Let's quibble over semantics: what do we really mean by "highly selective" (Ex: Pitzer v Williams)?

ThankYouforHelp
Tue, 26 Apr 2016 00:48:01 +0000

When I judge selectivity, I am aware that the applicant pools for all colleges are different, and it is difficult to compare apples and oranges. So I look at Naviance, which gives me information drawing only from the pool of applicants that is my childrens’ high school.

Naviance tells me that of the students accepted to Pitzer in the last few years from our high school, the average GPA of those students was a 3.38 and the average math/verbal SAT score was a 1270. Well over half of the applicants were accepted.

For Williams, the average GPA of the accepted students was a 3.88 and the average math/verbal SAT score was a 1457. Approximately 20 percent of the applicants were accepted.

Pitzer got five times as many applications, but the applicant pools for the two schools clearly are very different.