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[quote=SAM2][quote=Anonymous] ... the methodology is out of whack.  For example, a website that someone mentioned on another thread, www.matriculationstats.org, has far more accurate and useful data on college matriculation (provided by most of the private schools themselves!) than this poster's reliance on a WSJ survey that includes Pomona, but excludes Yale and Dartmouth.  This is why previous posters troubled by a few select schools' reluctance to make matriculation data available have a valid point.  Until the last few local schools make their matriculation data available, anyone can spin any statistics any way they care to in order to achieve a desired, non-objective result.[/quote]
I absolutely agree that matriculationstats.org has great data presentation -- far better than what I put together, and covering many more schools around the country. But I'd like to clarify the slightly different approach I took, and perhaps correct a couple misunderstandings you might have.

First of all, you should understand that Matriculationstats is focused on evaluating NYC schools, while I am focused on DC schools, so our aims are slightly different. Because he is focused on NYC schools, it does not matter as much to him that there are gaps in his DC school list (e.g., Sidwell, GDS, Potomac, G'town Visi, etc.). For my approach, it was important to try to fill those gaps.

When I looked for ways to fill those gaps, the best data I could find comes from two Wall Street Journal studies, and one Worth Magazine study, all of which are commonly cited here on DCUM. Those studies obtained data on many of the DC schools that don't routinely report college matriculations (e.g., Sidwell, GDS, Potomac). However, each of those studies only focused on a handful of colleges, and only for a limited time period (1 year for WSJ, and 4 years for Worth). In making my own analysis, I wanted to make use of the deep research those studies did, but also extend the coverage of those existing studies. So I used the same methodology those studies did, and focused on the same colleges they did. If you want to criticize the use of colleges like Pomona, blame the WSJ, not me. (Also, you are incorrect to suggest that Yale and Dartmouth are excluded; data on those colleges is covered.)

Other than the WSJ/Worth data (which I use and he doesn't), I'm pretty sure most of the other data Matriculationstats and I use is exactly the same -- it all comes directly from the schools' own websites. If you're interested in further research, I cited links to most of the data sources in my spreadsheet. I think Matriculationstats also used some non-public data from certain NYC schools, which he obtained directly from those NYC schools or people associated with the schools. I was not interested in contacting DC schools to ask for private matriculation data, so all my analysis is based on publicly available data. If anyone wants to PM me with credible private data, I'd be happy to incorporate it.

In the end, I've blended the results of the three studies from WSJ and Worth, and added data from several DC schools. This means that the analysis for every school includes [i]at least[/i] three years worth of data for 3-14 different colleges, and some have up to 10 years of data included. It's all public data available to anyone, and I've "shown my work" by making obvious the calculations and underlying numbers, so with a little effort, anyone can check my work and evaluate the numbers. I have not selectively excluded any data, or "spun" the data in any direction. I'm usually a pretty skeptical critic of my own work, and I think this analysis is a pretty good rough representation of college matriculations for these schools. I completely agree this analysis is not perfect -- I wish I had 10 years of data on every school, so I could dissect and re-synthesize it in various ways. But I don't have that data, so I proceeded with the tools that presented themselves.

Thanks for all the kind words, and even for the constructive criticism. If anyone has good ideas on how to make this analysis stronger, or sources for additional data, please let me know.[/quote]

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