<p>The current ranking also does not account for sample size, which likely impacts the average brainpower of the student body. For example, large state schools, such as UC Berkeley, likely have a group of students in the right tail of the distribution with similar SAT or ACT scores as some of the top Ivy League and other elite schools (e.g., see discussion in Pinker, 2014), however, their average is lowered by the large number of students with lower scores which are typically admitted. Therefore large state schools, if anything, are likely slightly penalized in the current ranking relative to smaller private schools which draw primarily from top students.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.psychologytoday.com/files/attachments/56143/1339-us-colleges-ranked-average-student-brainpower.pdf”>http://www.psychologytoday.com/files/attachments/56143/1339-us-colleges-ranked-average-student-brainpower.pdf</a></p>