On Wake (and similar peers economic quartile of students’ performance), I wonder if schools like Richmond and Wake suffer from athletic scholarships. Given that Wake only gives a full merit ride to some 40 students per class (and they get it for the requisite 36 ACT not financial need) … having as many as 100 scholarship athletes from the 25th quartile (parents making some $22,000/yr.) would greatly reduce the results. Most major athletic universities in the national top 30…like a Michigan or Vanderbilt…have a much larger student base to absorb scholarship athletes who are less likely to run a company after graduating. This would also explain why non-athletic oriented peers … like Emory …do better on the last quartile issue.
[later edit] Sorry after answering I see others made similar point. That said, do you see who the top performers were for moving kids from the lower 5th to the top 5th … #1 St. Louis School of Pharmacy, #3 Albany School of Pharmacy, #4 California Maritime Academy. Yes, poor kids do well becoming pharmacists or tug boat captains, but the top 5% academically are usually either more inquisitive or more ambitious on their future. Oberlin (known as Woke Forest) gives no athletic scholarships and does no better than Wake on getting the bottom 20% into the top 20% of income earners…and I think it has a lot to do with the kids themselves … why should satisfied philosopher kings seek to get into the top 20% of incomes in the country? Is this the mission of the country’s top liberal arts schools?