<p>My bad. I thought "MD" for short and somehow the imagery stuck.</p>
<p>Gellino:</p>
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<p>I certainly agree that not very long ago that Wesleyan was considered stronger than Middlebury and Bowdoin and harder to get into and now the general perception seems to be the opposite.<</p>
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<p>Again, I think it depends on what aspect you are looking at. The key phrase nowadays seems to be "fit". For people looking for ski-lodge conditions nine months out of the year, they need look no further than places like Dartmouth, Williams, Middlebury and Bowdoin. But, there's a whole segment of the universe for whom that has no appeal. The last few Revealed Preference polls I've seen have Wesleyan and Middlebury within a few ranks of each other. For some reason, I don't think Bowdoin has ever been part of the poll.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, I think its fair to say that for other parts of the universe -- geeks and punks, URMs, Jews, Asians, gays and lesbians, artists and musicians, SOUTHERNERS andCALIFORNIANS (not that they may not all enjoy knee-deep snow as much as anyone else) -- the competition is only just beginning to heat up as witness this confidential Middlebury memo:
<a href="http://www.middlebury.edu/administration/planning/reports/student_body.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.middlebury.edu/administration/planning/reports/student_body.htm</a></p>
<p>I haven't really followed the RP too closely, although feel I understand the general concept. It makes sense to me in such an analysis that they would be close, overall, but would think that Wesleyan would lose the cross admits to Middlebury because anyone who would be inclined to apply to a place "with ski-lodge conditions nine months out of the year" is already a self selected applicant and more likely to be drawn to that type of environment. I've seen Bowdoin as part of that poll, but think it's much further down, considering its very small size and cold conditions). However, the distinction isn't even the cold so much (collegedata.com shows the avg Jan temp at Williams and Bowdoin to be within one and three degrees of Wesleyan{Dartmouth and Middlebury are eight degrees lower}), but rather the much less rural nature of Wesleyan in comparison. I have some references to problems with minorities of all types at Midd, which is probably why their acceptance rates for black applicants is ~ 70% (almost triple of the overall pool). I don't really understand why should be any more problems there than at other northeast, rural schools. How does a confidential document end up on the college website for all to see?</p>
<p>How can a policy statement posted on a website be "confidential"?</p>
<p>There is nothing "confidential" about the task force's recommendations.</p>
<p>Arcadia is correct. These summaries of the recommendations are not confidential. But, they are also not the full reports which hopefully will be available online soon.</p>
<p>"...but would think that Wesleyan would lose the cross admits to Middlebury because anyone who would be inclined to apply to a place "with ski-lodge conditions nine months out of the year" is already a self selected applicant and more likely to be drawn to that type of environment. "</p>
<p>This is why cross-admit analysis has its limitations, IMO. The people who really dislike a school won't apply to it, and consequently their (dis-)preferences about that school won't show up in the study.</p>
<p>One can draw conclusions about the behavior of the actual cross-admits themselves, but extrapolation to preferences of the underlying applicant population as a whole may not always be valid. Because, as you point out, the applicants are self-selected, and hence may have a non-representative affinity for a particular school that much of the remaining applicant pool doesn't share. That's why they didn't apply.</p>
<p>Which is why (if I understand it correctly) the RP is not limited to just one contest between two schools. A college that shared cross-admits with only one other college in the study would unlikely make the cut. A school's rank would have to be based on many such contests across a broad range of colleges to make to it the very top of the ranks. Again, that's if I understand it. I could be wrong.</p>
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This is why cross-admit analysis has its limitations, IMO. The people who really dislike a school won't apply to it, and consequently their (dis-)preferences about that school won't show up in the study.
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A school's rank would have to be based on many such contests across a broad range of colleges to make to it the very top of the ranks.
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I think both comments are correct, and would further suggest that a school that appeals strongly to a certain minority may be able to earn a high ranking, even if it is relatively unattractive to the majority.</p>
<p>For example, the classic "Revealed</a> Preferences" study ranked Brigham Young University at #21 nationally -- ahead of such schools as Wesleyan, Pomona, Middlebury, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, and Berkeley. While BYU is a fine school, I suspect that its ranking in this study would not accurately reflect the preferences of randomly-selected college applicants.</p>
<p>They conclude Notre Dame is like 13th.</p>
<p>I assert that :i) most people who are not Catholic would not and do not apply to Notre Dame; ii) Notre Dame may in fact rank that high among people who apply, but would rank much lower than this if the underlying population at large was sampled appropriately.</p>
<p>If you believe RP then you agree that Notre Dame is really held in this degree of esteem among the population at large, which includes non-catholics. You are free to believe this but I don't.</p>
<p>An even bigger problem is that a typical school's most enthusiatic applicants would never show up in a revealed preference survey because they apply binding ED and, by definition, can only have one acceptance.</p>
<p>I understand the allure of an "Elo Chess" or college football BCS style model based on wins and losses against opponents with different "strengths of schedule" -- that's really what the revealed preference survey purports to be.</p>
<p>But, at the end of the day, I'm not sure it really adds anything to the mix. I mean, we really don't need a mathmatical formula to tell us that most applicants who get accepted to Harvard enroll at Harvard -- and would continue to do so even if Harvard moved its undergrad college to a fenced in compound with guard dogs in Guantanemo Bay.</p>
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...if Harvard moved its undergrad college to a fenced in compound with guard dogs in Guantanemo Bay.
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<p>Yale certainly would be happy. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that they'd help Harvard pack...</p>
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I think both comments are correct, and would further suggest that a school that appeals strongly to a certain minority may be able to earn a high ranking, even if it is relatively unattractive to the majority.
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Notre Dame and BYU may be examples of such schools, but the phenomenon is not necessarily restricted to schools with a particular religious orientation. For example, the RP survey ranks Caltech ahead of Yale, Princeton, and Stanford. Caltech is undoubtedly one of the nation's top schools, but I suspect that a random survey of highly qualified college applicants would not "reveal" the same "preference".</p>
<p>Yes, but I think we learn to spot anomalies like the "Caltech phenomenon" (in fact, I think the RP study itself points it out.) For example, we automatically discount the fact that every year Wellesley, the all-women's college, will make it into the top five nat'l LAC slot of the USNews poll even though none of its objective criteria seem to justify it being there. Long-time observers simply adjust the survey to account for the fact that there's an "extra spot taken" by Wellesley every year. :)</p>
<p>You may be right about Wellesley I don't know. But it does have a huge endowment, which according to Intersteddad is a critical feature behind many ratings categories. They are in a very high cost-of-living area, and consequently probably have to pay very high salaries to enable faculty to afford to teach there. And they have the endowment to make these expenditures. So their spending per student probably has to be, and can be, high.</p>
<p>They also have very strong departments in a number of areas, including all the ones my daughter was interested in.</p>
<p>The only area where Wellesley falls down a bit is in overall student selectivity, which is still pretty decent.</p>
<p>But as far as programs, etc, we thought it was pretty darned good. She liked it better, for example, than Carleton which always seems to get ranked highly. And better than the other schools she didn't apply to.</p>
<p>I've no idea about rankings, etc, but I personally was never shocked about its place on this list. Maybe if I knew more I would be?</p>
<p>We looked at this stuff, but frankly this is not the way she selected colleges; more that "fit" thing someone mentioned.</p>
<p>i think women's college rankings are hurt by us news factoring in acceptance rates- the women who apply tend to be self selected.
also, i think that if colleges have free online apps or don't require sat info, that should force them to be ranked differently. people that aren't willing to pay to apply don't count as enthusiastic applicants.
that being said, i think that application costs should be lower, or non existent.
if all or most schools offered free online apps, with the exception of schools receiving way more apps than amount of people that can attend to make sure the pool is more self selected for the adcom's sanity's sake, then it would be fair to the consumer, the student, altough lately it seems "the customer is always right approach" is generally reserved for those 160K over four year purchases rather than students that MAKE the schools, and it would also be fair to treat all college with free electronic apps equally.
i understand processing does cost the college something, but seriously, i'm pay ing between 50 and 70 dollars for like five apsps (thankfully wellesley and smith are free). i don't understand how it could cost a college that much to read your app. also, i have not applied to more reach schools thinking that it wasn't worth the price to pay for the privilige of rejection, whereas I certainly would have applied if the app cost wasn't as great.</p>
<p>Sure, all the women's colleges took a hit when the men's colleges started raiding their pool. But, as Interesteddad points out, so did the traditionally co-ed, high-end LACs like Swarthmore and Oberlin. No one cut them any slack. :/</p>
<p>With its location, campus, and endowment, I believe that Wellesley would be, by far, the top-ranked, most selective liberal arts college in the country if it were an historically co-ed school. </p>
<p>It's got the whole package except one thing: men. Very, very few students want to go to all all-female college as their first choice, if they have their druthers. This simple fact drives down the demand for women's colleges, undercutting their selectivity and median SAT scores. The same thing undercuts Smith's ranking, Bryn Mawr's ranking, etc. </p>
<p>These are all outstanding colleges. However, from a marketing standpoint, it's a bit like if BMW just offered hot pink, neon yellow, and lime green color options. Unpopular colors would tend to damp down demand.</p>
<p>John Wesley:</p>
<p>Yes, Swarthmore and Oberlin were whacked by dozens of elite colleges going coed in one fell swoop. But, once the jolt passed through the system (it took maybe a decade or so), equilibrium was reestablished and relative acceptance rates at those schools ended up back about where they started. Williams and Swarthmore had the same acceptance rate this year -- and I suspect they had the same acceptance rate back in the 1960s. The womens colleges aren't so fortunate. They not only had the big shock, but are stuck with the underlying lack of demand for single-sex colleges.</p>
<p>ID re all-women's colleges :</p>
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<p>However, from a marketing standpoint, it's a bit like if BMW just offered hot pink, neon yellow, and lime green color options. Unpopular colors would tend to damp down demand.<</p>
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<p>Actually, it's more like buying a BMW with no passenger side doors. :)</p>
<p>"Yes, but I think we learn to spot anomalies like the "Caltech phenomenon" "</p>
<p>There may be others that you haven't spotted; who knows.</p>
<p>Like: geographical proximity phenomenon.
What if : i)most people want to go to school within 4 hours of their home; and ii) most people with enough $$ for expensive private colleges live in the Northeast. then RP would show, on average, preferences for Northeast schools over schools elsewhere, for reasons that have everything to do with these applicants and nothing to do with the schools. If you're an applicant who doesn't live in the Northeast there is no reason why you should care about these preferences of the majority who are not in your situation.</p>
<p>THen there is: financial aid package phenomenon. Would show preference to wealthier schools offering more financial aid, for completely non-academic reasons.</p>
<p>Who knows what else.</p>