Selectivity Ranking: National Us & LACs combined, USNEWS ~method

[gellino]

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One other anolmaly I’ve noticed over the years with respect to SATs & ACTs reported on the CDS. I’ve noticed that some schools report an ACT mid 50% bracket lower than the equivalent SAT bracket. Brown is the poster child here. Its not by much, but it makes me wonder whether certain low-scoring recruits are told to only turn in their ACTs, so they don’t pollute (and lower) the SAT pool. Here’s the Brown example (from most recent CDS)…</p>

<p>Percent submitting SAT: 92%
Percent submitting ACT: 30%
Total: 122%, so some overlap (i.e., they don’t appear to be in the Amherst category)</p>

<p>But…SAT CR+M midrange: 1320 to 1540
by the concordance chart, that SAT midrange equates to an ACT composite midrange of 29 or 30 to 34 or 35.
…yet, Brown’s reported ACT composite midrange is 28-33. </p>

<p>Again, not much (~50 SAT points, though, on a 1600 basis), but this discrepancy consistent with Brown over the years, and I’ve found other schools that don’t have this SAT-ACT discrepancy. Pure speculation on my part, but it does look a bit weird, and I could imagine how ACT-dumping manipulation could be used to improve ones position with the rankings.

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<p>Nice catch. I had the noticed that Colgate (the school I’m most familiar with) had a slightly higher avg ACT than Brown even though its SAT median was 70 points below Brown but just figured it was an anomoly, never have understood the ACT to SAT conversion and didn’t realize it was a consistent thing.</p>

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Second, I think the way US News reports “SAT CR+M” is, statistically speaking, just wrong. Colleges don’t report 25th and 75th percentiles for “SAT CR + M” on the Common Data Set. They report 25th and 75th percentiles for the SAT CR, and 25th and 75th percentiles for the SAT M, respectively. US News simply adds each school’s reported 75th percentile CR score to its 75th percentile M score to get a figure it then reports as “75th percentile CR + M.” But you can’t assume that everyone who’s above the 75th percentile in CR at a given school is also above the 75th percentile in M at that same school, and vice versa.

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<p>I have noticed this phenomenom as well but think the discrepancy is not as great as you think. I know for Colgate in the last year or two that the median SAT for accepted students was 1415 and the avg SAT was 1403, so the difference was only 12 points but will grant you it’s makes students think their chances are lower than what they may actually be. </p>

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By the way, would it surprise anyone that reporting a LOWER SAT score actually might help to obtain a higher ranking? If you need a hint, take a look at the impact of that wonderful graduation expectation index!

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<p>That’s an interesting observation, although I’ve never looked closely at the expected graduation rates they calculate to understand how USNWR is doing it or what weight it ascribes to it vs other components.</p>

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PS The only way USNews should deal with SAT optional schools is to park ALL of them in a separate category that is no longer ranked.

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<p>I don’t agree with this as it’s going too far to me. USNWR has already gotten into too high of position of power with regard to college education than they should be; I don’t think they should be in a position of mandating that schools require the SAT. If a college wants to not require the SAT, that should be its perogative. Said college just shouldn’t be rewarded for doing so by appearing to have a stronger student profile than it actually does or receive a higher ranking in USNWR (or any other poll) as a result of doing so. Maybe, it should do something along the lines of what it appears Middlebury is doing and force the schools to tell them what their actual SAT of the entire enrolled class is and use this number in their calculations to compile their rankings.</p>