dcalb1, it is not a conspiracy theory any more than BU’s admissions games are reasonable and honest to applicants. . Some colleges place inordinate value on “pubic Ivy” stats. Adding those scores would lower Binghamton’s rank on US NEW rating. And of course it isn’t the mean that is the concern. It is the 25%-75% spread. And that would change appreciably.
If Binghamton published the scores for the Advantage program that might discredit the idea that including the scores would lower the overall scores and reduce the perception of the school as competitive. But they don’t. And I suspect they don’t include scores from an appreciable number of students beyond those in the Advantage program. They probably don’t include scores from international students and from EOP students. And they don’t for a reason. My understanding is that Bob Morse from USNEWS has confirmed that they don’t include all their scores. The question is why. It is a public university so the data should be public.
Why would you guess that Advantage scores are only 100 points lower. If the scores were not appreciably lower the students would have been accepted to the university as full fledged members. If you add the EOP and Advantage students together, you now have over 10% of the entering class. And no matter what games BU plays with numbers, they can’t have it both ways-Advantage students were either accepted or they were rejected. If accepted they count, live in the dorms and interact with other students. If rejected they don’t.
Adding those scores would shift the entire (25-57%) range downward.
In 2013, the school reported 25.2% CR scores were 500-600 and 5% were 400-500. If the Advantage scores were split between those categories, and that is optimistic, you now have 10% 400-500 and 30% at 500-600. But that isn’t all. You had 14.6% at 700-800 and 54.6% at 600-700. When you added to the bottom, you now have a smaller percentage of scores at the top. So your 75% is going to be a lower figure too. Instead of 583-675 (mean ot 625) you are probably at 550-610. (I’ll bet they are a good deal lower than that when all are included). That would pull them down from the ranking and compares unfavorably to other schools they are now ranked above.
If adding these scores did not pull BU scores and rankings down significantly, the school would be transparent about the scores. They go a long way to keep the scores from counting. There is a reason they are willing to risk criticism like this. Don’t forget that there are international students who have submitted SAT and ACT scores and those scores are probably even lower and probably not included. So when Binghamton lists that 95% submitted the SAT scores they are not being entirely honest. The SAT data does not include data from 95% of the students who consider themselves to be 1st year students at Binghamton. That is deceptive. Regardless, this is just math not a conspiracy. It is common sense.