Why is Pomona College so highly rated??

DRab
Tue, 30 May 2006 18:03:00 +0000

I won’t disagree with you on that one, DRAB, but I think its occurance (presitige seeking) is much less than that of the Ivies.



I agree with you.



However, we should realize that admissions offices see the College Board’s full score reports and the high schools’ transcripts and use their own protocols to assess them. Best scores from a single sitting, or best combined scores? Doesn’t really matter, does it, if the same protocol applies to everyone. Same goes for grades/class standing –



Well, I know you can pay the college board even more money (that’s what they do best, right? receive funds?) to hide scores, and while the inclusion of all scores might show a really poor sitting, I think that the admissions officers at a place like Berkeley are told to only think about and keep in mind the best single sitting, even if there were combinations of 200 200 800 in all three possibilities, although this would probably affect perception somewhat. And I think during the decision for most applicants besides those that have additional review, the score reports don’t have to be sent in (or grades, or AP scores), but are self-reported, and later the documents must be sent in to be verified. Anyway, my point is, while they might generally see all the scores, I think they’re told to ignore certain ones, and by the time the reports generally come about, I think people are already admitted or not- unless I have forgotten that score reports are a mandatory part of the application at Berkeley, which I don’t think is so.

I agree with you, as long as the same protocol applies to everyone, things are drastically mitigated, and I hope and think that adcoms know the difference between being at the top 5% at certain schools vs. others and what it means, but where the different score reporting comes into play is when it’s compared against other places and people don’t consider the reality, which I think some other top publics (other than UCs) use, which is the process of SAT reporting, and this affects US News ratings (as meaningless and meaningfull as it is, it could be mroe accurate), and comparing this factor of student body, although I think it’s only somewhat meaningful, to some people it’s the most meaningful factor. And why doesn’t US News or other ratings use the SAT II?



The sat scores aren’t really comporable because the UCB/UCLA/UC ones are innaccurate.



I think that’s the key point.