WalletHub College Rankings

  1. MIT
  2. Princeton
  3. Caltech
  4. Harvard
  5. Yale
  6. Rice
  7. Northwestern
  8. Duke
  9. Stanford
  10. Johns Hopkins
  11. Vanderbilt
  12. Columbia
  13. Georgia Tech
  14. UPenn
  15. Williams
  16. UChicago
  17. UC–Berkeley
  18. Dartmouth
  19. Brown
  20. UCLA
  21. Carnegie Mellon
  22. UFlorida
  23. Hamilton
  24. Swarthmore
  25. UMichigan

Should we really trust a ranking system that uses selectivity as it’s #1 criteria and lists Tulane in the West? :rofl:

5 Likes

I looked at this and moved on fast.

2 Likes

However, admission rate contributes to only 12.5% of the score.

What does selectivity have to do with anything? It measures popularity, nothing more.

Here’s a great article about the folly of rankings, those of USNWR in particular, written by a Columbia math professor after Columbia’s ascendancy to #2 this year.

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~thaddeus/ranking/investigation.html

That paper is the subject of this recent CC topic: Columbia University Professor Skeptical of School's 'Dizzying Ascent' in U.S. News Rankings.

1 Like
  1. Pomona
  2. UC–Irvine
  3. Claremont McKenna
  4. Cornell
  5. Washington University in St. Louis
  6. Wellesley
  7. Harvey Mudd
  8. UVirginia
  9. Amherst
  10. Grinnell
  11. Emory
  12. Cooper Union
  13. U Notre Dame
  14. Georgetown
  15. UNC–Chapel Hill
  16. Washington and Lee
  17. Carleton
  18. Colby
  19. Northeastern
  20. UT–Austin
  21. Case Western Reserve
  22. Barnard
  23. Vassar
  24. Tufts
  25. U Southern California

By whatever quirk in the stats used, Columbia U is twice as safe as their Barnard College. :crazy_face:

Also, although they gave it little weight, calculating ROI as a factor of one annual salary to cost, is of little value. Am I really twice better off making 40,000 p.a. after having paid 20k, than making 130,000 after paying paid 130,000?
I know which path I would choose…

As a technical shortcoming, it appears that at least some colleges with test-optional admission practices, such as Bowdoin, Wesleyan and Bates, were excluded from the ranking. In Bowdoin’s and Wesleyan’s cases, in particular, this seems unnecessary since scores are requested for matriculation and reported in detail on their Common Data Sets.

As some students during the pandemic couldn’t access tests, many test optional schools that had previously required scores from all students upon matriculation now require said scores only for those matriculants who applied with a test score. Currently this is the policy at both Bowdoin and Wesleyan.

It remains to be seen if these schools will go back to their pre-pandemic practices of requiring test scores of all matriculants.

With respect to the ranking, however, interim policies would not have been in place, it appears. That is, the likely database for the ranking preceded effects from the pandemic.

Northeastern ranks higher than Boston University and Boston College. I like it! :slight_smile:

Does Wesleyan know about this?

  • Standardized Test Scores for Non-Submitters (First-Year Students ONLY)

Standardized test results are used for academic counseling and placement, as well as for institutional research.

What You Need to Know:

  • If you have not submitted official test scores, you will be required to do so before you arrive on campus this fall.
  • All ACT, SAT, and/or SAT subject test scores (if taken) must be submitted.
  • Contact the appropriate testing service to have official score reports sent to Wesleyan University (our ACT code is 0614; our SAT code is 3959).

More Information

If you did not take the ACT/SAT you are not required to sit for them but you do need to let us know; please email applicant@wesleyan.edu.

https://www.wesleyan.edu/admission/informationfor/matriculated/

Looks updated for this year, but still clearly says if you don’t have a score you don’t have to sit for the test just to satisfy the matriculating criteria.

Lots of HSers have no intention of sitting for tests now, it’s been quite a shift over the last several years.

Not having a test score=The test wasn’t taken.
Very different from not submitting a test score because you didn’t want it considered at the time of your application.

And, this wasn’t a recent update. I’ve had to monitor the Wesleyan website for the past year because of another CC poster’s frequent allusions to it’s TO policies. It never changed.