After HYPSM, The Elite Student Body Pie is Growing

College Search & Lists
1

<p>We’ve all know about the situation with the greatly increased numbers of top high school students looking for spots among the relatively constant number of freshmen places at America’s most historically prestigious colleges. This collision has boomeranged to the benefit of many colleges just outside of the highest tier of HYPSM, resulting in a broad improvement in the overall statistical strength of many collegiate student bodies. I call this the “elite-pie-is-growing” effect. Contrary to some, I actually think that this works to the benefit of top students all across the USA as they are now learning about and attending a greater breadth of colleges than ever before and realizing that there is great quality to be found in all regions of the country. </p>

<p>I looked closely at the change in the primary data points that USNWR uses in evaluating student body strength and how these numbers have changed since 1991. While the numbers below only relate to colleges that were ranked in the USNWR Top 25 in both 1991 and 2008, I think we would all agree that the "pie-is-growing effects also extend much further down the rankings. Here are the results:</p>

<p>Change in % of Students Ranked in the Top 10%</p>

<p>Change , College</p>

<p>33% , Wash U
24% , Vanderbilt
22% , Carnegie Mellon
21% , U Michigan
16% , U Virginia
16% , Georgetown
14% , Columbia
13% , Johns Hopkins
11% , U Penn
11% , Brown
10% , U Chicago
8% , Dartmouth
7% , UCLA
5% , Harvard
5% , Princeton
4% , UC Berkeley
3% , MIT
2% , Cornell
1% , Rice
1% , Northwestern
0% , Yale
0% , U North Carolina
-1% , Duke
-1% , Stanford
-10% , Caltech</p>

<p>na , Emory
na , USC
na , Notre Dame
na , Tufts
na , Wake Forest</p>

<p>For changes in Average SAT scores from 1991 to 2008 </p>

<p>% Change, College</p>

<p>20% , Wash U
17% , U North Carolina
16% , Tufts
16% , Vanderbilt
15% , Emory
15% , UCLA
14% , Carnegie Mellon
13% , Columbia
13% , Northwestern
13% , Georgetown
11% , Dartmouth
11% , Duke
11% , Brown
11% , U Penn
11% , U Michigan
10% , Princeton
10% , U Chicago
10% , Notre Dame
10% , UC Berkeley
9% , Caltech
9% , Harvard
9% , Yale
9% , U Virginia
9% , Wake Forest
8% , Rice
8% , Cornell
7% , MIT
6% , Johns Hopkins
5% , Stanford
na , USC</p>

<p>For Changes in Acceptance Rates from 1991 to 2008</p>

<p>Change , 2008 USNWR Acceptance Rate , 1991 USNWR Acceptance Rate , College</p>

<p>38% , 21% , 59% , Wash U
31% , 34% , 65% , Carnegie Mellon
26% , 27% , 53% , Johns Hopkins
25% , 34% , 59% , Vanderbilt
24% , 18% , 42% , U Penn
19% , 13% , 32% , MIT
17% , 26% , 43% , UCLA
16% , 12% , 28% , Columbia
16% , 30% , 46% , Northwestern
14% , 24% , 38% , UC Berkeley
13% , 17% , 30% , Caltech
13% , 47% , 60% , U Michigan
11% , 9% , 20% , Yale
11% , 11% , 22% , Stanford
10% , 16% , 26% , Dartmouth
10% , 23% , 33% , Duke
9% , 9% , 18% , Harvard
9% , 14% , 23% , Brown
8% , 38% , 46% , U Chicago
7% , 10% , 17% , Princeton
7% , 22% , 29% , Georgetown
5% , 25% , 30% , Cornell
3% , 34% , 37% , U North Carolina
1% , 24% , 25% , Rice
-5% , 37% , 32% , U Virginia</p>

<p>I think it should also be noted that the changes in Acceptance Rate were even more severe for this most recent year and some of these colleges saw their rates go sharply lower. This is likely influenced by the more recent trend of each student submitting more applications to more top schools than ever before, a trend that was exacerbated by the elimination of early programs at Harvard, Princeton and U Virginia.</p>

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<p>The SAT statistic is overdetermined because the test was re-centered in the mid-90s.</p>

3

<p>And the last index doesn’t really say much because number of applications per student has risen dramatically.</p>

<p>But the first one is interesting – it seems highly plausible that the distribution of top, but not elite, students are more concentrated in a tier lower than HYPSM. The Ivy-or-state-school mentality sure has taken a beating with the advent of the Internet and whatnot :)</p>

4

<p>The raw numbers of high school graduates has been increasing since the early 1990s, reaching a peak this year. The raw numbers of high school grads will be decreasing for the next 5-6 years. Furthermore, the proportion of minorities and low-income is increasing.</p>

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<p>^^In addition to raw numbers of high school grads increasing, within that demographic a higher % are attending college…</p>

6

<p>collegehelp and bluebayou both have good points.</p>

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<p>With the exception of very few schools with very high yields, schools became LESS selective even as they rejected more candidates. That is, the odds that they would actually accept those candidates who could benefit best from what the particular institution had to offer and have them actually attend, declines as highly qualified individuals apply to more schools, resulting in more rejections.</p>

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<p>Right. The size of the applicant pool/number of applications is increasing and the schools’ enrollments are not expanding at the same rate. So the quality student you’d find at Yale in 1991 is maybe attending Duke now, and the student you’d find at Duke in 1991 is at Tufts now…or something like that.</p>

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<p>The median verbal SAT for Yale freshmen was the same in 1976 as it was in 1995: 670. <a href=“http://www.yale.edu/oir/open/pdf_public/W032_Fresh_SATs.pdf[/url]”>http://www.yale.edu/oir/open/pdf_public/W032_Fresh_SATs.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>They recentered the SAT that year; in 1996 the median verbal SAT score for Yale was 730, which is the equivalent of 670 unrecentered. [SAT</a> I Individual Score Equivalents](<a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/data-reports-research/sat/equivalence-tables/sat-score]SAT”>Higher Education Professionals | College Board)</p>

<p>It had risen to 750 by 2003, where it has remained ever since.</p>

<p>The reason for the rise about 5 years ago may be the practice of taking the SAT multiple times, and “superscoring” the results (accepting the highest instance of each subscore from the multiple administrations).</p>

<p>Like most of my peers in the 1970s, I took the SAT a single time, without studying for it (having taken ETS at their word that it was not possible to study for the SAT).</p>

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<p>I’m pretty sure Penn’s acceptance rate was just over 16%, not 18%.</p>

11

<p>2-iron makes the point very concisely. Static entering class sizes meet highly expanded graduating high school classes with the predictable result that there is spillover from the very top colleges to a broader universe of colleges. </p>

<p>All Americans are beneficiaries of this trend as there is greater applicant and public recognition of a broader universe of top colleges.</p>

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<p>Huh? You really think ALL Americans even care where a handful of kids go to college?</p>

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<p>Do you have the results for LACS over that time period? I would think they would have similar to even more pronounced changes. </p>

<p>It’s hard to believe that MIT and CalTech had acceptance rates that high. I wonder if the % that graduate in four years has risen a lot in 17 years.</p>

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<p>Considering that only 27% of Americans have graduated from college, I would gather probably not.</p>

14

<p>ilovebagels, USNEWS numbers are a always one year old.</p>