<p>Perhaps a more interesting question is, why is Middlebury ranked so high, tied with Wellesley for #4? </p>
<p>Midd’s SAT scores are virtually indistinguishable from Wellesley’s: Midd 1288-1470, Wellesley 1280-1470. </p>
<p>Midd’s endowment is just a little over half the size of Wellesley’s, measured either in raw dollars (Wellesley $1.307 billion, Middlebury $783 million) or in endowment-per-student (Wellesley $558K, Midd $315K). Midd’s PA score is also lower (Wellesley 4.5, Midd 4.3), as is its HS Counselor score (Wellesley 4.6, Midd 4.4). Midd has a higher s/f ratio (Wellesley 8:1 v. Midd 9:1) and, not surprising given the disparity in endowments, Midd has a lower faculty resources rank (Wellesley 9, Midd 13)</p>
<p>Yet somehow the two schools come out tied. How can that be?</p>
<p>Curiously, Midd comes out ahead “financial resources rank” (Midd 3, Wellesley 5), despite having a much smaller endowment. Hard to see in principle how Midd can spend more money per student when it HAS less money per student, but how spending per student gets counted is one of those non-transparent aspects of the US News ranking that can powerfully influence where a school stacks up in the pecking order. Is it because rather than charging separately for tuition and room & board Midd charges a single “comprehensive fee” and is thus able to roll more of its costs into “educational expenses”? (I don’t know; just askin’, but on its face it’s downright strange). </p>
<p>Midd also comes out ahead in selectivity rank (Midd 8, Wellesley 14)—presumably because Midd has a lower admit rate, but in principle it’s hard to see why that should matter the least bit if at the end of the day the two schools are getting the same students, which is what the SAT scores would indicate. Then there’s the matter of the SAT scores themselves. Anomalously, Midd reports its 25th percentile SAT as 1288, just a tad higher than Wellesley’s 1280. But what’s a 1288 on the SAT? There’s no such score. Every other school reports its 25th/75th percentile SATs in multiples of 10, because that’s how actual SAT scores go—nobody gets a 1288, they either get a 1280 or a 1290. Now presumably if EXACTLY 75% of entering freshmen scored 1290 or higher, and EXACTLY 25% scored 1280 or lower, then Midd might argue it’s justified in choosing any number between 1280 and 1290 as its 25th percentile score—and why not choose a high one? But no one else does it that way. Smacks of data manipulation to me, and it apparently works because it allows them to edge out Wellesley in SAT scores with actual scores that aren’t meaningfully different. </p>
<p>Midd also edges out Wellesley in another dubious US News category, alumni giving rank (Midd 2, Wellesley 16). The one legitimate area where Midd edges out Wellesley is graduation and retention rank (Midd 6, Wellesley 11). So with some sleight-of-hand, good scores in some dubious categories, and one or two legitimate advantages, Midd manages to eke out a tie with Wellesley, a much richer school that is somewhat more highly regarded by its peers and HS counselors alike.</p>
<p>Bottom line, though, these schools are very close on almost any measure, except that Wellesley has a much larger endowment. Those insistent on bashing Wellesley on this thread and insisting it’s just living on an inflated PA score should take a long, hard look at Middlebury. It’s hard to see how you could say with a straight face that by the numbers Middlebury’s the better school. If Midd belongs that high in the rankings, then so, too, does Wellesley. If Wellesley doesn’t belong that high in the rankings, then neither does Midd. And frankly, I’d just have to question why you would single out a women’s school to take a rhetorical pounding, when by the numbers Middlebury is, if anything, an easier target.</p>
<p>Oh, and by the way, for those who care about such things (US News is apparently not one of them), Wellesley is also by far the more diverse school, at 0.22% Native American/Alaskan, 22.74% Asian, 6.29% African-American, 9.17% Hispanic, and 11.31% International v. Middlebury’s 0.2% Native American/Alaskan, 5.68% Asian, 2.32% African-American, 6.16% Hispanic, and 10.47% International. So Wellesley’s getting just as strong students AND doing a better job of promoting diversity in its student body.</p>