<p>ACT doesn’t affect college ranking; I have long understood it. So please don’t try to make something out of nothing. There’s no mentioning in the link? Look again post #7. </p>
<p>As for Yale:
It doesn’t say it superscores. Looks like you said it instead.</p>
<p>ACT is secondary anyway. Do you have anything to offer as far as not counting those off the waitlist? I should have never discuss ACT; it’s my mistake to give you opportunities to take cheap shots on me.</p>
<p>Just because selectivity acconts for 15% doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect ranking. The difference is so tiny among schools and any small little change can affect the packing order. UChicago corrected its way to count alumni giving, and it’s ranking jumped 6 spots.</p>
<p>Speaking of ranking obssession, WashU’s webpage lists just about any ranking under the sun, including subfields like “creative writing”. I am not obssessed with ranking. I am just pointing out how and why WashU <em>probably</em> is the one that is. Don’t confuse the two. It’s a great school and it shouldn’t be.</p>
<p>Sam Lee, do you believe that 21 people got out of the wait list here? Do you see those people posting they are going to B, C or D college? Give me a break, you are an adult, don’t make me think four years of college let you get the “facts” from a forum! As I told everybody before, two of those “accepted from the wait list” don’t exist, I personally know both of them and they haven’t applied to Wash U.
You go to Temple University, aren’t you? If I said I know you it’s for a reason. Wash U wasn’t good for you, but it is for everybody else, get a life!</p>
<p>You’re right. I should have said that there is no factual information in any link about Washu. What “Sheed30” says he “knows of” is not fact as far as I’m concerned. I don’t have time to research this (I actually do have a life) so perhaps you can link to something on Washu’s website that indicates that they superscore the ACT, though I agree it’s a ridiculous waste of time to even bring it up. </p>
<p>No, you’re not obsessed with proving something about Washu. There’s absolutely no evidence for that description. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>hahaha wow, Sam Lee: get a life dude. you are pathetic. how much time have you spent posting these rants? do you honestly have nothing better to do than type on your computer about a school’s admissions process (their process according to you, that is)? it’s really sad if you don’t have anything better to do than this.</p>
<p>Jazzy, your cheap shots at Sam Lee’s lack of a life is annoying to say the least. Instead of raving about his lack of a life on an online forum, maybe you should try to back up your aguments instead of insulting the poster. </p>
<p>The VAST majority of schools superscore. Only a very few do not. Some Ivy League Schools superscore. What does it matter anyway? They see all your scores regardless of how they treat them and NOBODY can tell me that they dont consider all your scores.</p>
<p>Some schools, including some Ivy League Schools routinely dip lower in the student ranks to get a better mix of kids. Most schools could fill their entire freshman class with perfect SAT’s and perfect GPA’s. They do not want to do that.</p>
<p>If they dip down, it means they skip over kids who are otherwise very qualified. There is no guarantee you will be admitted anywhere and you have no “right” to admission. Its a privilege. Schools can do what they want for whatever reasons they want so long as they are not discriminatory on race, religion etc…though they have selection criteria in those categories that are often borderline.</p>
<p>I didn’t say Washu didn’t superscore and I don’t care if they do. Some universities superscore the SAT — I’m not doing a research project to determine which do or don’t — so I don’t see it as an issue if WashU superscores the ACT. Yale says it takes the best composite score. If Washu takes the best composite score for each section, big deal. Cheap shot or not, I still say that someone who’s finished college should have by now moved on from this nonsense over miniscule differences in rating calculations in the USNWR rankings.</p>
<p>If you don’t care if they do; then why did you give me so much c*ap about me asking if WashU does? Thanks -Lurker-. It just shows I am not the one making unreasonable speculation. I am sorry that I didn’t make it clearer. My suspicion wasn’t based on just one claim from one poster on CC. I saw couple more from another thread. I went to yahoo Education afterward and saw that WashU had 81% scoring above 30! That’s significantly higher than Duke/Chicago…schools that have traditonally been more competitive (maybe equal now) than WashU. </p>
<p>I don’t know if it’s done for marketing purpose or not. But at least people should know what the data say. It’d look more competitive than it actually is if readers don’t know it’s been superscored. Most people know most schools superscore SAT. But that’s not the case for ACT because as far as I know, most schools don’t superscore that one. </p>
<p>By the way, superscoring ACT generally makes a bigger difference than superscoring SAT does.</p>
<p>Yale says it take the best composite score but it doesn’t mean it superscores (“use highest section scores compiled to make the highest composite score”, as WashU puts it). You seem to confuse the difference.</p>
<p>We still have WashU seemingly not counting those who declined the waitlist offers as “accepted”.</p>
<p>It’s funny you insulted me as “having no life” and for not “moving on from this nonsense over miniscle differences” when I am investigating and asking if WashU is manipulating such differences. Well, if they do, then apparently they don’t think it’s that “miniscule”. If that’s the case, maybe they are the ones that you should tell them to “move on” and stop tweaking numbers (such as counting those that got the calls but declined offers as accepted). </p>
<p>As for me “having no life”, I just had more wild fun last weekend than you probably think . ;)</p>
<p>brand_182,</p>
<p>Pardon my English. I was just saying WashU is giving GREAT education. It gets students that even turned down HYP. Therefore, it shouldn’t feel the need to manipulate to such extent.</p>
<p>Cheap shot or not, I still say that someone who’s finished college should have by now moved on from this nonsense over miniscule differences in rating calculations in the USNWR rankings. jazzylady.</p>
<p>Sam Lee, if you call any school asking them if you send two ACT scores which one they take, everyone would say the better scores in each section, MIT does that and so the Ivies and I had experience with that. Many kids only send one, the one they think look better, in that case, superscoring isn’t need it (my D only took the ACT once).
And I still can’t understand what is your problem with this, some kids don’t do well in one exam or another and that don’t make them less competitive; the schools that look at the kid in a whole and not a bunch of numbers, are the best schools to be in.
You could go to the best-ranked school for your undergraduate degree and ended in an unknown university finishing graduate school with no possibilities to get a good job aftermath.</p>
<p>Sam, I should not have insulted you by indicating you have no life even though I do think this is an obsession you have regarding WashU. These kinds of petty discussions bring out an unpleasant side of me so I am going to leave it alone for awhile (plus, we’re going away soon.)</p>
<p>I’m just tired of the posts like yours that single Washu out for admission policies and practices that many colleges, including others in the top 20, also employ — from superscoring to strategic use of the waitlist. I’ve said before and I’ll say again, Washu’s top ranking in USNWR has more to do with the quality of its student body, it’s faculty, and the resources it makes available to them through its endowment and its respected reputation than any marketing ploy or minor blip in acceptances rates due to its use of the waitlist. Acceptance rate is 1.5 percent of the ranking methodology (10 percent of the student selectivity factor, which is 15 percent, if I’m doing the math right, which is always iffy) and I don’t think that’s significant.</p>
<pre><code>And the reason that Chicago jumped so many places was not only due to changes in figures for alumni giving (which is what, 5 percent of the USNWR formula), but as I recall, the greater impact had to do with counting and reporting of faculty numbers, which affects class-size ratios and numbers of full-time faculty and faculty resources, which is a much more significant 20 or 25 percent of the formula. There was a time when Duke was much lower in ranking compared to the Ivies and jumped over time due to increased endowment and some of the marketing and admission practices that WashU is so under your microscope for doing. Now, it’s ranking is just accepted. IMO, this is how Washu ought to be regarded now. Certain admission decisions and practices are not unique to Washu and there’s no basis for throwing out descriptives such as “excessive” and “such an extent” except if you want to discredit the university. This is what I object to.
</code></pre>
<p>1.) Superscoring a standardized test for admissions purposes is not necessarily the same as superscoring it when reporting it to USN; a school could easily do either one but not the other.</p>
<p>2.) From my experience at Duke, waitlists are a tricky thing. Generally what will happen is that a phone call will be made to gauge student interest. If the student is still interested, then a package will be sent out. The sending of that package, not the phone call, marks the student’s admission. So declining over the phone is not officially declining an admission, but declining after that package has been sent would be. This is the way Duke worked five years ago; I don’t know anything about the present day or about WUSTL.</p>
<p>and one final note, picking a school based solely on its “ranking” is a fools game and rather shallow. A student should pick a school based on its programs and fit for the student. Many second and third tier school routinely admit (and have students accept eenrollment) students who have near perfect SAT’s of 1500 or higher (math and cr) and who are valedictorians of their high school classes. They pick these schools based on lots of factors, including scholarship offers, fit, personality and location.</p>
<p>The whole waitlist process is a sham and used to manipulate selectivity and yield rates - not just by Wash U I’m sure. My son got a call from Wash U saying essentially “congratulations -we are able to offer you a slot off the waiting list. please let us know by tomorrow at 5 if you will accept it.” He called back and turned them down. This is CLEARLY an OFFER OF ADMISSION and a NONMATRICULATING student, which marginally detracts from both selectivity and yield, but I’ll bet that they will treat him in their stats as a student who was not offered admission. </p>
<p>It is particularly an issue for Wash U because they use the waitlist so extensively – college counsellors call them “Waitlist U.”</p>