Comparing LACs

[Anonymous]

We visited Kenyon, F&M, Wesleyan, Amherst, Swarthmore, Williams, Hamilton, and Muhlenberg. The vibe at the lower tier schools was definitely less brainy. DD was accepted at WAS, didn’t apply to P, and chose one of those. First days have been awesome for her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bucknell is a great choice if you don't quite have WASP stats, or even if you do. Outcomes are incredible.

Does it have a pipeline to the Street?

We could be friends😂

[Anonymous]

Pretty sure you will notice a difference in the peers there. WASP tends to pull in a much more intellectual group and the tier below will be slightly less so. Academic rigor probably higher at those schools too

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems like things are changing a bit wrt the top slacs. Amherst, Swarthmore, and Pomona are going in one direction, weighing diversity more in selecting their classes (according to IPEDS data) and accepting a far larger fraction of students test optional than they used to. Bowdoin and Williams are holding steady, making only incremental moves in class composition and continuing to accept about 60% of their class (a bit more for Williams) from the pool of test submitters. Since Bowdoin stopping including the scores of attending students who took the SAT/ACT but did not submit with their application, their reported stats have bounced back to par with the WASP schools.
Middlebury and Wesleyan are not quite at the same level in terms of admitted student stats.

Amherst might weight diversity, but they weigh athletics more. 40% athletes, majority white athletes

Williams and Swarthmore are at 33%.

[Anonymous]

WASP gets more Ivy rejects than the rest, which makes the school environments there somewhat more intense.

[Anonymous]

Difference in what regard?

Obviously ALL students who make it into to any of these schools are bright and hard-working.

Not sure what you are getting at here?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems like things are changing a bit wrt the top slacs. Amherst, Swarthmore, and Pomona are going in one direction, weighing diversity more in selecting their classes (according to IPEDS data) and accepting a far larger fraction of students test optional than they used to. Bowdoin and Williams are holding steady, making only incremental moves in class composition and continuing to accept about 60% of their class (a bit more for Williams) from the pool of test submitters. Since Bowdoin stopping including the scores of attending students who took the SAT/ACT but did not submit with their application, their reported stats have bounced back to par with the WASP schools.
Middlebury and Wesleyan are not quite at the same level in terms of admitted student stats.

Amherst might weight diversity, but they weigh athletics more. 40% athletes, majority white athletes

Amherst is 31% athletes. No argument that they are mostly white.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:WASP gets more Ivy rejects than the rest, which makes the school environments there somewhat more intense.

Also true: WASP has a high proportion of kids who were admitted to Ivies and Ivy+'s but chose fit over brand. My DC being one example.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It seems like things are changing a bit wrt the top slacs. Amherst, Swarthmore, and Pomona are going in one direction, weighing diversity more in selecting their classes (according to IPEDS data) and accepting a far larger fraction of students test optional than they used to. Bowdoin and Williams are holding steady, making only incremental moves in class composition and continuing to accept about 60% of their class (a bit more for Williams) from the pool of test submitters. Since Bowdoin stopping including the scores of attending students who took the SAT/ACT but did not submit with their application, their reported stats have bounced back to par with the WASP schools.
Middlebury and Wesleyan are not quite at the same level in terms of admitted student stats.

SAT Composite percentile 25th - 50th - 75th
Bowdoin: 1340 - 1460 - 1520
Middlebury: 1420 - 1466 - 1520
Wesleyan: 1310 - 1430 - 1505

ACT Composite 24th - 50th - 75th
Bowdoin: 31 - 33 - 35
Middlebury: 33 - 33.42 - 35
Wesleyan: 305. - 32 - 34

Percent in top 10% of HS class:
Bowdoin: 83%
Middlebury: Not reported
Wesleyan: 78.8%

Look pretty comparable to me.

[Anonymous]

Wesleyan ACT 25th should be 30.5

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

SAT Composite percentile 25th - 50th - 75th
Bowdoin: 1340 - 1460 - 1520
Middlebury: 1420 - 1466 - 1520
Wesleyan: 1310 - 1430 - 1505

ACT Composite 24th - 50th - 75th
Bowdoin: 31 - 33 - 35
Middlebury: 33 - 33.42 - 35
Wesleyan: 305. - 32 - 34

Percent in top 10% of HS class:
Bowdoin: 83%
Middlebury: Not reported
Wesleyan: 78.8%

Look pretty comparable to me.

These numbers are from older CDS, when Bowdoin was reporting scores whether submitted or not. Percent in top 10% info is not very meaningful because such a small fraction of attending students submit this data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

SAT Composite percentile 25th - 50th - 75th
Bowdoin: 1340 - 1460 - 1520
Middlebury: 1420 - 1466 - 1520
Wesleyan: 1310 - 1430 - 1505

ACT Composite 24th - 50th - 75th
Bowdoin: 31 - 33 - 35
Middlebury: 33 - 33.42 - 35
Wesleyan: 305. - 32 - 34

Percent in top 10% of HS class:
Bowdoin: 83%
Middlebury: Not reported
Wesleyan: 78.8%

Look pretty comparable to me.

These numbers are from older CDS, when Bowdoin was reporting scores whether submitted or not. Percent in top 10% info is not very meaningful because such a small fraction of attending students submit this data.

NP here. Right, the point is that when Bowdoin was reporting all scores, they were comparable to Wesleyan’s. Now that they aren’t, they look higher. But it’s a mirage.

Here are Wesleyan’s scores for submitters only (class of 2027, 58% of admitted students submitted):
ACT SAT V SAT M
Admit 75th percentile: 35 770 790
Admit Median: 34 750 770
Admit 25th percentile: 33 730 750

Source: https://www.wesleyan.edu/admission/apply/class-profile.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

SAT Composite percentile 25th - 50th - 75th
Bowdoin: 1340 - 1460 - 1520
Middlebury: 1420 - 1466 - 1520
Wesleyan: 1310 - 1430 - 1505

ACT Composite 24th - 50th - 75th
Bowdoin: 31 - 33 - 35
Middlebury: 33 - 33.42 - 35
Wesleyan: 305. - 32 - 34

Percent in top 10% of HS class:
Bowdoin: 83%
Middlebury: Not reported
Wesleyan: 78.8%

Look pretty comparable to me.

These numbers are from older CDS, when Bowdoin was reporting scores whether submitted or not. Percent in top 10% info is not very meaningful because such a small fraction of attending students submit this data.

Those numbers are from 2022-2023 CDS.

Here's 2023-2024:
SAT Composite percentile 25th - 50th - 75th
Bowdoin: 1470 - 1510 - 1530
Middlebury: 1440 - 1500 - 1530
Wesleyan: 1300 - 1430 - 1500

ACT Composite 25th - 50th - 75th
Bowdoin: 33 - 34 - 35
Middlebury: 33 - 34 - 34
Wesleyan: 31 - 33 - 34

Again, differences not substantial.

Bowdoin has a lower acceptance rate partly because they have a much smaller class to fill. Bowdoin has 1900 students, compared to Midd at 2,800 and Wesleyan at 3,000. Otherwise, their student bodies are very similar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

SAT Composite percentile 25th - 50th - 75th
Bowdoin: 1340 - 1460 - 1520
Middlebury: 1420 - 1466 - 1520
Wesleyan: 1310 - 1430 - 1505

ACT Composite 24th - 50th - 75th
Bowdoin: 31 - 33 - 35
Middlebury: 33 - 33.42 - 35
Wesleyan: 305. - 32 - 34

Percent in top 10% of HS class:
Bowdoin: 83%
Middlebury: Not reported
Wesleyan: 78.8%

Look pretty comparable to me.

These numbers are from older CDS, when Bowdoin was reporting scores whether submitted or not. Percent in top 10% info is not very meaningful because such a small fraction of attending students submit this data.

Those numbers are from 2022-2023 CDS.

Here's 2023-2024:
SAT Composite percentile 25th - 50th - 75th
Bowdoin: 1470 - 1510 - 1530
Middlebury: 1440 - 1500 - 1530
Wesleyan: 1300 - 1430 - 1500

ACT Composite 25th - 50th - 75th
Bowdoin: 33 - 34 - 35
Middlebury: 33 - 34 - 34
Wesleyan: 31 - 33 - 34

Again, differences not substantial.

Bowdoin has a lower acceptance rate partly because they have a much smaller class to fill. Bowdoin has 1900 students, compared to Midd at 2,800 and Wesleyan at 3,000. Otherwise, their student bodies are very similar.

And the differences go away completely when you look at the Wes scores for submitters only—the apples to apples comparison. In fact, Wesleyan jumps to the top of the list on SAT (and is the same as Bowdoin on ACT).

SAT Composite percentile 25th - 50th - 75th
Wesleyan: 1480 - 1520 - 1560
Bowdoin: 1470 - 1510 - 1530
Middlebury: 1440 - 1500 - 1530

ACT Composite 25th - 50th - 75th
Wesleyan: 33 - 34 - 35
Bowdoin: 33 - 34 - 35
Middlebury: 33 - 34 - 34

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems like things are changing a bit wrt the top slacs. Amherst, Swarthmore, and Pomona are going in one direction, weighing diversity more in selecting their classes (according to IPEDS data) and accepting a far larger fraction of students test optional than they used to. Bowdoin and Williams are holding steady, making only incremental moves in class composition and continuing to accept about 60% of their class (a bit more for Williams) from the pool of test submitters. Since Bowdoin stopping including the scores of attending students who took the SAT/ACT but did not submit with their application, their reported stats have bounced back to par with the WASP schools.
Middlebury and Wesleyan are not quite at the same level in terms of admitted student stats.

But Wesleyan did same as Bowdoin on CDS - reporting ALL scores, not just those submitted. That’s why theirs are lower.

How do they know about scores not submitted?