Reply to Swarthmore/Wes VS Williams/Bowdoin

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I do actually think there is a difference between the top schools and the others. We visited a ton of SLACs in the last year and attended SLACs ourselves. Obviously some of the ranking differences are arbitrary but these schools are not all the same.  [/quote]

+1.  How many students/parents would choose Rhodes over Williams, for example?[/quote]

No one's saying they're all the same. They're just not as different academically as people think, so someone who likes the warmer weather and lower price at Rhodes should not feel like they're sacrificing anything in order to make that choice.

Upon what do you base your assumption that people SHOULD choose Williams over Rhodes? Probably a significant part of it is that USNWR has had them significantly higher ranked for over 30 years. [b]But WHY are they ranked higher? The 3-point difference in SAT percentiles isn't enough to yield a significant difference in the level of classroom rigor or discussion, right?[/b] So what's the real difference? Take a look at the USNWR criteria and weights used to rank and tell us honestly if they're the criteria that matter most to you in a school. The quality of education at different colleges is much closer than the impression one gets from looking at how far away they are from each another in rankings.

Think about it this way. There are over 2500 4-year colleges in the US. If someone were to rank the 2500 most desirable locations on the planet to take a vacation, and you can only choose one of them to attend, would you make your decision based on the criteria those rankers chose and think that there must be a huge difference between #10 (say...Rome) and #100 (say...Zion National Park)? Not likely. There are many, many very desirable places to visit, and you would go to your own criteria for what you're looking for in a vacation and choose based on that. Your criteria would likely yield many of the same places, but in a completely different order. The same is true for colleges. The number of colleges that can satisfy any given student's needs is much large than most people believe.

If you like anecdotes, consider this: My cousin's oldest daughter turned down Penn and Hopkins to attend Catholic U. She liked the scholarship they offered and the traditional Catholic education. After 4 years, she had both a bachelor's AND a Master's in biomedical engineering, and a job as a researcher at NIH waiting for her upon graduation. She could not have hoped for better results if she'd chosen one of the other two schools.

[/quote]

Where did you get the idea that there's only a 3 percentage point difference between the SAT scores of entering students at Rhodes and Williams???  For the most recent entering class for which stats are available for both school -- the entering class of 2020 --the mid-50 percent range for Rhodes is 1250 to 1400 and for Williams it's 1430 to 1540.   Assuming the mean for Rhodes was 1325 and doe Williams 1485, we're talking about the 88th percentile versus the 97th.  That ain't three points.

It helps to make sure your facts are right before you pontificate.[/quote]

Actually, the data for the entering class of 2021 is available for Rhodes, and their range is 1320-1450, making the median 1385; interestingly, they are still requiring test scores despite the pandemic. The most recent year Williams required test scores was for the entering class of 2018, for which their range was 1410-1550, yielding a median of 1480.

You're apparently using the percentile chart for those who actually take the SAT, while I prefer the one for the nationally representative sample. When talking about how capable a student is intellectually, I believe comparing them to the entire population makes more sense. On this chart, Williams' 1480 corresponds to the 99th percentile. Rhodes' 1385 is midway between the 96th and 97th percentiles, so I rounded down in order to avoid anyone thinking I was taking undue advantage to make a point.

I agree that it "helps to make sure your facts are right before you pontificate".[/quote]

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