@Marvin100, that is very funny! You clearly know the history there at Reed with USNWR. I don’t think Reed is alone with their view on rankings, but very brave in taking on the monster the way they did. Then the monster devoured Reed as a warning to others.
I’m a mom just finishing up with the last kid going through the admissions and selection process, so I’m a little jaded.
How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
@Ruby789 - I’m an SAT teacher and college counselor, so I’m um jaded too (and yet somehow cheerful, whether by constitution or perverse obstinacy, I don’t know).
@Corinthian.
This is weird, because just yesterday I put up my first post on CC in a few months, consisting of a ‘re-post’ as it were, of how 4 of the top 5 colleges, based on the metric of selectivity alone, are located in Claremont (for the second year in a row), the only difference being Pomona (9.2% admit rate) and Claremont McKenna (9.4% admit rate) reversed the #1 ad #2 spots, which was not surprising…considering Forbes ranked Pomona #1 in the US, not among lacs alone, but among all colleges and universities.
But, my point is, in the body of my post, i used the exact same example of Pitzer vs Williams, in the sense that -although Pitzer is ranked higher than Williams In selectivity- I don’t believe it is a “better” or even more selective,
school, than Williams. Admit rate is merely one factor in overall selectivity, and I agree with the posters who have expressed that fit is more important than prestige or rankings, when an applicant is making the all-important decision
of where to spend his/her college years. Especially if the choice is between two institutions roughly comparable, (i.e.both top 20 schools for example) in terms of SAT scores,GPAs, and the rest.
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.
@ThankYouforHelp - Your school’s average GPA for Pitzer is very unusual. I believe the average overall is a 3.9. Also, acceptance rate for one particular school is often meaningless - last year, acceptance rates from my school were 100% at Harvard, 50% at Stanford, 33% at Tufts, 50% at UNew Hampshire, etc. Obviously this does not mean UNew Hampshire is more selective than Harvard, it just means applicants from my school self selected in applying to Harvard and Stanford.
And as you point out, we can’t compare apples and oranges. Let’s compare Pitzer and Williams for what they consider important:
Pitzer
Very important:
-Academic GPA
-Application Essay
-Character/Personal Qualities
-Rigor of secondary school record
Important:
-Extracurricular Activities
-Recommendations
-Talent/Ability
-Volunteer Work
Williams
Very important:
-Academic GPA
-Class Rank
-Recommendations
-Rigor of secondary school record
-Standardized Test Scores
-Talent/Ability
Important:
-Alumni Relation
-Application Essay
-Character/Personal Qualities
-Extracurricular Activities
-First generation college student
-Racial/Ethnic Status