Is it not fair to say college rankings are basically just test score rankings?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The most highly ranked schools have the highest score profiles and it gradually declines as you go down the list. It’s all just a sorting mechanism based on test scores (outside of hooks). It seems nearly impossible that an unhooked student can get into a T15 type school without super high scores. Ironically TO may have made the emphasis on scores more pronounced because unhooked students essentially need great scores. For all the yapping about curating a class, they are really just filling their classes when the highest scoring kids they can get. This shouldn’t be interpreted as meaning a high score automatically gets you in anywhere.

I think USNWR is now kind of a mashup of two lists. The first is highly selective (high stat), wealthy schools (high resources) that are predominantly private. The second is high mobility (Pell grant), high research schools that are predominantly public. To boost schools in the second group, they dropped ranking criteria like class size, student-to-faculty ratio, and alumni giving %.

Yes, and rankings are better as a result. There are excellent private and public colleges out there.

Most of the DCUMers complaining are for their privates they attended 30 years ago "dropping" in USNWR ranking.

"Better?" Schools with low average SATs rising doesn't seem "better" to me.

The SAT is but one data point and with the exception of specific T25 schools, most colleges are test optional.

All the more reason there should be zero (0) schools with SAT medians below 1400, yet here we are.

95th percentile test scores are fair game for a decent ranking. Also, weighting wise, the USNWR rankings preserved test scores as 5% of the methodology.

Should be like 50%

Your ignorance is evident. Thanks.

No ignorance over here. Must be some kind of reflective mirage.

Ok Mr. 50% 🤣

What's wrong with 50%? I'd be fine with up to 80%.

Then move overseas. India would love you.

South Korea, Japan, and China definitely would. All high-performing nations that prioritise standardised tests. Same with Europe and Canada.

Yet, their students want to study in the U.S.

Hmm.

You can pick one of those countries. You won't be missed.

Bye.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The most highly ranked schools have the highest score profiles and it gradually declines as you go down the list. It’s all just a sorting mechanism based on test scores (outside of hooks). It seems nearly impossible that an unhooked student can get into a T15 type school without super high scores. Ironically TO may have made the emphasis on scores more pronounced because unhooked students essentially need great scores. For all the yapping about curating a class, they are really just filling their classes when the highest scoring kids they can get. This shouldn’t be interpreted as meaning a high score automatically gets you in anywhere.

I think USNWR is now kind of a mashup of two lists. The first is highly selective (high stat), wealthy schools (high resources) that are predominantly private. The second is high mobility (Pell grant), high research schools that are predominantly public. To boost schools in the second group, they dropped ranking criteria like class size, student-to-faculty ratio, and alumni giving %.

Yes, and rankings are better as a result. There are excellent private and public colleges out there.

Most of the DCUMers complaining are for their privates they attended 30 years ago "dropping" in USNWR ranking.

"Better?" Schools with low average SATs rising doesn't seem "better" to me.

The SAT is but one data point and with the exception of specific T25 schools, most colleges are test optional.

All the more reason there should be zero (0) schools with SAT medians below 1400, yet here we are.

95th percentile test scores are fair game for a decent ranking. Also, weighting wise, the USNWR rankings preserved test scores as 5% of the methodology.

Should be like 50%

Your ignorance is evident. Thanks.

No ignorance over here. Must be some kind of reflective mirage.

Ok Mr. 50% 🤣

What's wrong with 50%? I'd be fine with up to 80%.

Then move overseas. India would love you.

South Korea, Japan, and China definitely would. All high-performing nations that prioritise standardised tests. Same with Europe and Canada.

Yet, their students want to study in the U.S.

Hmm.

You can pick one of those countries. You won't be missed.

Bye.

The vast majority don't want to study in the U.S., actually.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The most highly ranked schools have the highest score profiles and it gradually declines as you go down the list. It’s all just a sorting mechanism based on test scores (outside of hooks). It seems nearly impossible that an unhooked student can get into a T15 type school without super high scores. Ironically TO may have made the emphasis on scores more pronounced because unhooked students essentially need great scores. For all the yapping about curating a class, they are really just filling their classes when the highest scoring kids they can get. This shouldn’t be interpreted as meaning a high score automatically gets you in anywhere.

I think USNWR is now kind of a mashup of two lists. The first is highly selective (high stat), wealthy schools (high resources) that are predominantly private. The second is high mobility (Pell grant), high research schools that are predominantly public. To boost schools in the second group, they dropped ranking criteria like class size, student-to-faculty ratio, and alumni giving %.

Yes, and rankings are better as a result. There are excellent private and public colleges out there.

Most of the DCUMers complaining are for their privates they attended 30 years ago "dropping" in USNWR ranking.

I think the rankings should focus on educational quality and cost.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every school has its institutional priorities but once those are met they are trying to fill the class with the strongest students they can attract. Test score profile is the strongest indicator of selectivity which is customers’ own ranking mechanism for which schools are best.

Yep. Which is why the quality has absolutely gone down at places like Hopkins that were test optional and pushed so hard to askew actual merit for institutional priorities.

Duke and of course Stanford I get but I struggle to understand why JHU and Northwestern are perceived as Ivy Peers and a cut above schools like Vandy, ND, WashU, CMU, Rice, Chicago, Gtown. It’s not in the test scores really and it’s not necessarily in the other characteristics of the schools.

Duke and Northwestern both had, for fall 2023, more test score submitters than Harvard Penn UChicago Brown etc. Among schools still TO for that admission season, only Yale had more (and of course test-required schools had more).

With JHU and Stanford returning to test required for the 2025-26 admission season, it will be interesting to see what Northwestern and Duke decide to do for next fall. Neither has announced a policy yet, as far as I know.

I still don’t grasp why Northwester and JHU are perceived as better than these other schools.

If you look at the list, nearly 80% at Northwestern students submit scores; it is under-ranked. John’s Hopkins is in 50s for percent submitting; it is over-ranked. Don’t lump them together.

Dumb way to look at it. JHU pre-test optional had higher test scores than NU and several ivies plus and higher percent in top 10%:

JHU class of 2023 (in 2019)

https://hub.jhu.edu/2019/08/22/class-of-2023-by-the-numbers/

Test scores: 1480 - 1550

Class rank - 98% in top 10% of class

NU Class of 2023:

https://www.enrollment.northwestern.edu/pdf/common-data/2019-20.pdf

Test scores: 1450 to 1540

Class rank - 92% in top 10% of class

Several ivies had lower test scores and class rank percentages then too. I would not be surprised if JHU had the same test scores post TO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every school has its institutional priorities but once those are met they are trying to fill the class with the strongest students they can attract. Test score profile is the strongest indicator of selectivity which is customers’ own ranking mechanism for which schools are best.

Yep. Which is why the quality has absolutely gone down at places like Hopkins that were test optional and pushed so hard to askew actual merit for institutional priorities.

Duke and of course Stanford I get but I struggle to understand why JHU and Northwestern are perceived as Ivy Peers and a cut above schools like Vandy, ND, WashU, CMU, Rice, Chicago, Gtown. It’s not in the test scores really and it’s not necessarily in the other characteristics of the schools.

Duke and Northwestern both had, for fall 2023, more test score submitters than Harvard Penn UChicago Brown etc. Among schools still TO for that admission season, only Yale had more (and of course test-required schools had more).

With JHU and Stanford returning to test required for the 2025-26 admission season, it will be interesting to see what Northwestern and Duke decide to do for next fall. Neither has announced a policy yet, as far as I know.

I still don’t grasp why Northwester and JHU are perceived as better than these other schools.

If you look at the list, nearly 80% at Northwestern students submit scores; it is under-ranked. John’s Hopkins is in 50s for percent submitting; it is over-ranked. Don’t lump them together.

Dumb way to look at it. JHU pre-test optional had higher test scores than NU and several ivies plus and higher percent in top 10%:

JHU class of 2023 (in 2019)

https://hub.jhu.edu/2019/08/22/class-of-2023-by-the-numbers/

Test scores: 1480 - 1550

Class rank - 98% in top 10% of class

NU Class of 2023:

https://www.enrollment.northwestern.edu/pdf/common-data/2019-20.pdf

Test scores: 1450 to 1540

Class rank - 92% in top 10% of class

Several ivies had lower test scores and class rank percentages then too. I would not be surprised if JHU had the same test scores post TO.

Also goes to show JHU pre-test optional is already almost equal to NU currently test optional (https://www.enrollment.northwestern.edu/data/nu_cds_2023_2024_final.pdf) at 1500 to 1560.

NU has yet to announce non-test optional unlike JHU and several ivies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every school has its institutional priorities but once those are met they are trying to fill the class with the strongest students they can attract. Test score profile is the strongest indicator of selectivity which is customers’ own ranking mechanism for which schools are best.

Yep. Which is why the quality has absolutely gone down at places like Hopkins that were test optional and pushed so hard to askew actual merit for institutional priorities.

Duke and of course Stanford I get but I struggle to understand why JHU and Northwestern are perceived as Ivy Peers and a cut above schools like Vandy, ND, WashU, CMU, Rice, Chicago, Gtown. It’s not in the test scores really and it’s not necessarily in the other characteristics of the schools.

Duke and Northwestern both had, for fall 2023, more test score submitters than Harvard Penn UChicago Brown etc. Among schools still TO for that admission season, only Yale had more (and of course test-required schools had more).

With JHU and Stanford returning to test required for the 2025-26 admission season, it will be interesting to see what Northwestern and Duke decide to do for next fall. Neither has announced a policy yet, as far as I know.

I still don’t grasp why Northwester and JHU are perceived as better than these other schools.

As the other poster mentioned, these two are apples and oranges as far as reported scores. What is not clear to you about Northwestern not being on par with these other schools? Do you know anything about NU?

Where % submitting = ACT and SAT % added together:

Yale 82% submitting, 1500-1560, EBRW 740-780, math 760-800
Duke 81% submitting, EBRW 740-770, math 760-800
Northwestern 79% submitting, 1500-1560, EBRW 730-770, math 760-790
Princeton 77% submitting, 1510-1560, EBRW 740-780, math 760-800
Brown 76% submitting, 1510-1560, EBRW 740-770, math 760-800
Harvard 74% submitting, EBRW 740-780, math 760-800
UPenn 70% submitting, EBRW 730-770, math 770-800
Stanford 69% submitting, 1500-1560, EBRW 740-780, math 760-800
JHU 55% submitting, 1530-1560, EBRW 750-780, math 780-800
Vandy 51% submitting, 1500-1560, EBRW 740-770, math 770-790

Apologies in advance if there are typos.

Depends on what you mean by "being on par". If you look at SAT scores, Northwestern looks the same as Princeton. But Princeton's non-binding yield is probably double Northwestern's.

And Northwestern's yield is higher than Duke's. So what's your point

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The most highly ranked schools have the highest score profiles and it gradually declines as you go down the list. It’s all just a sorting mechanism based on test scores (outside of hooks). It seems nearly impossible that an unhooked student can get into a T15 type school without super high scores. Ironically TO may have made the emphasis on scores more pronounced because unhooked students essentially need great scores. For all the yapping about curating a class, they are really just filling their classes when the highest scoring kids they can get. This shouldn’t be interpreted as meaning a high score automatically gets you in anywhere.

I think USNWR is now kind of a mashup of two lists. The first is highly selective (high stat), wealthy schools (high resources) that are predominantly private. The second is high mobility (Pell grant), high research schools that are predominantly public. To boost schools in the second group, they dropped ranking criteria like class size, student-to-faculty ratio, and alumni giving %.

Yes, and rankings are better as a result. There are excellent private and public colleges out there.

Most of the DCUMers complaining are for their privates they attended 30 years ago "dropping" in USNWR ranking.

I think the rankings should focus on educational quality and cost.

Absolutely not. Cost varies from family to family. Some are full pay, some get full rides. Anyway, we want to know the best schools- we don’t need a ranking system to tell us the cheapest schools, you can just look that up. It’s mixing apples and oranges. Many people (like me) don’t care how much it costs, we are not trying to save 10-40k, we just want the best product. I personally find roi calculations idiotic because it makes it seem like you are better off going to a lesser cheaper school because you invested less initially even though you are earning less in the future because the school is inferior.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every school has its institutional priorities but once those are met they are trying to fill the class with the strongest students they can attract. Test score profile is the strongest indicator of selectivity which is customers’ own ranking mechanism for which schools are best.

Yep. Which is why the quality has absolutely gone down at places like Hopkins that were test optional and pushed so hard to askew actual merit for institutional priorities.

Duke and of course Stanford I get but I struggle to understand why JHU and Northwestern are perceived as Ivy Peers and a cut above schools like Vandy, ND, WashU, CMU, Rice, Chicago, Gtown. It’s not in the test scores really and it’s not necessarily in the other characteristics of the schools.

Duke and Northwestern both had, for fall 2023, more test score submitters than Harvard Penn UChicago Brown etc. Among schools still TO for that admission season, only Yale had more (and of course test-required schools had more).

With JHU and Stanford returning to test required for the 2025-26 admission season, it will be interesting to see what Northwestern and Duke decide to do for next fall. Neither has announced a policy yet, as far as I know.

I still don’t grasp why Northwester and JHU are perceived as better than these other schools.

As the other poster mentioned, these two are apples and oranges as far as reported scores. What is not clear to you about Northwestern not being on par with these other schools? Do you know anything about NU?

Where % submitting = ACT and SAT % added together:

Yale 82% submitting, 1500-1560, EBRW 740-780, math 760-800
Duke 81% submitting, EBRW 740-770, math 760-800
Northwestern 79% submitting, 1500-1560, EBRW 730-770, math 760-790
Princeton 77% submitting, 1510-1560, EBRW 740-780, math 760-800
Brown 76% submitting, 1510-1560, EBRW 740-770, math 760-800
Harvard 74% submitting, EBRW 740-780, math 760-800
UPenn 70% submitting, EBRW 730-770, math 770-800
Stanford 69% submitting, 1500-1560, EBRW 740-780, math 760-800
JHU 55% submitting, 1530-1560, EBRW 750-780, math 780-800
Vandy 51% submitting, 1500-1560, EBRW 740-770, math 770-790

Apologies in advance if there are typos.

Depends on what you mean by "being on par". If you look at SAT scores, Northwestern looks the same as Princeton. But Princeton's non-binding yield is probably double Northwestern's.

And Northwestern's yield is higher than Duke's. So what's your point

Not sure what your point is. Northwestern and Duke are not that different. Princeton obviously a tier above those schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The most highly ranked schools have the highest score profiles and it gradually declines as you go down the list. It’s all just a sorting mechanism based on test scores (outside of hooks). It seems nearly impossible that an unhooked student can get into a T15 type school without super high scores. Ironically TO may have made the emphasis on scores more pronounced because unhooked students essentially need great scores. For all the yapping about curating a class, they are really just filling their classes when the highest scoring kids they can get. This shouldn’t be interpreted as meaning a high score automatically gets you in anywhere.

I think USNWR is now kind of a mashup of two lists. The first is highly selective (high stat), wealthy schools (high resources) that are predominantly private. The second is high mobility (Pell grant), high research schools that are predominantly public. To boost schools in the second group, they dropped ranking criteria like class size, student-to-faculty ratio, and alumni giving %.

Yes, and rankings are better as a result. There are excellent private and public colleges out there.

Most of the DCUMers complaining are for their privates they attended 30 years ago "dropping" in USNWR ranking.

I think the rankings should focus on educational quality and cost.

Absolutely not. Cost varies from family to family. Some are full pay, some get full rides. Anyway, we want to know the best schools- we don’t need a ranking system to tell us the cheapest schools, you can just look that up. It’s mixing apples and oranges. Many people (like me) don’t care how much it costs, we are not trying to save 10-40k, we just want the best product. I personally find roi calculations idiotic because it makes it seem like you are better off going to a lesser cheaper school because you invested less initially even though you are earning less in the future because the school is inferior.

If you reward "expenditure" in your metrics, you end up with expensive schools and the U..S. has the most expensive in the world by some margin with costs rising 3x the rate of inflation over a 40 year period.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The most highly ranked schools have the highest score profiles and it gradually declines as you go down the list. It’s all just a sorting mechanism based on test scores (outside of hooks). It seems nearly impossible that an unhooked student can get into a T15 type school without super high scores. Ironically TO may have made the emphasis on scores more pronounced because unhooked students essentially need great scores. For all the yapping about curating a class, they are really just filling their classes when the highest scoring kids they can get. This shouldn’t be interpreted as meaning a high score automatically gets you in anywhere.

I think USNWR is now kind of a mashup of two lists. The first is highly selective (high stat), wealthy schools (high resources) that are predominantly private. The second is high mobility (Pell grant), high research schools that are predominantly public. To boost schools in the second group, they dropped ranking criteria like class size, student-to-faculty ratio, and alumni giving %.

Yes, and rankings are better as a result. There are excellent private and public colleges out there.

Most of the DCUMers complaining are for their privates they attended 30 years ago "dropping" in USNWR ranking.

I think the rankings should focus on educational quality and cost.

Absolutely not. Cost varies from family to family. Some are full pay, some get full rides. Anyway, we want to know the best schools- we don’t need a ranking system to tell us the cheapest schools, you can just look that up. It’s mixing apples and oranges. Many people (like me) don’t care how much it costs, we are not trying to save 10-40k, we just want the best product. I personally find roi calculations idiotic because it makes it seem like you are better off going to a lesser cheaper school because you invested less initially even though you are earning less in the future because the school is inferior.

ROI by definition depends on up front investment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every school has its institutional priorities but once those are met they are trying to fill the class with the strongest students they can attract. Test score profile is the strongest indicator of selectivity which is customers’ own ranking mechanism for which schools are best.

Yep. Which is why the quality has absolutely gone down at places like Hopkins that were test optional and pushed so hard to askew actual merit for institutional priorities.

Duke and of course Stanford I get but I struggle to understand why JHU and Northwestern are perceived as Ivy Peers and a cut above schools like Vandy, ND, WashU, CMU, Rice, Chicago, Gtown. It’s not in the test scores really and it’s not necessarily in the other characteristics of the schools.

Duke and Northwestern both had, for fall 2023, more test score submitters than Harvard Penn UChicago Brown etc. Among schools still TO for that admission season, only Yale had more (and of course test-required schools had more).

With JHU and Stanford returning to test required for the 2025-26 admission season, it will be interesting to see what Northwestern and Duke decide to do for next fall. Neither has announced a policy yet, as far as I know.

I still don’t grasp why Northwester and JHU are perceived as better than these other schools.

As the other poster mentioned, these two are apples and oranges as far as reported scores. What is not clear to you about Northwestern not being on par with these other schools? Do you know anything about NU?

Where % submitting = ACT and SAT % added together:

Yale 82% submitting, 1500-1560, EBRW 740-780, math 760-800
Duke 81% submitting, EBRW 740-770, math 760-800
Northwestern 79% submitting, 1500-1560, EBRW 730-770, math 760-790
Princeton 77% submitting, 1510-1560, EBRW 740-780, math 760-800
Brown 76% submitting, 1510-1560, EBRW 740-770, math 760-800
Harvard 74% submitting, EBRW 740-780, math 760-800
UPenn 70% submitting, EBRW 730-770, math 770-800
Stanford 69% submitting, 1500-1560, EBRW 740-780, math 760-800
JHU 55% submitting, 1530-1560, EBRW 750-780, math 780-800
Vandy 51% submitting, 1500-1560, EBRW 740-770, math 770-790

Apologies in advance if there are typos.

Depends on what you mean by "being on par". If you look at SAT scores, Northwestern looks the same as Princeton. But Princeton's non-binding yield is probably double Northwestern's.

And Northwestern's yield is higher than Duke's. So what's your point

You can't compare RD yield at Northwestern and Duke because Duke no longer publishes a common data set. Last was 2021-2022. That year NU and Duke had the same RD yield (44.2% and 43.8%).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The most highly ranked schools have the highest score profiles and it gradually declines as you go down the list. It’s all just a sorting mechanism based on test scores (outside of hooks). It seems nearly impossible that an unhooked student can get into a T15 type school without super high scores. Ironically TO may have made the emphasis on scores more pronounced because unhooked students essentially need great scores. For all the yapping about curating a class, they are really just filling their classes when the highest scoring kids they can get. This shouldn’t be interpreted as meaning a high score automatically gets you in anywhere.

I think USNWR is now kind of a mashup of two lists. The first is highly selective (high stat), wealthy schools (high resources) that are predominantly private. The second is high mobility (Pell grant), high research schools that are predominantly public. To boost schools in the second group, they dropped ranking criteria like class size, student-to-faculty ratio, and alumni giving %.

Yes, and rankings are better as a result. There are excellent private and public colleges out there.

Most of the DCUMers complaining are for their privates they attended 30 years ago "dropping" in USNWR ranking.

I think the rankings should focus on educational quality and cost.

Absolutely not. Cost varies from family to family. Some are full pay, some get full rides. Anyway, we want to know the best schools- we don’t need a ranking system to tell us the cheapest schools, you can just look that up. It’s mixing apples and oranges. Many people (like me) don’t care how much it costs, we are not trying to save 10-40k, we just want the best product. I personally find roi calculations idiotic because it makes it seem like you are better off going to a lesser cheaper school because you invested less initially even though you are earning less in the future because the school is inferior.

Cost matters but how do you rank UCLA? ROI ranking could use average cost but that doesn't make sense, depends too much on in-state or not. You need CA resident ROI and non CA resident ROI rankings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The most highly ranked schools have the highest score profiles and it gradually declines as you go down the list. It’s all just a sorting mechanism based on test scores (outside of hooks). It seems nearly impossible that an unhooked student can get into a T15 type school without super high scores. Ironically TO may have made the emphasis on scores more pronounced because unhooked students essentially need great scores. For all the yapping about curating a class, they are really just filling their classes when the highest scoring kids they can get. This shouldn’t be interpreted as meaning a high score automatically gets you in anywhere.

I think USNWR is now kind of a mashup of two lists. The first is highly selective (high stat), wealthy schools (high resources) that are predominantly private. The second is high mobility (Pell grant), high research schools that are predominantly public. To boost schools in the second group, they dropped ranking criteria like class size, student-to-faculty ratio, and alumni giving %.

Yes, and rankings are better as a result. There are excellent private and public colleges out there.

Most of the DCUMers complaining are for their privates they attended 30 years ago "dropping" in USNWR ranking.

I think the rankings should focus on educational quality and cost.

You mean value. Value is different from people to people
Cohort quality effects educational quality a lot.
Every year student rank the schools with all those information.

The actual outcome of the yearly ranking is a combination of acceptance rate + yield rate + cohort quality (i.e. SAT which is objectively measurable) then retention rate and graduation rate as secondary data.
We get actual the real ranking by the choices and actions by the actual students, the consumers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The most highly ranked schools have the highest score profiles and it gradually declines as you go down the list. It’s all just a sorting mechanism based on test scores (outside of hooks). It seems nearly impossible that an unhooked student can get into a T15 type school without super high scores. Ironically TO may have made the emphasis on scores more pronounced because unhooked students essentially need great scores. For all the yapping about curating a class, they are really just filling their classes when the highest scoring kids they can get. This shouldn’t be interpreted as meaning a high score automatically gets you in anywhere.

I think USNWR is now kind of a mashup of two lists. The first is highly selective (high stat), wealthy schools (high resources) that are predominantly private. The second is high mobility (Pell grant), high research schools that are predominantly public. To boost schools in the second group, they dropped ranking criteria like class size, student-to-faculty ratio, and alumni giving %.

Yes, and rankings are better as a result. There are excellent private and public colleges out there.

Most of the DCUMers complaining are for their privates they attended 30 years ago "dropping" in USNWR ranking.

I think the rankings should focus on educational quality and cost.

You mean value. Value is different from people to people
Cohort quality effects educational quality a lot.
Every year student rank the schools with all those information.

The actual outcome of the yearly ranking is a combination of acceptance rate + yield rate + cohort quality (i.e. SAT which is objectively measurable) then retention rate and graduation rate as secondary data.
We get actual the real ranking by the choices and actions by the actual students, the consumers.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every school has its institutional priorities but once those are met they are trying to fill the class with the strongest students they can attract. Test score profile is the strongest indicator of selectivity which is customers’ own ranking mechanism for which schools are best.

Yep. Which is why the quality has absolutely gone down at places like Hopkins that were test optional and pushed so hard to askew actual merit for institutional priorities.

Duke and of course Stanford I get but I struggle to understand why JHU and Northwestern are perceived as Ivy Peers and a cut above schools like Vandy, ND, WashU, CMU, Rice, Chicago, Gtown. It’s not in the test scores really and it’s not necessarily in the other characteristics of the schools.

Duke and Northwestern both had, for fall 2023, more test score submitters than Harvard Penn UChicago Brown etc. Among schools still TO for that admission season, only Yale had more (and of course test-required schools had more).

With JHU and Stanford returning to test required for the 2025-26 admission season, it will be interesting to see what Northwestern and Duke decide to do for next fall. Neither has announced a policy yet, as far as I know.

I still don’t grasp why Northwester and JHU are perceived as better than these other schools.

As the other poster mentioned, these two are apples and oranges as far as reported scores. What is not clear to you about Northwestern not being on par with these other schools? Do you know anything about NU?

Where % submitting = ACT and SAT % added together:

Yale 82% submitting, 1500-1560, EBRW 740-780, math 760-800
Duke 81% submitting, EBRW 740-770, math 760-800
Northwestern 79% submitting, 1500-1560, EBRW 730-770, math 760-790
Princeton 77% submitting, 1510-1560, EBRW 740-780, math 760-800
Brown 76% submitting, 1510-1560, EBRW 740-770, math 760-800
Harvard 74% submitting, EBRW 740-780, math 760-800
UPenn 70% submitting, EBRW 730-770, math 770-800
Stanford 69% submitting, 1500-1560, EBRW 740-780, math 760-800
JHU 55% submitting, 1530-1560, EBRW 750-780, math 780-800
Vandy 51% submitting, 1500-1560, EBRW 740-770, math 770-790

Apologies in advance if there are typos.

Depends on what you mean by "being on par". If you look at SAT scores, Northwestern looks the same as Princeton. But Princeton's non-binding yield is probably double Northwestern's.

And Northwestern's yield is higher than Duke's. So what's your point

You can't compare RD yield at Northwestern and Duke because Duke no longer publishes a common data set. Last was 2021-2022. That year NU and Duke had the same RD yield (44.2% and 43.8%).

DP. Duke still reports data to IPEDS. Duke Fall 2023 yield 55%. NU is similar, 57%.

https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=duke&s=all&id=198419