Is this a fair metric for ranking universities?

[MarkWarner08]

The following is a list of the 20 universities with the highest median SAT scores. This ranking looks at students in the top quarter of SAT scorers at each university. 

Harvard 1590
Yale 1590
Princeton 1580
Caltech 1580
MIT 1560
Dartmouth 1550
Stanford 1550
Duke 1540
UChicago 1530
Rice 1530
Brown 1530
WashU 1530
Columbia 1530
UPenn 1520
Northwestern 1520
Notre Dame 1510
Carnegie Mellon 1510
Cornell 1500
Johns Hopkins 1500
Georgetown 1490

Since it's difficult to compare GPAs (different grading curves at different high schools), extracurricular activities,  admission essays, and teacher recommendations,  SAT scores offer researchers the clearest way to compare student bodies.

I think this metric is essential because while the SATs  can be manipulated (e.g., the wealthy have access to tutors and can hire college consultants to steer their children toward the "right" preparation programs), they are also the one way for economic disadvantaged students to stand out in an applicant pool.  Parental wealth affords certain students the resources to pursue extracurricular opportunities which enhance their college transcripts. The inner-city kid who is raised inner a lower-income household is likely more preoccupied with the economic imperative of survival than she is about padding her transcript. The time  she spends working an after-school job can't be leveraged to pursing an after-school activity, thus robbing her of a chance to win an award that would highlight her academic prowess in a certain field.

Furthemore, hile the SAT has been noted for its inherent racist bias (e.g., poor minority students   struggle with understanding reading passages about equestrian matches), universities prepare for this and thus use lower standards for under-represented minorities. A poor African-American from Newark with a 2180 SAT score and a decent GPA is a near-lock for most top universities; a Caucasian student with a similar score would need excellent extracurriculars and glowing recommendations to feel confident about gaining admission to any of the top 20 schools. The African-American students who excel at the SAT (at least compared to their peers)  have been shown to achieve high college grades than legatees, admissions candidates who benefit from a family member graduating from that college.

While it's easy to cast aside SAT scores as a poor indicator of one's academic aptitude, those who disregard SATs should realize that that very test be the one truly uniform standard for determining the strength of a college's student body.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

Option 2

[Verily]

SATs are a terrible measurement, and the numbers provided are even more problematic as they measure only the top SAT scores (and thus the scores only of the wealthy). This list also severely overstate schools in which mathematics is particularly important (MIT, Caltech, Rice) compared to those which are more concerned with essay-writing ability (something rectified with the new SAT, I've heard).

[MarkWarner08]

SATs are a terrible measurement, and the numbers provided are even more problematic as they measure only the top SAT scores (and thus the scores only of the wealthy). This list also severely overstate schools in which mathematics is particularly important (MIT, Caltech, Rice) compared to those which are more concerned with essay-writing ability (something rectified with the new SAT, I've heard).

One shortcoming of the new Writing section of the SAT is that few schools trust it yet. Since the graders have only a minute or so to review each essay (everyone must write about the same topic), some may be unfortunately hurt by the exhaustion of their judges.

I disagree that the list overrates schools like MIT and Caltech, which have students who excel in mistakes. If one assumes that the top students at Caltech scored 800 on their math section, that would leave the median student in the top 25% range with a 780 on the Verbal section, which would still place Caltech above 5/8 of the Ivy League.

[Lief 🗽]

The SAT is an imperfect metric, but so is teacher to student ratio, endowment, graduate school acceptance rates, or whatever else one would use. Verily also makes a good point that the writing section should be included in these averages, as writing is as important a skill as math or reading (arguably more important than both, but I don't really want to get into that).

It is a nice little ego boost to see that the school I'll be attending in a few months is on that list though.

[CultureKing]

I hate the SAT. The fact that it is controlled by college board and is basically used as an incentive for schools to have AP as well to help for the tests really does not bode well for me (basically college board = evil company). I didn't get bad SAT scores but I do feel that it is biased towards AP students which is not how it should work, instead an independent organization should be in charge of testing.

[cannonia]

I hate the SAT. The fact that it is controlled by college board and is basically used as an incentive for schools to have AP as well to help for the tests really does not bode well for me (basically college board = evil company). I didn't get bad SAT scores but I do feel that it is biased towards AP students which is not how it should work, instead an independent organization should be in charge of testing.

If AP students do better, it's because they work harder.  Seriously, the reason those classes are good are the self-selection of teacher and students, and the increased classwork (including over the summer) which allows better coverage of the material.

Get rid of AP and you're just dumbing down schools.

[Joe Biden 2020]

Option 4 easily.

Nobody listed any NAIA schools?  I've said it before and it still holds true, but Northwestern Oklahoma State University has just as good an education as Harvard and Yale.

[Bono]

No, GRE results of graduates are.

[ilikeverin]

Hint: SAT scores have little to no correlation with the grades any student receives on a college campus.  ACT scores have a limited correlation with first semester freshman year grades, and little to none after that.  So, no, standardized tests have nothing to do with how good a certain university is.

[dead0man]

Level of motivation and ability to game the system are probably more important than straight intelligence.

[CultureKing]

I hate the SAT. The fact that it is controlled by college board and is basically used as an incentive for schools to have AP as well to help for the tests really does not bode well for me (basically college board = evil company). I didn't get bad SAT scores but I do feel that it is biased towards AP students which is not how it should work, instead an independent organization should be in charge of testing.

If AP students do better, it's because they work harder.  Seriously, the reason those classes are good are the self-selection of teacher and students, and the increased classwork (including over the summer) which allows better coverage of the material.

Get rid of AP and you're just dumbing down schools.

um... I definitely work just as hard as AP students as I am in IB, I am just not happy with how they cater the test towards AP students and that way of learning. I am not advocating for AP or the SAT to disappear, instead I would like to see the two run by separate organizations.

[ilikeverin]

What do you mean by "that way of learning"?  AP and IB are essentially the same program, but IB uses more liberal textbooks.

[CultureKing]

What do you mean by "that way of learning"?  AP and IB are essentially the same program, but IB uses more liberal textbooks.

I think that they are actually quite different. AP has a larger focus on learning the subject matter while IB has a larger focus on taking the concepts and expanding on them (if that makes any sense).

Example:
AP scores are determined by: One test per AP class each year, for the most part multiple choice (with some notable exceptions).

IB scores are determined by: An internal assessment done during the course of the class (usually an investigation or paper of sorts), and one test per class after two years, writing intensive (multiple choice is present on one section of the science test). Focus for grading is being able to explain your reasoning, though knowledge of the subject matter does have an importance in the grading criteria.

meh?

[bullmoose88]

I've said it before and it still holds true, but Northwestern Oklahoma State University has just as good an education as Harvard and Yale.

Snicker

Just because you've said it before and say it now, doesn't make it true.

[Boris]

Level of motivation and ability to game the system are probably more important than straight intelligence.

^^^^^

From what I have personally observed throughout my high school career, this rings the most true.

[CultureKing]

I've said it before and it still holds true, but Northwestern Oklahoma State University has just as good an education as Harvard and Yale.

Snicker

Just because you've said it before and say it now, doesn't make it true.

[John Dibble]

The following is a list of the 20 universities with the highest median SAT scores. This ranking looks at students in the top quarter of SAT scorers at each university.

IMHO, the primary problem with this ranking is that it looks only at the top quarter rather the entire student body. Some schools have a prestigious reputation and thus attract high SAT scorers, but they still accept a significant number of people with lower scores. This ranking neglects 75% of the student body! If instead you took the mean or median of the entire student body, you would likely get an entirely different rank. For instance, in this list Harvard and Yale surpass MIT, but I would bet an overall average would show MIT outshining both.

Still, just using one metric makes things still inaccurate. There are other metrics to be considered when looking at quality. It might also be helpful to divide this into multiple lists based on college types rather than just lumping them all onto one list - ie tech schools, law schools, med schools, liberal arts schools, etc.

[Erc]

And thank you for forgetting the liberal arts colleges, yet again.

Amherst 1530
Williams 1520

Presumably, Swarthmore, Wellesley and a few others would get on this list as well.



On another note, I do remember a statistic from a few years back that Caltech actually did have the highest average verbal SAT score among its incoming students.

[Platypus]

At best, it is an average measure of the undergraduate student body's opinion regarding the best universities in the USA.

I attend one of the world's best universities, and whilst it is certainly not easy to gain entry to the ANU, it is easier than probably all the universities on that list, and even a couple of other Australian ones. Very, very few people would argue that Monash provides a better Arts degree than ANU, especially in the Political Sciences, International Studies, Anthropology, Archaeology or Language fields, yet the marks needed to enter ANU are lower than those for Monash. The core reason for this is the fact that Monash is in Melbourne and the ANU is in Canberra. Very few people would agree that Canberra is a better city than Melbourne

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Furthemore, hile the SAT has been noted for its inherent racist bias (e.g., poor minority students   struggle with understanding reading passages about equestrian matches), universities prepare for this and thus use lower standards for under-represented minorities.

As someone who is currently writing standardized testing booklets, I can assure you that there are no questions in there about... equestrian matches.  In fact, tests are heavily biased towards including passages about minority struggles and such.  We are forced to overcompensate for allegations of racial bias in ways that are, to be frank, just plain ridiculous.

There is no endeavor in the country more quota-based than writing educational materials.

Even in that highly biased "math," I'm required to match the demographics of each name used in a problem to the demographics of the state.  45% of the questions have a caucasian name; 25% have a hispanic name; 20% have an african-american name.  And, of course, half must be male; half female.  If we're using pictures of people, we have to make sure the percentage of handicapped (handicapable?)kids matches the state average.  It's borderline retarded.

As if students lose interest in a question regarding a savings account the throw-away name used for the problem is John rather than Malik or Sofia.

[ilikeverin]

What do you mean by "that way of learning"?  AP and IB are essentially the same program, but IB uses more liberal textbooks.

I think that they are actually quite different. AP has a larger focus on learning the subject matter while IB has a larger focus on taking the concepts and expanding on them (if that makes any sense).

Example:
AP scores are determined by: One test per AP class each year, for the most part multiple choice (with some notable exceptions).

IB scores are determined by: An internal assessment done during the course of the class (usually an investigation or paper of sorts), and one test per class after two years, writing intensive (multiple choice is present on one section of the science test). Focus for grading is being able to explain your reasoning, though knowledge of the subject matter does have an importance in the grading criteria.

meh?

Nice attempt at self-justification, but, no, there is essentially no difference.  I think having advanced classes in general is wonderful, but once that step is reached I suspect there is no difference whatsoever in the amount of learning each program imbues.  For example, AP tests are biased towards males (who do better on multiple choice tests, though multiple choice usually is only 50% of an exam) and guessers (yes, there's a penalty for guessing, but eliminating that penalty is possible basically if you can eliminate one answer within a certain question), while evidently IB tests are biased towards females (who do better on essays) and B.S.ers (since evidently the tests do not test knowledge but how well one cleaves to the five-paragraph essay form ).

[CultureKing]

What do you mean by "that way of learning"?  AP and IB are essentially the same program, but IB uses more liberal textbooks.

I think that they are actually quite different. AP has a larger focus on learning the subject matter while IB has a larger focus on taking the concepts and expanding on them (if that makes any sense).

Example:
AP scores are determined by: One test per AP class each year, for the most part multiple choice (with some notable exceptions).

IB scores are determined by: An internal assessment done during the course of the class (usually an investigation or paper of sorts), and one test per class after two years, writing intensive (multiple choice is present on one section of the science test). Focus for grading is being able to explain your reasoning, though knowledge of the subject matter does have an importance in the grading criteria.

meh?

Nice attempt at self-justification, but, no, there is essentially no difference.  I think having advanced classes in general is wonderful, but once that step is reached I suspect there is no difference whatsoever in the amount of learning each program imbues.  For example, AP tests are biased towards males (who do better on multiple choice tests, though multiple choice usually is only 50% of an exam) and guessers (yes, there's a penalty for guessing, but eliminating that penalty is possible basically if you can eliminate one answer within a certain question), while evidently IB tests are biased towards females (who do better on essays) and B.S.ers (since evidently the tests do not test knowledge but how well one cleaves to the five-paragraph essay form ).

you write a 5 paragraph essay for an IB test and you are screwed.

[Eleanor Martins]

What do you mean by "that way of learning"?  AP and IB are essentially the same program, but IB uses more liberal textbooks.

I think that they are actually quite different. AP has a larger focus on learning the subject matter while IB has a larger focus on taking the concepts and expanding on them (if that makes any sense).

Example:
AP scores are determined by: One test per AP class each year, for the most part multiple choice (with some notable exceptions).

IB scores are determined by: An internal assessment done during the course of the class (usually an investigation or paper of sorts), and one test per class after two years, writing intensive (multiple choice is present on one section of the science test). Focus for grading is being able to explain your reasoning, though knowledge of the subject matter does have an importance in the grading criteria.

meh?

Nice attempt at self-justification, but, no, there is essentially no difference.  I think having advanced classes in general is wonderful, but once that step is reached I suspect there is no difference whatsoever in the amount of learning each program imbues.  For example, AP tests are biased towards males (who do better on multiple choice tests, though multiple choice usually is only 50% of an exam) and guessers (yes, there's a penalty for guessing, but eliminating that penalty is possible basically if you can eliminate one answer within a certain question), while evidently IB tests are biased towards females (who do better on essays) and B.S.ers (since evidently the tests do not test knowledge but how well one cleaves to the five-paragraph essay form ).

you write a 5 paragraph essay for an IB test and you are screwed.

This is likely entirely anecdotal, but I'm taking the November 2008 paper for IB. I'm an international student, and the main disgruntlement I have with the SAT paper is that it is nowhere near rigorous enough to serve as any sort of metric for the very top universities. I'm hardly the brightest, but a 800/790 (disregarding writing, because it is trash) on the back of no studying whatsoever really shouldn't be possible. Multiple choice is also a stupid exam format.

[CultureKing]

What do you mean by "that way of learning"?  AP and IB are essentially the same program, but IB uses more liberal textbooks.

I think that they are actually quite different. AP has a larger focus on learning the subject matter while IB has a larger focus on taking the concepts and expanding on them (if that makes any sense).

Example:
AP scores are determined by: One test per AP class each year, for the most part multiple choice (with some notable exceptions).

IB scores are determined by: An internal assessment done during the course of the class (usually an investigation or paper of sorts), and one test per class after two years, writing intensive (multiple choice is present on one section of the science test). Focus for grading is being able to explain your reasoning, though knowledge of the subject matter does have an importance in the grading criteria.

meh?

Nice attempt at self-justification, but, no, there is essentially no difference.  I think having advanced classes in general is wonderful, but once that step is reached I suspect there is no difference whatsoever in the amount of learning each program imbues.  For example, AP tests are biased towards males (who do better on multiple choice tests, though multiple choice usually is only 50% of an exam) and guessers (yes, there's a penalty for guessing, but eliminating that penalty is possible basically if you can eliminate one answer within a certain question), while evidently IB tests are biased towards females (who do better on essays) and B.S.ers (since evidently the tests do not test knowledge but how well one cleaves to the five-paragraph essay form ).

you write a 5 paragraph essay for an IB test and you are screwed.

This is likely entirely anecdotal, but I'm taking the November 2008 paper for IB. I'm an international student, and the main disgruntlement I have with the SAT paper is that it is nowhere near rigorous enough to serve as any sort of metric for the very top universities. I'm hardly the brightest, but a 800/790 (disregarding writing, because it is trash) on the back of no studying whatsoever really shouldn't be possible. Multiple choice is also a stupid exam format.

I am in total agreement with you.