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Best High School Ranking

May 7, 2013
High School Ranking, Best High Schools, Best American High Schools, Best High Schools in America

“The Daily Beast” and “Newsweek” have put out a new high school ranking and it’s worth checking out.

“The Daily Beast” has a best high school ranking out and we thought we’d share with you some of their top picks around the nation. Of their rankings, they’ve got a best of the south, best of the northeast, best of the west, best of the midwest, and most transformative. According to “The Daily Beast,” “This year our ranking highlights the best 2,000 public high schools in the nation—those that have proven to be the most effective in turning out college-ready grads. The list is based on six components: graduation rate (25 percent), college acceptance rate (25 percent), AP/IB/AICE tests taken per student (25 percent), average SAT/ACT scores (10 percent), average AP/IB/AICE scores (10 percent), and percent of students enrolled in at least one AP/IB/AICE course (5 percent).”

Before we jump into which high schools ranked well in this algorithm, we wanted to draw your attention to the algorithm itself. As you’ll note, 25% of the algorithm consists of AP tests (or IB / AICE) taken per student. Only 10% of the formula consists of how the students actually do on these tests. Remember when we wrote about how certain high schools forced students to pay for (and take) AP tests even though the students had no shot of getting college credit even if they got a 5? This is their motivation! And that’s why it’s completely unethical. If a university has no math requirement and math is a student’s least favorite subject, she shouldn’t be forced to take the AP Calculus AP test after having already been admitted to the college of her choice (at which she’ll never take a math class). It’s a waste of money. It’s a waste of a student’s time. And it’s all because of high school rankings. We at The Ivy Coach support high school rankings by reputable sources like “The Daily Beast” and “Newsweek.” We just don’t support high schools attempting to manipulate rankings at the expense of students.

Anyhow, enough venting. So which high school ranks best in the south? That would be the Carol Martin Gatton Academy of Mathematics and Science in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Coming in second in the south is the International Baccalaureate School at Bartow High in Bartow, Florida. Rounding out the top three in the south is the School of Science / Engineering Magnet in Dallas, Texas. In the northeast, High Technology High School in Lincroft, New Jersey takes top prize. Placing second is City Honors School at Fosdick-Masten Park in Buffalo, New York. Rounding out the top three is Biotechnology High School in Freehold, New Jersey. In the midwest, Signature School in Evansville, Indiana places first, followed by Northside College Prepatory High School in Chicago, Illinois and International Academy in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. And in the west, BASIS Scottsdale in Scottsdale Arizona claims the top spot. This school is followed in the west by BASIS Tucson North in Tucson, Arizona and American Indian Public High School in Oakland, California.

Categories: The Rankings  Tags: , , , ,
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Another College Ranking

May 1, 2013
College Rankings, University Rankings, A College Ranking

Brown, Dartmouth, and Princeton top the sexiness charts, according to “BuzzFeed.” And, no, this building isn’t very sexy. But it is a building at Brown!

Of all of the factors included in the “US News & World Report” college rankings, sexiness isn’t one of them. But thank heavens for “BuzzFeed” because they’ve got a ranking of the sexiest smart colleges. According to “BuzzFeed,” “Sexiness has been tragically ignored by most college ranking systems (we’re looking at you, US News & World Report), but no longer. BuzzFeed plotted Forbes’s academic rankings of colleges and universities against dating site DateMySchool’s hotness index, which measures the attractiveness of students by how much interest their dating profiles get. Schools in the top right of the graph above scored high in both. Then BuzzFeed weighted both ranks equally and tallied them up to determine our top ten.” Wow. Kind of ridiculous, right?

Anyhow, so which colleges ranked well in this college ranking? Carnegie Mellon placed tenth (69th in academics, 32nd in hotness). The University of Virginia placed ninth. UVA is 36th in academics and 40th in hotness. Harvard placed eighth with rankings of 6th in academics and 51st in hotness. Boston University, with a 98th place finish in academics and a 16th place finish in hotness, placed seventh. Boston College placed sixth (guess it pays to go to school in Boston)! BC ranked 26th in academics and 31st in hotness. Columbia University placed fifth with a 5 ranking in academics and a 37 ranking in sexiness.

The University of Pennsylvania placed fourth, ranking 17th in academics and 33rd in hotness. Princeton, topping the list in academics and coming in 36th in hotness, placed third. Dartmouth College placed second overall with a 34 ranking in academics and a 4 ranking in hotness (thereby making it the sexiest Ivy League college). Brown University, however, won this college ranking by placing 19th in academics and 5th in hotness.

Did you know that students were so attractive at Dartmouth and Brown? Let us know your thoughts on this very important matter by posting below! And read about another college ranking formula if it interests you here.

Categories: The Rankings  Tags: , , , ,
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College Admissions Trend

April 21, 2013

There was an article entitled “Two, Three Essays? More Can Mean Less ” in “The New York Times” recently by Eric Hoover that details how Boston College combatted a growing trend at the university — an increasing number of admitted students who chose to attend other universities. With more and more students applying to more and more colleges, Boston College bravely decided to buck a college admissions trend by essentially saying without saying it, “We don’t care if we get fewer applications. We want students who want to go to BC.” Way to go, Boston College.

Admissions Trend, Admissions Trends, University Admission Trends, University Admission Trend

The Ivy Coach salutes Boston College for bucking a college admissions trend, at the risk of the university’s “US News & World Report” ranking.

With a yield that declined from 32% to 23% between 2004 to 2011, Boston College wanted to make some changes to ensure that students who applied actually had interest in going to BC — not just to amass a feather in their caps by earning another acceptance letter. So what did BC do? They required applicants to BC to do more on their application to the university, to make sure that they really had interest in being an Eagle. If a student really wants to attend BC, after all, they’d be willing to write a little bit more in their application, right? Right. So they added another essay that was 400-words in length. As stated in the piece in “The New York Times,” the essay question read, “‘Tell us about a time you had all of the facts but missed the meaning,’ one prompt says. Another invokes St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the college’s Jesuit order, and invites students to reflect on their plans to ‘serve others.’”

And so what happened to the number of applications? They decreased by 26% (of course)! Require a college applicant to write an essay that is specific to a school (that can’t be used for other applications) and all those applicants who have no genuine interest in going to BC will suddenly not even bother applying. Will this hurt BC’s “US News & World Report” ranking? You bet. The number of applications matters. If fewer people apply, the acceptance rate will invariably be higher than if the applicant pool didn’t drop by 26%. But it seems that BC doesn’t care about their “US News” ranking. They want students who are BC proud. While BC’s yield rate isn’t yet in, we salute BC for bucking this college admissions trend, for bravely going where no college seems to be willing to go. Go BC!

Categories: College Admissions, The Rankings  Tags: , , , ,
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Entrepreneurial Colleges

February 26, 2013
Entrepreneur Colleges, Colleges for Entrepreneurs, Colleges for Startups

Richard Fairbank is quite the successful entrepreneur who has made his alma mater (Stanford) proud.

As a regular reader of our college admissions blog, you might know that we write a lot about startups founded in the dorm rooms of highly selective colleges. Well, we just came across a ranking by “Forbes” of the most entrepreneurial colleges. And how exactly did “Forbes” go about devising this entrepreneurial college list? Through a pretty interesting method, it turns out. According to “Forbes,” “Mining its database of 161 million members, LinkedIn identified alumni of these schools as founders of the most companies with 10 or more employees.” How cool!

So which university tops the list? Would it surprise you at all if we said Stanford University? And which alumnus made the university’s entrepreneurial excerpt? Richard Fairbank, the founder and CEO of Capital One Financial. Capital One’s revenue in 2011 was $18.5 billion. That’s billion with a “b” as Kevin O’Leary so often likes to point out on ABC’s hit series “Shark Tank.” And which university places second? Why the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As referenced in “Forbes,” “According to a 2011 report from MIT’s Sloan School of Management, as of 2006 there were 25,600 active companies founded by MIT alumni, employing approximately 3.3 million people.” That’s quite a lot of people being employed!

Next on the list is Harvard University, followed by Caltech, University of California – Berkeley, University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College, University of California, Los Angeles, Princeton University, Haverford College, Yale University, Babson College, Brown University, Northwestern University, Harvey Mudd College, Swarthmore College, Claremont McKenna College, Amherst College, Williams College, and rounding out the ranking is Hampshire College.

Categories: The Rankings  Tags: , , , ,
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College Ranking Formula

February 21, 2013
College Rankings Formula, University Rankings Formula, Ivy League Rankings Formula

Should the college ranking formula be tweaked?

The “Freakonomics” guys, pals of Bev’s son, have brought to our attention a paper authored by economists Christopher N. Avery, Mark E. Glickman, Caroline M. Hoxby, and Andrew Metrick that concerns the college ranking formula. In the abstract, as brought to our attention by Freakonomics.com, the authors propose ranking colleges not by the current variables employed by “US News & World Report” but rather by student revealed preferences. In light of the recent admissions scandals at Claremont McKenna College and George Washington University, it might be a good idea to adjust the algorithm — or at least provide safeguards to prevent deans of admission from fudging data. Maybe a school would get booted from the “US News & World Report” rankings for several years — like a ban from the NCAA to compete in post-season play.

Anyhow, here’s the abstract of the paper: “When a student chooses a college among those that have admitted him, that college ‘wins’ his ‘tournament.’ Our method efficiently integrates the information from thousands of such tournaments. We implement the method using data from a national sample of high-achieving students. We demonstrate that this ranking method has strong theoretical properties, eliminating incentives for colleges to adopt strategic, inefficient admissions policies to improve their rankings. We also show empirically that our ranking is (1) not vulnerable to strategic manipulation; (2) similar regardless of whether we control for variables, such as net cost, that vary among a college’s admits; (3) similar regardless of whether we account for students selecting where to apply, including Early Decision. We exemplify multiple rankings for different types of students who have preferences that vary systematically.”

Do you think these changes should be implemented by “US News & World Report”? What’s your opinion on the important “US News & World Report” rankings? Let us know your thoughts on the matter by posting below!

Categories: The Rankings  Tags: , , , ,
Comments: 1

Bucknell University Admissions Stats

January 28, 2013

Bucknell University admissions stats are under review. Remember how Claremont McKenna College misreported admissions statistics to “US News & World Report” a little while back? And remember how George Washington University also got in heat for misreporting data? Well, add Bucknell University to the party. According to an article on admissions stats by Scott Jaschik in “Inside Higher Ed,” “This month, responding to four instances in which colleges admitted to having provided false information for its rankings, U.S. News & World Report published an FAQ on the issue. One of the questions: ‘Do you believe that there are other schools that have misreported data to U.S. News but have not come forward?’ The magazine’s answer: ‘We have no reason to believe that other schools have misreported data — and we therefore have no reason to believe that the misreporting is widespread.’ Less than three weeks later, another college — Bucknell University — came forward to admit that it had misreported SAT averages from 2006 through 2012, and ACT averages during some of those years.”

Bucknell Admissions Stats, Bucknell Admissions Statistics, Statistics for Bucknell University

Bucknell University has come forward for misreporting admissions stats to “US News & World Report.”

Apparently, the misreported admissions stats at Bucknell University stemmed from Bucknell leaving the SAT scores of some students out of the school’s averages. Most of these students — though not all — had scores that were lower than the university’s average. Thus, leaving these scores off positively impacted Bucknell’s admissions stats. According to the article in “Inside Higher Ed,” we’re talking about 13-47 students over the span of 7 years. The president of Bucknell said that during these 7 years,  an average of 32 students per year were not represented in the stats reported to “US News & World Report” and that scores, on average, were reported to be 16 points higher than the actual scores of incoming students. Some ACT data was misreported by Bucknell as well. According to the article, “The ACT scores were inaccurate only for some of those years, but for several of the years resulted in real averages one point lower than those reported.”

What do you think of the misreported Bucknell University admissions stats? Do you think other universities have misreported data to “US News & World Report” over the years? Let us know your thoughts on the matter by posting below!

 

Categories: College Admissions, The Rankings  Tags: , , , ,
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Best Undergraduate Teaching

January 20, 2013
US News Rankings, US News and World Report Rankings, US News College Rankings

Princeton and Dartmouth top the “US News” rankings for best undergraduate teaching this year.

“US News & World Report” has ranked Princeton University and Dartmouth College at the top of the list for undergraduate teaching. What other universities made the list, you ask? In fifteenth is Stanford University. In thirteenth is Wake Forest University and the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. In eighth is the University of Notre Dame, the University of Maryland – Baltimore County (really?), the University of Chicago, the University of California – Berkeley, and Duke University. In sixth is the University of Michigan and the College of William and Mary. In fourth is Yale University and Brown University. In third is Miami University – Oxford (really, again?). And then come this year’s winners – Dartmouth and Princeton.

According to “US News & World Report” on the topic of best undergraduate teaching, “Many colleges have a strong commitment to teaching undergraduates instead of graduate-level research. Based on a survey conducted in spring 2012, all the schools on these lists are ones that received the most votes from top college administrators as paying a particular focus on undergraduate teaching.” Are you curious as to how the University of Maryland – Baltimore County and Miami University – Oxford managed to make this list? They’re not the usual company for the other highly selective colleges. Why do you think they made the cut?

Do you think another school should have been on the list for having excellent undergraduate teaching? Was your school left off? Let us know your thoughts on this ranking by posting below!

Categories: The Rankings  Tags: , , , ,
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College Internships

November 21, 2012
University Internships, Dartmouth Internships, College Interns, University Interns, Ivy League Internships

Dartmouth College is among the universities at which the highest percentage of students graduate with internship experience.

Ever wonder which colleges produce the most interns? Well, wonder no longer! Menachem Wecker of “US News & World Report” has put out a ranking for the universities in the United States that “produced the largest percentage of interns among the class of 2011.” So who tops the list of college internships? That would be Clarkson University where 86% of the Class of 2011 graduated with internship experience. Clarkson is ranked #115 among national universities in the “US News” rankings. Coming in second on the internship ranking is the Colorado School of Mines, at which 81% of students graduated with internship experience (the school is ranked #77 in the overall ranking).

In third is the Ivy League’s Dartmouth College (ranked #10 in the “US News” overall ranking this year). At Dartmouth, 72% of students graduated with internship experience among the Class of 2011. One reason Dartmouth may appear on this list is because the school requires sophomores to spend their sophomore summer at the college. Because students are required to be on campus during that term, they take off another term at some point to even things out. When students are off from school during the fall, winter, or spring, they often don’t have as much internship competition as most interns intern during the summer months. It gives Dartmouth students a career edge in many ways.

Coming in fourth is Clemson University, where 67% of students graduated with internship experience (the school is ranked #68 overall). After Clemson comes Pace University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Memphis, Syracuse University, DePaul University, and Stevens Institute of Technology.

Categories: Deciding on a College to Attend, Selecting Colleges, The Rankings  Tags: , , , ,
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US News Ranking

November 15, 2012
US News & World Report Ranking, US News Rankings, US News University Rankings

GW will be unranked for the remainder of the year in the “US News & World Report” college rankings.

The Ivy Coach salutes “US News & World Report” for keeping them honest by removing George Washington University’s #51 ranking among best national universities. George Washington, it was recently revealed, misreported class rank data to the magazine and thus their rank in the September issue was better than it should have been had the data reported been accurate. George Washington University is now unranked and will be unranked until the 2014 “US News & World Report” “Best Colleges” edition.

Said GW president Steven Knapp in a statement about the “US News” ranking, “We were surprised by the decision of U.S. News to remove George Washington’s numerical ranking rather than to correct it in light of our disclosure. We regret the error and have put safeguards in place to prevent such errors from occurring in the future.” We can’t imagine why Mr. Knapp was surprised. The university misreported data that led to an inaccurate ranking. If students plagiarize a term paper, don’t they suffer consequences? Your university tried to game the system — whether knowingly or unknowingly — and it’s only fair that they should be removed from the rankings as a result of this. The school ranked #52, after all, didn’t misreport data (to our knowledge).

“US News & World Report” sent a great message to college admissions officers (and Deans of Admission in particular). Report accurate data. If you don’t, your school will go unranked. The “US News & World Report” rankings are hugely important for universities and thus it’s fitting that GW should be penalized this year. They’ll think twice next time they even consider misreporting data. And so will every other university across the United States.

Categories: College Admissions, The Rankings  Tags: , , , ,
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Politically Active Colleges

October 18, 2012
Political Colleges, Politically Active Universities, Political Ivy League Colleges

Yale University isn’t one of the ten most politically active colleges in the United States? How many presidents have graduated from Yale? Sometimes, rankings can be a bit subjective…

“Noodle” has released a ranking of the most “politically active colleges.” After all, it is the season of politics. So what colleges across the United States are the most politically charged? According to “Noodle,” American University, with their terrific political science program that has been the training grounds for many a D.C. insider, tops the list. Coming in second? Hampshire College. Hampshire is a small, private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts. According to “Noodle,” its students are known for their political activism.

Placing third is George Washington University. No surprise that they’d be at or near the top of this ranking. And which university places fourth? Another shocker (sarcasm) with Georgetown University. Notice a geographic trend by chance? Placing fifth in the ranking is New College of Florida (uh huh). And this school is followed by Claremont McKenna College, West Point (that makes good sense to us), the University of Chicago, Columbia University, and the University of California – Berkeley (we imagine you’re not wondering what side of the political spectrum Berkeley students fall on).

Do you think a university should have been included in this top ten ranking? Do you think some of these universities should not have been included? Let us know your thoughts on the matter and, heck, what about schools like Harvard and Yale? There surely are a number of politicians (and Supreme Court justices) coming out of these two universities. How come they’re not on the list? Why is there only one Ivy League college on the list? That’s our question for “Noodle.” And, while you’re here, check out this post on the Ivy League and Politics.

Categories: Ivy League, The Rankings  Tags: , , , ,
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