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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