Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a long and rancorous thread in the Private School forum a while back, about how Sidwell is "more desirable" than, say, St. Johns College high school, based on the fact that Sidwell has lower admissions rates. But Sidwell has smaller classes than St. Johns, and also has fewer applicants than St. Johns.

So what's a better measure of "desirability"? The number of applicants, or the ratio of applicants to acceptances? Something like 100,000 kids apply to USC every year for, what, 5,000 freshman class slots? (Anybody, feel free to make my stats more precise.) Compare this to 35,000 applications to Harvard for 2,200 slots there.

Are we to say that USC is more "desirable" than Harvard because 100,000 kids applied vs. 35,000 applications to Harvard? I would. Even if the freshman class size is larger at USC. Even if questions like relative affordability play into USC's appeal, I think that's a totally legitimate facet of "desirability."

Not so sure I agree. There are a ton of kids who might desire to go to Harvard who wouldn't bother applying because they know they have no shot. The pool of kids who have a legitimate shot at ivy league schools is not huge.

Really? I know just as many kids who apply to Harvard even though they have no shot, because "you never know." For example, DC's friend with a C in Calc. Kids with $80 to spend on a long shot may be inflating Harvard's applicant pool.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a long and rancorous thread in the Private School forum a while back, about how Sidwell is "more desirable" than, say, St. Johns College high school, based on the fact that Sidwell has lower admissions rates. But Sidwell has smaller classes than St. Johns, and also has fewer applicants than St. Johns.

So what's a better measure of "desirability"? The number of applicants, or the ratio of applicants to acceptances? Something like 100,000 kids apply to USC every year for, what, 5,000 freshman class slots? (Anybody, feel free to make my stats more precise.) Compare this to 35,000 applications to Harvard for 2,200 slots there.

Are we to say that USC is more "desirable" than Harvard because 100,000 kids applied vs. 35,000 applications to Harvard? I would. Even if the freshman class size is larger at USC. Even if questions like relative affordability play into USC's appeal, I think that's a totally legitimate facet of "desirability."

Not so sure I agree. There are a ton of kids who might desire to go to Harvard who wouldn't bother applying because they know they have no shot. The pool of kids who have a legitimate shot at ivy league schools is not huge.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a long and rancorous thread in the Private School forum a while back, about how Sidwell is "more desirable" than, say, St. Johns College high school, based on the fact that Sidwell has lower admissions rates. But Sidwell has smaller classes than St. Johns, and also has fewer applicants than St. Johns.

So what's a better measure of "desirability"? The number of applicants, or the ratio of applicants to acceptances? Something like 100,000 kids apply to USC every year for, what, 5,000 freshman class slots? (Anybody, feel free to make my stats more precise.) Compare this to 35,000 applications to Harvard for 2,200 slots there.

Are we to say that USC is more "desirable" than Harvard because 100,000 kids applied vs. 35,000 applications to Harvard? I would. Even if the freshman class size is larger at USC. Even if questions like relative affordability play into USC's appeal, I think that's a totally legitimate facet of "desirability."

I think you mean UCLA? They got the most applications this year with about 72000. USC is in the top 10, but not top 5. It's also private so not sure the cost argument flies for USC.

Anonymous wrote:There was a long and rancorous thread in the Private School forum a while back, about how Sidwell is "more desirable" than, say, St. Johns College high school, based on the fact that Sidwell has lower admissions rates. But Sidwell has smaller classes than St. Johns, and also has fewer applicants than St. Johns.

So what's a better measure of "desirability"? The number of applicants, or the ratio of applicants to acceptances? Something like 100,000 kids apply to USC every year for, what, 5,000 freshman class slots? (Anybody, feel free to make my stats more precise.) Compare this to 35,000 applications to Harvard for 2,200 slots there.

Are we to say that USC is more "desirable" than Harvard because 100,000 kids applied vs. 35,000 applications to Harvard? I would. Even if the freshman class size is larger at USC. Even if questions like relative affordability play into USC's appeal, I think that's a totally legitimate facet of "desirability."

Anonymous wrote:There was a long and rancorous thread in the Private School forum a while back, about how Sidwell is "more desirable" than, say, St. Johns College high school, based on the fact that Sidwell has lower admissions rates. But Sidwell has smaller classes than St. Johns, and also has fewer applicants than St. Johns.

So what's a better measure of "desirability"? The number of applicants, or the ratio of applicants to acceptances? Something like 100,000 kids apply to USC every year for, what, 5,000 freshman class slots? (Anybody, feel free to make my stats more precise.) Compare this to 35,000 applications to Harvard for 2,200 slots there.

Are we to say that USC is more "desirable" than Harvard because 100,000 kids applied vs. 35,000 applications to Harvard? I would. Even if the freshman class size is larger at USC. Even if questions like relative affordability play into USC's appeal, I think that's a totally legitimate facet of "desirability."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As long as we're talking about misleading numbers, I wouldn't equate "tuition" with "affordability," as you seem to have done. A school with a high sticker-price (tuition) isn't necessarily less "affordable" than one with a lower one, depending on the schools' aid packages. And that's before accounting for post-grad employment prospects.

+1

Sarah Lawrence is referred to as the most expensive college in the country (which isn't true, but its definitely up there.) However when you look at what students actually pay, it doesn't even crack the top ten. They have some very generous aid packages including merit aid.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When considering Private colleges that have roughly similar tuition (affordability) I haven’t seen any research (or even empirical evidence) to suggest that the level of interest from prospective students is dependent on school size. Yet the number of students offered admission/enrolled is almost entirely dependent on school size. Thus, simple math suggests Smaller Schools will have Lower Acceptance Rates all things being equal. For that reason, I view acceptance rate as a poor indicator of selectivity and focus instead on the mean and 25-75% of standardized test scores. Evidently US News sees the same problem with acceptance rates as a measure of selectivity since they’ve adjusted their algorithm to emphasize test scores and deemphasize acceptance rates.

Perfect Timing - Just as schools are deemphasizing test scores and the SAT is begins its steady decline to irrelevance.

As for the point about school size, huh? You must have skipped Econ 101 at that large school of yours.

Anonymous wrote:When considering Private colleges that have roughly similar tuition (affordability) I haven’t seen any research (or even empirical evidence) to suggest that the level of interest from prospective students is dependent on school size. Yet the number of students offered admission/enrolled is almost entirely dependent on school size. Thus, simple math suggests Smaller Schools will have Lower Acceptance Rates all things being equal. For that reason, I view acceptance rate as a poor indicator of selectivity and focus instead on the mean and 25-75% of standardized test scores. Evidently US News sees the same problem with acceptance rates as a measure of selectivity since they’ve adjusted their algorithm to emphasize test scores and deemphasize acceptance rates.

Anonymous wrote:As long as we're talking about misleading numbers, I wouldn't equate "tuition" with "affordability," as you seem to have done. A school with a high sticker-price (tuition) isn't necessarily less "affordable" than one with a lower one, depending on the schools' aid packages. And that's before accounting for post-grad employment prospects.

Anonymous wrote:As long as we're talking about misleading numbers, I wouldn't equate "tuition" with "affordability," as you seem to have done. A school with a high sticker-price (tuition) isn't necessarily less "affordable" than one with a lower one, depending on the schools' aid packages. And that's before accounting for post-grad employment prospects.