@warblersrule I should credit @Mastadon with posting that link before me. I agree that the Life article is fascinating for the intersection of somewhat pop cultural interpretations with now rarely available statistics. Without the segmentation inherent to current media, I’d think that the article was influential at its time. For a thread with some well-received comments on the topic, most notably by @Gator88NE, anyone interested can see http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1897982-the-historical-selectivity-of-colleges-by-sat-score-tiers.html#latest.