<p>I don’t care for pieces like this because these are SAT scores so it doesn’t really matter (like USNews clearly has figured that for some reason the wild differences between the scores of students at various schools isn’t making much of a difference in overall caliber of the schools) beyond a certain threshold (which is why the USNews week rankings don’t seem to be so sensitive to them changing and nor did they ever). Who says students at the other schools are miserable? Like Rice for example generally gets pretty high quality of life and happiness ratings, and so do WashU and Emory and yet they have not seen astronomical rises in SAT scores (and none of us have seen huge rises in rank over time, though I would say that WashU is solidly ahead of the other 3 of us in terms of caliber mainly because of their research infrastructure and likely the level of academics). Seems that extreme rises in SAT scores as shown by Chicago, Vandy, and WashU are very correlated with marketing campaigns (luckily for Chicago, the academic environment is a better match for the types of students it yields. I think WashU is too, I don’t really know about Vandy. I just suspect the other two are a bit more intense). However, when you look at the accomplishments of students upon graduation from classes where these rises became noticeable, you really don’t notice much of an improvement or change. The schools for some reason are yielding students that are more into or capable of completely different things regardless of SAT scores. Like if I could have a Rhodes or 2 per year, consistently have Goldwater Scholars, and get several UG fulbrights, PhD (especially in sciences) program penetration often more than competitors with higher SAT scores, I’m not going to be a school very worried about recruiting. Like, if I am Duke, Columbia, Stanford, and Penn, I am not really concerned about the schools with higher SAT scores for obvious reasons. The accomplishments of the students at these schools more so reflects the type of things the students are interested, the level of academic strength in certain divisions at undergraduate the school, and the overall type of environment (maybe intellectual environment or the level of support for those pursuing such awards) at each school. </p>
<p>With that said, I think what schools like JHU do right is focusing much more on the academic infrastructure. While they may not be rewarded for it by being able to claim bunches of high scoring UGs (as in unusually high scoring), the results speak for themselves and this can be said for many schools with scores lower than places like WashU
but with higher ranks. Again, it looks like, in many cases, the pace of student body “caliber” (I guess that is SAT’s, but it really could be immeasurable things like number of Siemen’s participants and top places, I"X"O particpants and top places, etc…in such cases you will start to see separations that don’ t really correlate with the kind of small differences in SAT more so than how strong the schools are in certain departments. As in a student wining Gold at IMO is not choosing Harvard or MIT over other places because its “fun” and prestigious. It is because it is amazing at math) has outpaced the caliber of academics by a lot. Schools that have managed to improve their undergraduate academics the most (while seeing any growth if any) have fared better in yielding better “results” from the students over time. Duke is such an example. It’s SAT’s are lower than many of the top universities and yet its UG students for years have been putting an extremely solid fight with the most elite institutions (they for example, now perform extremely well in PhD program penetration despite having had issues with the so called intellectual climate on campus). I’m sorry, you don’t get that by just attracting top scorers and it isn’t necessarily their “balanced” environment doing it (like Yale and Stanford are what I would consider the other balanced environments and yet places like Harvard, Princeton, MIT, and Chicago still are holding it down), it is making sure the academic caliber plus other resources are in place. The idea is, despite these changing of SAT score rankings over say, the past 5-10 years at top institutions (more than enough time for “results” to show for the ones that have risen a lot, like WashU), a pecking order has still remained. I am pretty sure it has to do with the academic environments. </p>
<p>Whereas things like quality of life, social life/environment, weather, and things like that can explain why certain high scorers are choosing some schools, it can’t explain why the disparity in “results” still persists despite the recent graduating classes at WashU or Vandy being as good or higher than say Duke, Stanford, and Columbia or other places for like the past 2-3 graduation cycles. I think WashU is more or less “ok”, but Vandy needs to do something to move forward to taking advantage of the “talent”. Either it needs to re-evaluate what “talent” is or it needs to enhance its academic environment even more (and most top 20s can use that, seriously). I just know I would re-evaluate things when I notice things like this. Emory, for example, should not come close to yielding the same amount or more Fulbrights than a place with 100 points or more on the SAT as it did this year. Nor should we look similar in any other metrics at this point. And places like Duke, Stanford, and Columbia should not be as different anymore either if you all are attracting similar students (I don’t think this is the case. I am willing to bet the composition of things like SAT 2 scores is different across these schools. Likely, you’ll have more at places like Stanford submitting, math, chem, and physics scores and getting “geeks” in areas that the school excels or is known for in whereas some schools are attracting high scorers that were not necessarily attracted to particular academic programs so much as an “experience”. They kind of just said, “seems like an extremely nice school with good academics to me” and showed up). </p>
<p>I imagine cross-admissions to these places being similar, but then different types of students choosing different places for different reasons (Like if I am a Tech nerd or geek, I am going to choose Stanford over many places and I certainly care less that the SAT scores are higher at another place. Given this, Stanford could care less either, because it will remain the catalyst of countless innovators in STEM fields, especially in technology) Like if you care more about the strength of certain academic programs or scenes on a campus, you’ll choose the school that is very serious about quality in that area. If you care more about the social environment and believe the academic caliber of the program is sufficient, then you’ll choose the school with the more robust social environment. The fact that you have Chicago (which is another one with an astronomical rise) and Vandy near the top of this list demonstrates that. The two schools could not differ anymore than they do now. WashU is a bit different as well and yet students choose it (WashU honestly seems like a place that a higher scoring student also considering JHU or Emory would choose. I don’t blame them, WashU has worked very hard to strengthen UG academics enough to truly challenge its student body, so if you’re very serious about pre-med or science, it isn’t a bad choice at all if you don’t necessarily want Princeton, Harvard or those sorts of environments). I believe some schools are riding on marketing and good fin. aid, and some schools are riding mostly on academic caliber and prestige (some are doing a nice mixture). Both are viable to get really high scoring students, but it will yield different types of high scoring students that have differing expectations and will probably have different outcomes (as in different types of success, not levels).</p>