1,339 U.S. Colleges Ranked By Average Student Brainpower

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.

America's Best Colleges (2015).

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.

Koenig, K. A., Frey, M. C., & Detterman, D. K. (2008). ACT and general cognitive ability. Intelligence, 36, 153-160.

Pinker, S. (September, 2014). The trouble with Harvard: The Ivy League is broken and only standardized tests can fix it. The New Republic.

Wai, J. (October, 2014). The 600 smartest colleges in America. Business Insider.

Wai, J. (August, 2014). Should the SAT be optional? Quartz.

Wai, J., & Nisen, M. (September, 2013). Smartest colleges in America. Business Insider.

Smarts Rank

1 2 3 3 3 6 7 8 9 10 11 11 11 11 11 11

School California Institute of Technology University of Chicago Princeton University Harvard University Yale University Massachusetts Institute of Technology Columbia University Harvey Mudd College Stanford University Northwestern University Dartmouth College Washington University in St. Louis University of Notre Dame Vanderbilt University Rice University Pomona College

Average SAT (M + V) 1545 1515 1505 1505 1505 1500 1485 1480 1475 1470 1460 1460 1460 1460 1460 1460

Rank National Universities 10 4 1 2 3 7 4

4 13 11 14 16 16 19

Rank Liberal Arts

15

5

17

Duke University

18

University of Pennsylvania

19

Tufts University

20

Amherst College

20

Swarthmore College

22

Brown University (3)

22

Carnegie Mellon University

22

Williams College

22

Bowdoin College (2)

26

Johns Hopkins University

26

Carleton College

28

Cornell University

29

Georgetown University

29

Wellesley College

29

Claremont McKenna College

32

Haverford College

32

Washington and Lee University

32

Wesleyan University

35

Vassar College

36

Northeastern University

37

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

38

Georgia Institute of Technology

38

Middlebury College

38

Hamilton College

41

University of Southern California

42

University of California-Berkeley

42

Case Western Reserve University

42

Reed College (9)

42

Bard College at Simon's Rock (2)

46

Scripps College

47

Emory University

47

College of William and Mary

48

Oberlin College

49

Boston College

1455

8

1450

8

1445

27

1440

2

1440

3

1435

16

1435

25

1435

1

1435

5

1430

12

1430

8

1420

15

1410

21

1410

4

1410

8

1400

8

1400

14

1400

15

1395

11

1390

42

1389

42

1385

35

1385

7

1385

15

1380

25

1375

20

1375

38

1375

77

1375

1367

24

1365

21

1365

33

1363

23

1360

31

49

New York University

49

Tulane University (3)

49

Colgate University

49

United States Air Force Academy

55

University of Virginia

55

Cooper Union

57

University of Rochester (2)

57

Brandeis University

57

Macalester College

60

Colby College (2)

60

Bates College (2)

62

University of Michigan-Ann Arbor

62

Colorado School of Mines

62

Grinnell College

62

Bryn Mawr College

62

Barnard College

67

Davidson College (3)

67

Smith College (2)

69

Wake Forest University (2)

69

University of Miami

69

Colorado College (2)

69

Mount Holyoke College (2)

69

Connecticut College (2)

74

Whitman College

75

University of California-Los Angeles

75

Kenyon College

75

Wheaton College

78

Lehigh University

78

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (2)

78

Franklin and Marshall College (2)

81

University of Maryland-College Park

81

University of Richmond

81

Union College (NY) (2)

84

University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

1360

32

1360

54

1360

22

1360

27

1355

23

1355

1350

33

1350

35

1350

24

1345

15

1345

19

1340

29

1340

88

1340

19

1340

27

1340

32

1335

11

1335

19

1325

27

1325

48

1325

27

1325

41

1325

45

1321

37

1320

23

1320

30

1320

56

1315

40

1315

68

1315

37

1310

62

1310

30

1310

41

1305

30

84

College of the Holy Cross (2)

84

Pitzer College (2)

84

Occidental College

84

Hendrix College

84

St. John's College (NM) (2)

84

Villanova University

91

Ohio State University-Columbus

91

Southern Methodist University

91

Stevens Institute of Technology

91

Bucknell University

91

Denison University (2)

91

Rhodes College

91

Hillsdale College

98

George Washington University

99

Binghamton University-SUNY

100 University of California-San Diego

100 Boston University

102 University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign

102 Brigham Young University-Provo

102 University of Tulsa

102 Centre College

102 Gettysburg College (2)

102 St. Olaf College

102 Lawrence University (2)

102 New College of Florida

102 Santa Clara University

111 United States Military Academy (3)

112 United States Naval Academy

112 Bennington College (2)

114 Dickinson College (2)

115 Lafayette College

115 Bard College (2)

115 St. John's College (2)

115 Lewis & Clark College (2)

1305

34

1305

35

1305

44

1305

81

1305

89

1305

1300

54

1300

58

1300

76

1300

32

1300

51

1300

54

1300

69

1295

54

1294

88

1290

37

1290

42

1285

42

1285

62

1285

88

1285

45

1285

50

1285

54

1285

59

1285

87

1285

1283

24

1280

13

1280

89

1278

37

1275

35

1275

45

1275

56

1275

77

115 United States Coast Guard Academy (3) 120 University of Pittsburgh 121 SUNY-Geneseo 122 United States Merchant Marine Academy 123 University of Wisconsin-Madison 123 University of Florida 123 University of Minnesota-Twin Cities 123 Missouri University of Science & Technology 123 Sewanee-University of the South (2) 128 University of Texas-Austin 128 University of Texas-Dallas 128 Trinity University 131 Fordham University 131 American University (2) 133 University of California-Santa Barbara 133 Stony Brook University-SUNY 133 Sarah Lawrence College (2) 133 Thomas Aquinas College 137 Clemson University 137 Miami University-Oxford 137 University of Denver 137 St. Louis University 137 Illinois Institute of Technology 137 Kalamazoo College 137 College of Wooster 137 Earlham College (2) 137 Illinois Wesleyan University 137 Knox College (2) 137 Butler University 137 Drake University 137 Truman State University 137 Milwaukee School of Engineering 137 Kettering University 137 Taylor University

1275

1270

62

1269

1267

1265

47

1265

48

1265

71

1265

138

1265

45

1260

53

1260

145

1260

1255

58

1255

71

1250

40

1250

88

1250

59

1250

77

1245

62

1245

76

1245

88

1245

99

1245

116

1245

64

1245

69

1245

73

1245

73

1245

81

1245

1245

1245

1245

1245

1245

153 University of Georgia

1240

62

153 Skidmore College

1240

37

153 Trinity College

1240

45

153 Muhlenberg College (2)

1240

64

157 Yeshiva University

1235

48

157 Pepperdine University

1235

54

157 North Carolina State University-Raleigh

1235

95

157 Furman University (2)

1235

51

157 College of New Jersey

1235

162 University of Washington

1230

48

162 University of Connecticut

1230

58

162 Emerson College

1230

162 CUNY-Baruch College

1230

166 Marquette University

1225

76

166 Texas Christian University

1225

76

166 Florida State University

1225

95

166 Auburn University

1225

103

166 Trinity International University

1225

166 DePauw University

1225

51

166 Beloit College (2)

1225

61

166 Gustavus Adolphus College (2)

1225

64

166 Wheaton College (2)

1225

69

166 Transylvania University

1225

81

166 University of Puget Sound (3)

1225

81

166 Bentley University (3)

1225

166 Creighton University

1225

166 California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo (3)

1225

180 Virginia Tech

1220

71

180 College of the Atlantic (2)

1220

99

180 Elon University

1220

183 Clark University (2)

1215

76

183 University of San Diego

1215

95

183 St. Lawrence University (2)

1215

56

183 Austin College (3)

1215

89

183 Rochester Institute of Technology

1215

188 University of California-Davis

1210

38

188 Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey-New Brunswick

1210

70

188 University of Massachusetts-Amherst

1210

76

188 University of Maryland-Baltimore County

1210

149

188 Soka University of America

1210

41

188 Chapman University

1210

188 University of Dallas

1210

195 Grove City College

1207

139

196 Baylor University

1205

71

196 University of Colorado-Boulder

1205

88

196 University of Dayton

1205

103

196 Loyola University Chicago

1205

106

196 University of Tennessee

1205

106

196 University of South Carolina

1205

113

196 Michigan Technological University

1205

116

196 Hobart and William Smith Colleges (2)

1205

61

196 Hope College

1205

99

196 Berry College

1205

129

196 Belmont University

1205

196 Cedarville University

1205

208 Purdue University-West Lafayette

1200

62

209 University of Delaware

1195

76

209 Willamette University

1195

64

209 University of North Carolina-Asheville

1195

159

209 Rollins College (2)

1195

209 Gonzaga University

1195

209 Loyola Marymount University

1195

209 University of Portland

1195

216 Drexel University

1190

95

216 Clarkson University

1190

121

216 St. Mary's College of Maryland (3)

1190

89

216 University of North Carolina-Wilmington

1190

216 Whitworth University (2)

1190

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