<p>xiggi-
I excluded some top-tier schools because I wanted to challenge this technique and see if it distinguished between schools that were similar in SAT. I don’t know if I can find the data I need to do economics departments in LACs but I will try.</p>
<p>ecape-
I agree that poverty places kids at a disadvantage and that they deserve a lot of credit when they succeed. I happen to be one of those (relatively) poor people.</p>
<p>monydad-
I think I understand what you are saying about colleges with uneven or disproportionate departmental enrollments. My brain is still chugging away trying to grasp the implications. Your point is hypothetical but with some specific examples. Maybe the phenomenon is not common or not pronounced. I wonder if using the overall SAT for the college in the formula helps adjust for the unevenness. Schools with one or two “star” departments might also have lower overall SAT. I am still thinking that through.</p>
<p>Your point about Stanford versus Whitman biology departments intrigued me. Does Stanford have an outstanding bio department? I was able to find the undergraduate enrollment in Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences, which is where biology is housed. The UG enrollment is 2624, about the same size as many LACs. I think this provides the proper denominator. Accoring to the IPEDS COOL website
Stanford had 131 biology bachelors grads. Stanford’s ratio is therefore .0499 compared with .0324 for Whitman. Multiply that by SAT 75th percentile 1550 and Stanford gets a score of 77, compared with 47 for Whitman and 56 for Haverford. Does this seem valid?</p>