Universities with the highest NUMBERS of smart students

College Search & Lists
1

<p>This is a little different from the usual way of looking at SAT 25th and 75th percentile. Using the SAT 25th and 75th percentiles I think it is possible to estimate the number of students at a university with over 1400 on the old SATs. There is a limited number of students with [old] SATs over 1400 and top universities and LACs compete for them. Where do most of them go? The number is a function of full-time undergrad enrollment and the percent over 1400. There are some pretigious universities in the top 20…and a few surprises.</p>

<p>university, number of full-time undergrads with over 1400 old SAT, the percent over 1400</p>

<p>UC Berkeley 7424 34%
UCLA 6505 27%
Cornell 6431 47%
Illinois UC 6167 .215
USC 5553 35%
U Florida 5298 17%
U Penn 5133 55%
NYU 5020 27%
Harvard 4922 75%
Boston U 4490 27%
Stanford 4404 27%
UVA 4227 32%
Northwestern 4174 53%
Yale 3932 75%
Columbia 3709 59%
Washington U St Louis 3678 61%
Duke 3620 58%
UC San Diego 3589 18%
Notre Dame 3565 43%
Princeton 3167 68%
Brown 3082 54%
MIT 3067 75%</p>

<p>I had some difficulty with the universities that report ACT score ranges in US News. I used an internet conversion table. Such as Michigan, Wisconsin. Anybody know what the ACT universities say are the SAT midrange?</p>

<p>The method has to do with the fact that 1.36 standard deviations lie between the 25th and 75th percentile, assuming a normal distribution (bell-shape). It is possible to calculate an estimate of the percent over 1400 and then multiply by the f-t undergrad enrollment.</p>

2

<p>So Harvard, Yale, and MIT win this petty game? Woohoo?</p>

3

<p>Michigan and Wisconsin’s SAT ranges are in their common data sets.</p>

<p><a href=“Office of Budget and Planning”>Office of Budget and Planning;

<p><a href=“http://wiscweb3.wisc.edu/obpa/CDS_USNEWS/CDS_2005.pdf[/url]”>http://wiscweb3.wisc.edu/obpa/CDS_USNEWS/CDS_2005.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I’m really not sure how accurate this is. I don’t think the average WUStL student is smarter than the average Penn student, for example. I was extremely surprised by Stanford’s low %, though. The same as Boston U? Surely not. :confused:</p>

4

<p>only 61% at WUSTL? That’s kind of surprising.</p>

5

<p>the Stanford percent is a typo…it was actually 68% in my calculation.</p>

<p>This is the raw number of students with old SAT scores over 1400. It has nothing to do with averages.</p>

<p>I think it is pretty accurate. I verified the accuracy of the calculation for Harvard and Yale and MIT.</p>

6

<p>The University of Michigan has over 24,000 undergrads and 25% (6,000+) of its students have 1400+ on their SATs.</p>

7

<p>re-posting my list with a couple corrections and a few additions…
Did I leave any schools out?</p>

<p>Could you say that the top third at Berkeley contains a Harvard student body?</p>

<p>university, number of full-time undergrads with over 1400 old SAT, the percent over 1400</p>

<p>UC Berkeley 7424 34%
U Illinois UC 7172 25%
UCLA 6505 27%
Cornell 6431 47%
U Michigan 5943 25%
USC 5553 35%
U Florida 5298 17%
U Wisconsin 5187 19%
U Texas Austin 5151 15%
U Penn 5133 55%
NYU 5020 27%
Harvard 4922 75%
Boston U 4490 27%
Stanford 4404 68%
U Maryland CP 4395 19%
UVA 4227 32%
Northwestern 4174 53%
Yale 3932 75%
Columbia 3709 59%
Washington U St Louis 3678 61%
Duke 3620 58%
UC San Diego 3589 18%
Notre Dame 3565 43%
Princeton 3167 68%
Brown 3082 54%
MIT 3067 75%</p>

8

<p>Earth to OP:</p>

<p>Standardized testing does not prove how “smart” or “smarter” one is. Not an IQ test, nor actually even a college-ability test. Year after year the colleges pretend that it is a “college-ability” test (apparently), while denying that connection in private, & students on CC come & post about how test scores prove intelligence, aptitude, etc.</p>

<p>Once again, those who believe such statements are simply mistaken. There is absolutely no scientific proof that there is such a relationship. Further, overall, college follow-up results after matriculation do not correlate with pre-college testing, either, particularly after the first yr of college.</p>

<p>Even sticking with the non-LD population, the correlation is non-existent. When you add in those of the LD population who happen to have superior IQ’s, the relationship between testing & IQ becomes almost inversely proportional.</p>

<p>Let it GO…</p>

9

<p>Of those schools with a substantial number of high-scorers but a relatively low percentage, I wonder how many have an honors college or some other process (other than separate admission to particular majors, such as engineering at Cal Berkeley, Wharton at Penn and agriculture at Cornell) to increase the chances of like associating with like. Also, which ones have a frat, party, commuter school or sports atmosphere that overwhelms such opportunities.</p>

10

<p>How about U. Texas (Austin), UNC-CH, Univ. of Washington in Seattle, Minnesota, Ga, GaTech, and some other big state schools? Are Dartmouth and JHU missing?</p>

11

<p>epiphany: we know, but it’s still kinda interesting to look at these numbers.</p>

12

<p>eulenspiegel-
Johns hopkins and Dartmouth are among the very best universities. They have a high PERCENTAGE who score over 1400: JHU=48% and Dartmouth=65%. But, these schools have smaller student enrollment and didn’t make the top 25 in terms of NUMBER of high scorers. Dartmouth estimate=2626 and JHU estimate=2393. I did the calculation for about 70 colleges to come up with my top 25. I think the percentage of high scorers is most important in determining academic climate, but the raw number is interesting and meaningful for other reasons.</p>

<p>Epiphany-
The SAT scores are one of the 2 or 3 best predictors of success in college. SAT scores predict grades and SAT scores predict graduation rate. There are individual exceptions, but this is true overall. The SAT scores are better than an IQ test because SAT scores not only capture intelligence but they also capture effort and preparation for college work.</p>

<p>It is hard to see the importance of SAT scores within universities once students enter college because smarter students go into harder majors, which means that all students are challenged to the level of their ability. You can clearly see the importance of SAT when you calculate the correlation between graduation rate and SAT 75th percentile among a wide range of universities (correlation=about.9).</p>

13

<p>Percentage matters alot more. Who cares if Florida has alot of 1400+ when its only 17% of the student body, when at Amherst the school is only 2000 but 70% of the students are 1400+</p>

14

<p>The concept that intrigues me is the notion of “intellectual purity” as a measure of academic quality. What exactly is the effect of “diluting” the top 25%-50% with lower-achieving students? If you switched the entire 6500 undergrads at Harvard with the (arguably equivalent) top 6500 undergrads at Berkeley, how would their experiences change?</p>

15

<p>Wow Harvard with the most amount of students with SAT scores above 1400. That must have been impossible to guess</p>

16

<p>Dunkaroo-
Harvard does not have the highest NUMBER of “smart” students.</p>

<p>By the way, I think frustration would probably be greater at Berkeley than Harvard (for equivalent students).</p>

17

<p>I think we are all shocked that Harvard has so many kids with such high SAT scores. </p>

<p>If Harvard doesn’t have the highest NUMBER of “smart” students then who does?</p>

<p>MIT, Yale, Princeton…?</p>

<p>Yeah I’m sure a few kids bought their way in and etc… but overall Harvard takes the cake for the U.S. at least</p>

18

<p>The majority of applicants to midwest publics submit ACTs, and that must be taken into account.</p>

19

<p>Collegehelp, what’s the rank by percentage?</p>

20

<p>rank by estimated percent of full-time undergrads with old SAT over 1400:
(basically includes US News top 50-55 National Universities and top 17 LACs)</p>

<p>Caltech 89%
MIT 75%
Harvard 75%
Yale 75%
Princeton 68%
Stanford 68%
Dartmouth 65%
Amherst 65%
Swarthmore 62%
Washington U St Louis 61%
Columbia 59%
Rice 59%
Duke 58%
U Chicago 58%
Williams 57%
U Penn 55%
Brown 54%
Northwestern 53%
Grinnell 50%
Wesleyan 50%
Claremont McKenna 50%
Johns Hopkins 48%
Cornell 47%
Carleton 47%
Carnegie Mellon 46%
Vassar 45%
Tufts 44%
Emory 43%
Georgetown 43%
Notre Dame 43%
Washington and Lee 43%
Bowdoin 42%
Wellesley 41%
Haverford 41%
Vanderbilt 36%
Davidson 36%
USC 35%
Wm and Mary 35%
Brandeis 35%
UC Berkeley 34%
Pomona 34%
Georgia Tech 33%
Tulane 33%
Colgate 33%
UVA 32%
Middlebury 32%
Hamilton 30%
RPI 29%
Case Western 29%
UCLA 27%
NYO 27%
U Rochester 27%
Boston C 27%
Wake Forest 27%
Michigan AA 25%
Illinois 25%
UNC CH 23%
GWU 22%
Wisconsin 19%
Maryland CP 19%
Lehigh 19%
UC San Diego 18%
U Florida 17%
U Texas Austin 15%
Yeshiva 15%
UC Irvine 12%
U Washington 12%
Syracuse 11%
UC Santa Barbara 10%
UC Davis 9%
Penn St 8%</p>