresses higher level problem solving and analytical thinking at higher levels than all the other instructors, so yes even the sophomore instructors who seem to kind of focus on memorization/small stuff) instructor at VU, and yet students act “immature” in the class? I am sorry but I took this class with a top instructor at my alma mater and just cannot imagine some of the complaints I see in that rating thread there and certainly not at more elite schools which are also apparently “less selective”. That sounds like a serious class turned into joke. Perhaps race plays a role (research shows that race can sometimes cause students to behave differently sometimes with less respect and an inclination to annoy/challenge URMs with small stuff, but my instructor was Mexican and I do not remember him having that problem). I am sorry, this is why I just value other characteristics besides SAT/ACT (and even top 10%) in measuring selectivity. Some schools simply get students more excited to learn seriously at the get go. I will not sit here and support superficiality when we know the deal about schools playing these “games”. Again, many simply do not need to play that hard.
Anything else is really just a waste. VU and the other schools so go back to focusing on academic innovation at the undergraduate level that is really the only way to catch a place like Duke which obviously feels it is so awesome that it does not have to have ridiculously high SAT/ACT range (hell, it let them fall one year recently). They know they are actually winning and their alum are starting to seriously run things, far before the scores race began. Unless you have the real academic chops, there will be diminished returns on overplaying this admissions games stuff. We all see how WUSTL’s bubble popped all of then sudden. I believe they had been as high as 12 before? Seriously these other schools need to get with it, they clearly aren’t fooling anyone.
*For the record: I believe most of the top 10 schools fear losing an advantage to EACH OTHER. Their administrators and faculty are likely well aware of what many of those a tier or two below or doing and do not find it particularly threatening because they know pretty much pull in very cream of crop students because the types of students they typically attract would not consider too many places with substantially weaker programs in their area of interest.
I think one can see “games” being played by ALL admissions offices. I also think one can pick and choose to see only the games one wants to see in order to make an argument or to support one’s preconceived notions. There will always be schools ranked 10-20 and there will always be people criticizing those same schools for supposedly trying to move up. There will always be schools accused of moving up too fast, and sometimes the accusers are affiliated with rival schools that have done or are trying to do the same thing. @Bernie12, Wash U is now ranked 19 in USNWR, immediately behind 4 other great schools all tied for 15. I would not call that a “bubble” popping. Schools will continue to shift around in this group, if only to give us something to talk about and so that USNWR (and the others) can increase traffic to their web sites. WashU could easily be one of the schools tied for 15 or even 14 next year. There are plenty of excellent schools within (and outside) the top 30 that well serve their student populations. It is harder than ever to get into any of these schools, as VU’s SAT range confirms.
@Sam-I-Am : Honestly as these scores converge. I even more strongly prefer looking at differences in institutional and student culture at each as it gives a better idea of what types among these high performing students are selected and what environment a school or its students promote. Like many top 10s…clearly the students, even at social Ivies like Yale and Penn care much more about the nature and quality of the academics they experience. Go to student run publications and type in “classes” at these level schools and see what comes up. They talk about it more frequently and in greater detail than about difficulty or sweeping curriculum changes (Often this does not even come up at selective schools in other tiers). This in conjunction with differences in advising and curriculum structure and departmental offerings to undergraduates can be very informative in terms of determining fit or even the level or nature of academics/academic environment at a school. When advising folks looking at these schools, I like to look this stuff up and bring it into the conversation along with stats because sometimes anecdotal evidence in abundance (like the nature and number of articles written in certain student run publications) is very informative for the research process. I just think many of these schools are very different (though similar in some ways) and hold surprises when compared to each other regardless of what incoming student stats or even those like us on CC say. I do not like looking at stats and drawing a (or really any) final conclusion about the nature of students at a school. When I see the top 30-50 most selective schools, I just go: “Oh these students have more ambition or potential than normal” and then I like to go see how students are using that potential differently at each school. Are some student bodies more laid back/roll with the punches as long as their quality of life is fine or are some students more critical and vocal about that and their academic experience? In between, Skewed? Are students more into ECs, Co-Cs, political activism, entrepreneurship, etc. You can find out a lot about the political leanings and priorities of a school’s students and administration without coming on here or looking at the stats on an admissions website. That’s for sure.