1,339 U.S. Colleges Ranked by Average Student Brainpower
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1,339 U.S. Colleges Ranked By Average Student Brainpower Citation: Wai, J. (October, 2014). 1,339 U.S. colleges ranked by average student brainpower. Business Insider, Psychology Today. There are numerous college rankings, with the most well-known being those released yearly by U.S. News & World Report (e.g., America’s Best Colleges, 2015). Different rankings use a variety of different criteria to determine the rank order of schools. However, there has been only one other ranking based strictly on the brainpower of students using a reliable and valid measure of intelligence (Wai & Nisen, 2013), and it was not comprehensive as it only included national universities and national liberal arts colleges in 2013. The purpose of the current ranking was to create a comprehensive list of U.S. colleges and universities strictly based on brainpower—average student body SAT and ACT scores—for the year 2014. This ranking is an extension of Wai (2014). Although there may be different definitions of “brainpower” or “intelligence” the definition used for this ranking is that of general intelligence. Researchers have shown that standardized tests like the SAT and ACT are actually highly reliable and valid measures of general intelligence or g, even though they are often labeled as measures of “academic achievement” (SAT: Frey & Detterman, 2004; ACT: Koenig, Frey, & Detterman, 2008). The 25th and 75th percentile SAT and ACT scores were recorded for each school from the national university, national liberal arts college, regional university, and regional college lists in 2014. ACT scores were translated into SAT scores (math + verbal) using a concordance table (ACT, 2011), so that all schools could be compared using one metric. Finally, an average of the 25th and 75th percentile scores were computed, which resulted in 1,339 schools who had reported SAT or ACT score data according to U.S. News & World Report in 2014. This ranking of brainpower is the most comprehensive to date, but it still does not include every college or university in the U.S., only those 1,339 schools that reported such data to U.S. News & World Report. Therefore, if a school is not in this ranking but the average SAT or ACT scores are reported elsewhere, this school could easily find their rank in relation to the schools already included. In the current ranking, a (2) next to the school's name indicates that some or all students aren't required to supply scores; a (3) indicates that the school did not supply all students it has scores for, or did not tell U.S. News if it had; a (4) indicates that the data is from a previous year, rather than from the most recent year; and a (9) indicates that the school may not require scores from all applicants and that it may not have submitted data for all students. For each of the schools with one of these qualifications, perhaps with the possible exception of (4), the ranking of the school is likely higher than it should be. Regarding exception (2), if some students aren’t required to supply scores, it is typically students with lower scores who fail to report them, which allows schools to report higher SAT or ACT score averages (Wai, 2014). Exceptions (3) and (9) also would likely mean the average SAT or ACT scores reported are higher than if the school had reported scores for all students. This means schools with these exceptions should likely be lower in the current rankings than they presently are, but because it is unclear how much lower, they are still ranked based on the scores they reported. The current ranking also does not account for sample size, which likely impacts the average brainpower of the student body. For example, large state schools, such as UC Berkeley, likely have a group of students in the right tail of the distribution with similar SAT or ACT scores as some of the top Ivy League and other elite schools (e.g., see discussion in Pinker, 2014), however, their average is lowered by the large number of students with lower scores which are typically admitted. Therefore large state schools, if anything, are likely slightly penalized in the current ranking relative to smaller private schools which draw primarily from top students. It is interesting to note when the U.S. News & World Report rank for national universities and national liberal arts colleges does not align with the “smarts rank.” Overall, national universities and liberal arts colleges tended to be at the top of the current ranking, but not always, and such information may be important for students and parents interested in schools with the highest average concentration of brainpower. In particular, the current ranking highlights many schools which may not be traditionally defined as elite but do an excellent job recruiting a student body with a high average level of brainpower. References ACT (2011). ACT-SAT concordance. http://www.act.org/aap/concordance/pdf/reference.pdf America’s Best Colleges (2015). http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges Frey, M. C., & Detterman, D. K. (2004). Scholastic assessment or g? The relationship between the SAT and general cognitive ability. Psychological Science, 15, 373-378. http://www.psychologicalscience.org/pdf/ps/frey.pdf Koenig, K. A., Frey, M. C., & Detterman, D. K. (2008). ACT and general cognitive ability. Intelligence, 36, 153-160. http://www.iapsych.com/iqmr/koening2008.pdf Pinker, S. (September, 2014). The trouble with Harvard: The Ivy League is broken and only standardized tests can fix it. The New Republic. http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119321/harvard-ivy-league-should-judge-students-standardized-tests Wai, J. (October, 2014). The 600 smartest colleges in America. Business Insider. http://www.businessinsider.com/smartest-colleges-in-america-2014-10 Wai, J. (August, 2014). Should the SAT be optional? Quartz. http://qz.com/254248/why-making-the-sat-optional-is-a-mistake/ Wai, J., & Nisen, M. (September, 2013). Smartest colleges in America. Business Insider. http://www.businessinsider.com/smartest-colleges-in-america-2013-9 Smarts Average SAT Rank Liberal Rank School (M + V) Rank National Universities Arts 1 California Institute of Technology 1545 10 2 University of Chicago 1515 4 3 Princeton University 1505 1 3 Harvard University 1505 2 3 Yale University 1505 3 6 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1500 7 7 Columbia University 1485 4 8 Harvey Mudd College 1480 15 9 Stanford University 1475 4 10 Northwestern University 1470 13 11 Dartmouth College 1460 11 11 Washington University in St. Louis 1460 14 11 University of Notre Dame 1460 16 11 Vanderbilt University 1460 16 11 Rice University 1460 19 11 Pomona College 1460 5 17 Duke University 1455 8 18 University of Pennsylvania 1450 8 19 Tufts University 1445 27 20 Amherst College 1440 2 20 Swarthmore College 1440 3 22 Brown University (3) 1435 16 22 Carnegie Mellon University 1435 25 22 Williams College 1435 1 22 Bowdoin College (2) 1435 5 26 Johns Hopkins University 1430 12 26 Carleton College 1430 8 28 Cornell University 1420 15 29 Georgetown University 1410 21 29 Wellesley College 1410 4 29 Claremont McKenna College 1410 8 32 Haverford College 1400 8 32 Washington and Lee University 1400 14 32 Wesleyan University 1400 15 35 Vassar College 1395 11 36 Northeastern University 1390 42 37 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 1389 42 38 Georgia Institute of Technology 1385 35 38 Middlebury College 1385 7 38 Hamilton College 1385 15 41 University of Southern California 1380 25 42 University of California-Berkeley 1375 20 42 Case Western Reserve University 1375 38 42 Reed College (9) 1375 77 42 Bard College at Simon's Rock (2) 1375 46 Scripps College 1367 24 47 Emory University 1365 21 47 College of William and Mary 1365 33 48 Oberlin College 1363 23 49 Boston College 1360 31 49 New York University 1360 32 49 Tulane University (3) 1360 54 49 Colgate University 1360 22 49 United States Air Force Academy 1360 27 55 University of Virginia 1355 23 55 Cooper Union 1355 57 University of Rochester (2) 1350 33 57 Brandeis University 1350 35 57 Macalester College 1350 24 60 Colby College (2) 1345 15 60 Bates College (2) 1345 19 62 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 1340 29 62 Colorado School of Mines 1340 88 62 Grinnell College 1340 19 62 Bryn Mawr College 1340 27 62 Barnard College 1340 32 67 Davidson College (3) 1335 11 67 Smith College (2) 1335 19 69 Wake Forest University (2) 1325 27 69 University of Miami 1325 48 69 Colorado College (2) 1325 27 69 Mount Holyoke College (2) 1325 41 69 Connecticut College (2) 1325 45 74 Whitman College 1321 37 75 University of California-Los Angeles 1320 23 75 Kenyon College 1320 30 75 Wheaton College 1320 56 78 Lehigh University 1315 40 78 Worcester Polytechnic Institute (2) 1315 68 78 Franklin and Marshall College (2) 1315 37 81 University of Maryland-College Park 1310 62 81 University of Richmond 1310 30 81 Union College (NY) (2) 1310 41 84 University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill 1305 30 84 College of the Holy Cross (2) 1305 34 84 Pitzer College (2) 1305 35 84 Occidental College 1305 44 84 Hendrix College 1305 81 84 St. John's College (NM) (2) 1305 89 84 Villanova University 1305 91 Ohio State University-Columbus 1300 54 91 Southern Methodist University 1300 58 91 Stevens Institute of Technology 1300 76 91 Bucknell University 1300 32 91 Denison University (2) 1300 51 91 Rhodes College 1300 54 91 Hillsdale College 1300 69 98 George Washington University 1295 54 99 Binghamton University-SUNY 1294 88 100 University of California-San Diego 1290 37 100 Boston University 1290 42 102 University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign 1285 42 102 Brigham Young University-Provo 1285 62 102 University of Tulsa 1285 88 102 Centre College 1285 45 102 Gettysburg College (2) 1285 50 102 St.