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<p>If you are looking purely at how good academically the incoming frosh are, you can look at their four, five, and six year graduation rates, which tend to closely track incoming frosh academic characteristics, but are not affected by HS GPA weighting, SAT vs. ACT choices, etc… However, be aware that the graduation rates are also affected in lesser ways by other factors (e.g. part time attendance, cost and financial aid, etc.), and some schools have special circumstances that affect them (e.g. heavy co-op job participation, or lots of five year majors like NAAB-accredited architecture).</p>
<p>Of course, as noted above, student bodies of similar levels of academic ability and motivation may have different goals (e.g. the academically oriented PhD-bound vs. the more pre-professional students).</p>