Barron’s Profiles of American Colleges as most competitive.

College Search & Lists
1

Does anyone have the current list?

2

Why?

3

Because it is referenced as a local high schools target schools for their Advanced track. Their “college prep” track excludes that list. However, they dont provide it.

4

This is the most recent I can find:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/04/04/business/economy/economix-selectivity-table.html

5

@usualhopeful Thanks!!!

6

Here is a more updated verison of the list (2015 vs 2009). I’m not sure how much I agree with their tiers, would be great to get more information on methodology.

For instance College of The Atlantic has a 64% acceptance rate and an average SAT score below 1200, but is in tier 1.

http://www.jkcf.org/assets/1/7/UT_-The_Transfer_Process-_doc_of_selective_colleges.pdf

7

@swimchris I agree and University of Richmond! I dont understand these. Was it pay to play?

8

With an acceptance rate of 31%, I’d say URichmond fits into the Tier 1.

COA is a very self-selecting school (only major available is Human Ecologyhttp://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/572715-barrons-most-competitive-schools.html, fewer than 500 students) and subsequently has very weird admissions statistics. Their class rank and GPA are all over the place, their mid range ACT is 28-32 (same as, for example, Colgate), but their SAT scores are significantly lower. Princeton review gives them a selectivity rating of 91.

http://www.princetonreview.com/schools/1024147/college/college-atlantic

This thread a few years ago attempted to explain some of the weirdness.

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/572715-barrons-most-competitive-schools.html

9

Oops I accidentally inserted one link twice, problems with using mobile

10

There’s a 2012 Education Week blog post by Rick Hess that explains that Barron’s uses four factors in determining degree of competitiveness: high school class rank, high school grades, standardized test scores and the school’s selectivity rate (presumably acceptance rate). Barron’s hasn’t changed the cut-offs between levels in years, with the result that more and more schools qualify as most competitive as GPA’s have risen and acceptance rates have fallen. Hess notes that in 1991, 44 schools ranked as most competitive but by 2011, 87 did. It’s not that more schools are being rated, it’s that the distribution among the categories is changing.

I applied to college in 1980. To the best of my recollection, there were about two dozen schools in the most competitive category.