Top 52 Colleges & Universities Ranked By Selectivity (Wallethub.com)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s free to apply to Colby! And they send so much spam emails to entice kids to hit the easy apply free button to add Colby

I agree. They should take into account the lack of a fee as well as not requiring supplemental essays.

[Anonymous]

Every single kid at Gtown has to submit all scores from every test they took, and they don't superscore. Based on that alone, the fact that they are so high when all the other schools only have the highest score test applicants actually submitting scores so falsely makes their test score averages look much higher (hello hopkins and others)--is pretty damn impressive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Every single kid at Gtown has to submit all scores from every test they took, and they don't superscore. Based on that alone, the fact that they are so high when all the other schools only have the highest score test applicants actually submitting scores so falsely makes their test score averages look much higher (hello hopkins and others)--is pretty damn impressive.

Agree that it ought to take into account the percentage of students submitting scores. To be fair, many on the list have a high percentage. And MIT also requires, no? But if a school like BU has under 40% of enrolled first years submitting scores, the data points lose a lot of validity.

That said, I like this list. The schools are not surprising, but the order is.

[Anonymous]

No ranking is going to be perfect for everyone but this is as good of a ranking as any, certainly not any worse than USNWR.

[Anonymous]

Not that impressive to have schools with average SAT at 1550 but percentage submitting at 27%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No ranking is going to be perfect for everyone but this is as good of a ranking as any, certainly not any worse than USNWR.

it's worse during TO era

[Anonymous]

To some, USNWR is losing its credibility by contorting itself into a pretzel trying to appease certain segments of the population

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not that impressive to have schools with average SAT at 1550 but percentage submitting at 27%.

Can you name a college that does that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not that impressive to have schools with average SAT at 1550 but percentage submitting at 27%.

Can you name a college that does that?

Not PP, but I just checked BU. The total submitting scores among enrolled first-years is 35% (23% SAT, 12% ACT). That's very low.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not that impressive to have schools with average SAT at 1550 but percentage submitting at 27%.

Can you name a college that does that?

Not PP, but I just checked BU. The total submitting scores among enrolled first-years is 35% (23% SAT, 12% ACT). That's very low.

Northeastern is also 35% (27% SAT, 8% ACT).

I am one of the PPs who said I like these criteria. But I think a school should have at least 50% SAT/ACT (maybe more?) for the scores to be considered representative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Methodology used admissions rate, 25th% SAT/ACT scores, 75th% SAT/ACT scores, and % of freshmen in top 10% of class.

1) MIT
2) CalTech
3) Harvard
4) U Chicago
5) Stanford
6) Columbia
7) Yale
8) JHU
9) Northwestern
10) Duke

11) Brown
12) Princeton
13) Dartmouth
14) Vanderbilt
15) U Penn
16) Pomona College
17) Rice
18) Swarthmore College
19) Cornell
20) Amherst College

21) Harvey Mudd
22) Carnegie Mellon U.
23) WashUStL
24) Barnard College
25) NYU
26) Colby College
27) Tufts
28) Haverford College
29) N'eastern
30) Notre Dame

31) Georgetown
32) UCLA
33) Hamilton College
34) USC
35) Middlebury College
36) UCal-Berkeley
37) Emory
38) Wellesley College
39) Boston College
40) Colgate University

41) Claremont McKenna College
42) U Virginia
43) Grinnell College
44) Wash & Lee University
45) Georgia Tech
46) Wesleyan University
47) Vassar College
48) Boston University
49) U Michigan
50) Carleton College
51) RISD
52) Tulane

How is Olin not in the list? It is typically in top 20 for SAT scores.

[Anonymous]

Flawed though the methodology is, if you compare to US News it is overall better, especially outside the top ten. That is not to say that this is good, but it should underscore just how bad US News is…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Methodology used admissions rate, 25th% SAT/ACT scores, 75th% SAT/ACT scores, and % of freshmen in top 10% of class.

1) MIT
2) CalTech
3) Harvard
4) U Chicago
5) Stanford
6) Columbia
7) Yale
8) JHU
9) Northwestern
10) Duke

11) Brown
12) Princeton
13) Dartmouth
14) Vanderbilt
15) U Penn
16) Pomona College
17) Rice
18) Swarthmore College
19) Cornell
20) Amherst College

21) Harvey Mudd
22) Carnegie Mellon U.
23) WashUStL
24) Barnard College
25) NYU
26) Colby College
27) Tufts
28) Haverford College
29) N'eastern
30) Notre Dame

31) Georgetown
32) UCLA
33) Hamilton College
34) USC
35) Middlebury College
36) UCal-Berkeley
37) Emory
38) Wellesley College
39) Boston College
40) Colgate University

41) Claremont McKenna College
42) U Virginia
43) Grinnell College
44) Wash & Lee University
45) Georgia Tech
46) Wesleyan University
47) Vassar College
48) Boston University
49) U Michigan
50) Carleton College
51) RISD
52) Tulane

How is Olin not in the list? It is typically in top 20 for SAT scores.

Maybe, like most people, they never heard of it?

[Anonymous]

Some of the schools on the list don't have ED - UCLA, USC, Cal. The methodology doesn't factor this in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s free to apply to Colby! And they send so much spam emails to entice kids to hit the easy apply free button to add Colby

I agree. They should take into account the lack of a fee as well as not requiring supplemental essays.

Better yet, they should demand that Colby require useless supplemental essays and charge money for to apply to a large number of students the will not be able to accept! Why should they get an advantage in this race of meaningless statistics by making things cheaper and easier for applicants and their families? It is an outrage!

(of all of the complaints people make on this board, I think the ones about Colby's application policy are the most ridiculous).