<p>@krzysmis: If you kept up with the literature you would know that the sat and act have not trended with IQ for almost 20 years now. The SAT was re-curved and re-formulated in the mid 90’s to change its general psychometric philosophy from aptitude test to assessment test (though there is still a weak g-factor correlation). </p>
<p>While there is a difference between the test scores of the two universities it is not as large as you are portraying it. Michigan has a 28-32 middle 50% on the ACT, whereas NU has a 31-34. This would make the Michigan average a 30 with the NU being 32.5 . Certainly this is a difference but not a 4 point one. This when converted into SAT terms is about a 150 point difference (if you go by the conversion charts online). It basically places the average Michigan student in the top 5% of all scores and the average NU student in the top 2% of scores. </p>
<p>So while you could argue that NU has a slightly stronger student body (a notion I am generally in agreement with) it is nowhere near the difference you make it out to be. Furthermore neither the SAT nor ACT is a measure of “intelligence” or potential. The ACT especially is knowledge based at this point; considering that this test is the standard at both schools it is hard to say definitively any true difference in intelligence but rather a simple difference in test scores.</p>