Selectivity of LACs

mini
Wed, 17 Nov 2004 19:45:07 +0000

The answer is that, while you can count the number of folks accepted and rejected, you can’t actually come up with a true “selectivity” index. The women’s colleges, for example, are only dealing with half the population (and in the case of Smith, 10% are older women, average age 36). Some of the colleges which de-emphasize SATs (like Bowdoin and Mount Holyoke and Bard) have a wider range of SAT selectivity - they will have some high 1500s, like Swarthmore, and some barely crossing 1000.

You also have to cross tabulate selectivity with yield. Amherst rejects a much higher proportion of applicants than, say, Smith, but yield is very similar.

Instead of playing “reach, match, safety”, a much more important game is "fit, almost fit, fits some, doesn’t fit at all.