College Comparison XVIII: Students Ranked in Top 10% of HS class

<p>

</p>

<p>Fair point, but what’s curious is the enormous variation from college to college in the percentage of entering freshmen who report their HS class rank. Among the top private universities, it ranges from 99% at Penn, 84% at Harvard, and 80% at Columbia, all the way down to 30% at Princeton. Among the top publics, it ranges from 100% at UC Berkeley and UCLA and 97% at Michigan, all the way down to 46% at UVA and 45% at William & Mary. Among top LACs it ranges from 60% at Pomona to 30% at Williams. </p>

<p>Even more than the low average rate at which class rankings are reported across colleges and universities, this enormous variance in the reporting rate is disturbing and suggests these figures, like most of the so-called “objective” US News data, are not to be trusted. How can it be that Princeton can get class rank information out of only 30% of its entering students, when just a few miles down the road its Ivy League peer Penn is getting this information from 99% of its entering freshmen? There are several possible explanations, none of them satisfying. First, it could be that provision of the information is effectively optional at Princeton and Williams, and effectively mandatory at Penn, the UCs, and Michigan, and close to it at Harvard and Columbia. In that case, the reported percentage of freshmen in the top 10% of their HS class should be heavily discounted at schools like Princeton and Williams, just as reported SAT scores at SAT-optional schools should be discounted insofar as optional reporting invites the high scorers to report and the low scorers to conceal. That pretty much turns all the reported data into junk as a means of comparison among schools. (And I’m not attacking you here, hawkette; I’m attacking US News which blithely presents such junk data as “objective.”)</p>

<p>Second, it could be that there are regional or state-to-state variations in HS practices with respect to class rankings. This is a more plausible explanation for public universities; it could be that the UCs get 100% reporting while UVA and William & Mary get less than 50% because in California class ranks are mandated either by state standards for high schools or by the UC system itself, whereas in Virginia no one cares. But for the top privates which draw students from everywhere, this can’t be a satisfactory explanation. Princeton and Penn are, what, 50 miles apart? Yet they’re at the extremes of class rank reporting, and Columbia at 80% is much closer to Penn’s 99% than to Princeton’s 30%. Surely all three schools get tons of applications from NY-NJ-PA, with enough overlap that regional/state differences can’t possibly explain the enormous variance.</p>

<p>A third possibility is implicitly suggested by interesteddad’s comment: Maybe it’s the kinds of high schools these colleges draw on. Many top private HS don’t rank; top public HS are split, but my sense is that more do rank than not. But if the explanation for the reporting discrepancy is that Princeton and Williams are drawing 70% of their entering class from elite private prep schools that don’t rank (and the handful of public HS that follow suit), while in contrast Penn is drawing 99% of its class and Harvard 84% of its class and Columbia 80% of its class from less exclusive schools that DO rank, then IMO that’s a far more interesting finding than the relatively minor differences in reported percentages of freshmen in the top 10% of their HS class. It effectively says to kids in ordinary public schools, “Don’t even bother with schools like Princeton and Williams; they’re less interested in your individual achievements and potential than in your pedigree.”</p>

<p>A fourth possibility, most disturbing of all: someone’s lying. Either schools like Princeton and Williams are suppressing class rank information on a substantial fraction of their students (presumably the bottom-performing fraction); or schools at the high end of that scale are artificially inflating their reported percentages.</p>

<p>In any event, it’s enough to cast serious doubt on the usefulness of this element of US News’ complex ranking formula. Garbage in, garbage out. One by one, the so-called “objective” US News metrics fall. Thanks, hawkette, for bringing this to our attention.</p>