Making College Admissions more Meritocratic

[downtown]

Judging everyone by a single contextless number isn't meritocratic unless the system and society is very egalitarian. Merit can and should mean judging achievements relative to the circumstances they're coming from. A decent score from a poor kid from a rural comprehensive public high school is more of an achievement than the same score achieved by an affluent city kid who went to an elite school.

Honestly though, in the United States, a far bigger issue for inequalities in tertiary education entrance is the dismally uneven quality of primary and secondary schools across states, counties and school districts. You're never going to get perfect equality of results and tertiary education rates across income brackets and demographics, but there's point at which the system is so brokenly uneven you can no longer even claim there's equality of opportunity in education.

I agree with both of these statements. Using SAT alone as the "merit" in question is like saying you pick the basketball player who scores the most points...only one gets to shoot layups, and the other has to shoot 40 footers. The HUGE disparity in K12 school quality between the rich and the poor undercuts the "merit" aspect of the SAT, which is why we use other factors as well.

I think Amherst has a pretty solid way of increasing diversity and leveling the playing field, by accepting such a large number of high achieving community college transfers. That doesn't upset the standards for admission, while helping to level the acceptance playing field.

 

[downtown]

What's the problem with individual loans? This seems to be a better route to creating a reciprocal benefit of creating well educated and functional adults than taxes do.

Remember, we aren't talking about college in general here, we're talking about specific, highly elite, *expensive* colleges. Borrowing 6,000 to attend Ohio State is very different from borrowing 40,000 to attend Harvard. I'm not arguing that lower and middle income students do not have access to college in general, only that the elite colleges are dominated by the really rich (and this is becoming the case for our Good Land Grant Colleges too).

DT, you might find it interesting to look at how Australia handles this stuff. (obligatory wiki link)

Yeah, a lot of other countries do something similar, and I can't really vouch for other countries to see how well it works. I know that getting that level of state involvement is not really realistic here, given our budget situation, our huge number of students (and colleges) to support, and political realities.

Not every college in America is Harvard. There are hundreds, if not thousands of reputable state colleges in America that are more than affordable to anybody. Especially if you view college as a future investment. There is FASFA, Perkins Loans, government grants, scholarships

Right, but again, we're talking specifically ABOUT the Harvards here. There are, of course, hundreds of good colleges in this country, but we shouldn't pretend there isn't a difference between #8 and number #118, if for nothing else, social capital. In the honors department at Ohio State, I ran with students who will likely become leaders in Ohio government, mid-sized midwestern businesses, and academia. If I went to Harvard, I'm running with people who run the world.

Everyone has equal opportunity to loans.

But not at the same interest rates. Access to federal (and thus locked in interest rate) loans is restricted by income level, and private student loans can rival credit card interest rates.

Everyone has equal opportunity to earn scholarships.

No they don't, because they school quality isn't the same.

I don't really see why taxing Peter so that Paul can go to college to play Van Wilder is necessary or equal.

The Van Wilder problem is pretty easily solved by requiring a min. GPA to keep aid.

 

[Hitti-Litti]

Why is that? And how is taxing one group in favor of another a measure of equality? Not every college in America is Harvard. There are hundreds, if not thousands of reputable state colleges in America that are more than affordable to anybody. Especially if you view college as a future investment. There is FASFA, Perkins Loans, government grants, scholarships, work study programs, you can get this thing called a part time job. You can space out your college career by a few extra years to earn a manageable amount of income to limit your debt. You can join the reserves, or even ROTC and go for free. Everyone has equal opportunity to loans. And if you make a judicious decision about which career path you take, you will have a job when you graduate, and you will have no problem paying back whatever loans you may have.

Everyone has equal opportunity to park their butts in a seat and pay attention in school. Everyone has an equal opportunity to do all their homework and get A's in high school. Everyone has equal opportunity to earn scholarships. Everyone has an equal opportunity to get a loan. I don't really see why taxing Peter so that Paul can go to college to play Van Wilder is necessary or equal.

downtown pretty much covered the first paragraph, so I'll just focus on the end of the post.

No, people don't have equal opportunities to park their butts in a seat and pay attention. It's a lot easier to focus on schoolwork if one doesn't have to worry about his financial future or his current part time job. It's also easier to get those A's if one can afford a tutor for himself, instead of spending evenings at work. Also there in the States all high schools don't have the same level of education and teaching, so there's not an equal opportunity to get A's. That's the reason why a system with only public schools, like in Finland and in all other civilized countries without a capitalism fetish, is the best for education. It truly offers equal opportunities to people and effectively shows who really are the best.

 

[Zelig]

Not really. You don't need the school system to learn stuff; why, just today I finally learned how to get Minecraft to work in Windows 7 with more than a gigabyte of memory allocated to it (i.e. something actually useful).

First and foremost, the point behind any given grade level is to see if you've got what it takes to make it to the next grade level. And also to see if you've got the stamina to sit in a chair for hours on end and listen to a boring jerk give a boring lecture. Because if you can't handle that, you can't handle modern-day staff meetings.

You're right, EDUCATION IS NOT THE POINT OF GRADE SCHOOL, THE POINT IS TO CRUSH THE SPIRITS OF CHILDREN.

 

[Archbob]

Its not like Colleges solely use the SAT score to determine if a students gets in or not. Greater emphasis nowdays is focused on your RANK IN CLASS. Generally colleges and universities favor kids that are in the top 10% in their respective class. You are being compared to others who go to your same school and likely live in same neighborhoods.

 

[Hitti-Litti]

Its not like Colleges solely use the SAT score to determine if a students gets in or not. Greater emphasis nowdays is focused on your RANK IN CLASS. Generally colleges and universities favor kids that are in the top 10% in their respective class. You are being compared to others who go to your same school and likely live in same neighborhoods.

In some cases that is even worse, some small quarrel between a student and his teacher could lower one of the student's grades = lower his rank in class = make him not get in to college.

 

[Archbob]

In some cases that is even worse, some small quarrel between a student and his teacher could lower one of the student's grades = lower his rank in class = make him not get in to college.

Not likely to happen. Too great a risk for the teacher to pruposely do that. Its pretty easy to get sued and fired as a teacher these days.

 

[downtown]

Its not like Colleges solely use the SAT score to determine if a students gets in or not. Greater emphasis nowdays is focused on your RANK IN CLASS. Generally colleges and universities favor kids that are in the top 10% in their respective class. You are being compared to others who go to your same school and likely live in same neighborhoods.

You know, I don't know of any evidence that Class Rank is being taken more seriously. The recruiters who talked to me when I was applying 5, 6 years ago told us that was the least important metric (although still a metric) and the recruiters who I've talked to in HS now tell our students that your SAT/ACT is still the most important number, followed by grades. I personally think your class rank tells you very little about a particular student, although it can let you know about the general quality of his school if you're unfamiliar with it.

 

[Hitti-Litti]

Not likely to happen. Too great a risk for the teacher to pruposely do that. Its pretty easy to get sued and fired as a teacher these days.

I didn't mean that the teacher would do that on purpose. An example: there are students X and Y who've got the same test results, and it's time for their teacher to give them grades. It's difficult to decide whether they would deserve an A or a B. Teacher happens to like student X for some reason, and gives him an A. Student Y is a in the teacher's opinion bit annoying for some reason, and the teacher gives him a B. The teacher gives two different grades to students because he disliked one of them a bit. He didn't do that on purpose: it's more of a subconscious thing as we make decisions without really understanding why we decided like that. Things like this have happened before and will happen in the future. We humans are prone to make errors. That's why rank in class is a bad criterion for college admissions.

 

[Ajidica]

I personally think your class rank tells you very little about a particular student, although it can let you know about the general quality of his school if you're unfamiliar with it.

Class rank is effectively useless in high school. With my 3.78 I was ranked 85 out of 555. I was talking with some of my cousins in Texas and they said that at their average public school a 3.78 would put me in the top 10.

 

[Zelig]

Class rank is effectively useless in high school. With my 3.78 I was ranked 85 out of 555. I was talking with some of my cousins in Texas and they said that at their average public school a 3.78 would put me in the top 10.

I don't see how your anecdote shows class rank to be in any way useless.

 

[Archbob]

You know, I don't know of any evidence that Class Rank is being taken more seriously. The recruiters who talked to me when I was applying 5, 6 years ago told us that was the least important metric (although still a metric) and the recruiters who I've talked to in HS now tell our students that your SAT/ACT is still the most important number, followed by grades. I personally think your class rank tells you very little about a particular student, although it can let you know about the general quality of his school if you're unfamiliar with it.

Alot of the colleges I applied for had grades/class rank as weighing heavier than SAT/ACT scores.Thats why most all colleges have breakdowns of what % of their incoming class ranks in top 5% or top 10% of their graduating HS class. Applying to a school like Standford, there were hardly any people outside the top 20% of their HS class who got accepted.

Its hard to tell the two apart because usually the kids who are ranked in the front of the class have the better scores anyways.

Class rank tells you how you compare with other kids in the same conditions/neighborhoods. Its a pretty important indicator.

Class rank is effectively useless in high school. With my 3.78 I was ranked 85 out of 555. I was talking with some of my cousins in Texas and they said that at their average public school a 3.78 would put me in the top 10.

So they had a tougher cirriculum or didn't have as many weight grade courses. It compares you against kids who come from similar neighborhoods.

 

[BuckeyeJim]

I am going to preface this post by making a few general statements. You are all more than welcome to criticize them. But I believe that:

1. The merit of a student getting into a college is purely their ability to hack the the university or institution.
2. The best schools attract the best people. Ohio State is not gaining in the world rankings because Harvard is overlooking and abundance of students who can hack Harvard, but aren't getting in because they're not rich.
3. Universities, even though they operate like businesses, will still do everything in their power to attract the best candidates in an effort boost the schools reputation.
4. If there is an overwhelming amount of exceptionally gifted students out there that are not being serviced because of their socio-economic position in life, then a market would develop and cater specifically to them. In fact, it would be an absolute gold mine and would attract an enormous amount of corporate money.
5. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
6. What makes you stronger makes you more of an asset to society.

With that said:

I think Amherst has a pretty solid way of increasing diversity and leveling the playing field, by accepting such a large number of high achieving community college transfers. That doesn't upset the standards for admission, while helping to level the acceptance playing field.

I don't think this is leveling the admissions standard. I think this is a wise decision which attracts people who are qualified and can hack the university. There's nothing "leveling" about it. I believe the SAT, when it comes to Harvard, is an excellent measure. Harvard could conceivably get tens of thousands of applicants every year. The SAT is a great way to cut it down to a manageable level. An applicant is like a pot of clam chowder. You certainly shouldn't focus on one item to determine whether the pot is worthy or not. You look at the cream, the bacon, the clams, the potatoes, the special blend of spices, etc. The SAT is just one way of vetting candidates and an excellent way of examining whether students will succeed at the college.

Borrowing 6,000 to attend Ohio State is very different from borrowing 40,000 to attend Harvard. I'm not arguing that lower and middle income students do not have access to college in general, only that the elite colleges are dominated by the really rich (and this is becoming the case for our Good Land Grant Colleges too)...

...There are, of course, hundreds of good colleges in this country, but we shouldn't pretend there isn't a difference between #8 and number #118, if for nothing else, social capital. In the honors department at Ohio State, I ran with students who will likely become leaders in Ohio government, mid-sized midwestern businesses, and academia. If I went to Harvard, I'm running with people who run the world.

I don't see much difference between taking a $6000 loan out for OSU and a $40000 loan for Harvard. You make the distinction yourself, if I go to OSU for X amount of dollars I can accomplish X amount of things (become a local congressman, run a business, work for the feds), but if I go to Harvard for Y amount of dollars, I can accomplish Y amount of things. As you put it: RUN THE WORLD! So of course if I got accepted to Harvard I'm going to get those loans, because like I can do now with my OSU debts, I can afford to pay it off. So I don't think you have an argument of any merit there.

Elite schools exist for elite people, and I don't think there is a terrible problem with otherwise elite people not getting into those colleges. Again, they are not maintaining their rankings atop the global ratings because they're accepting rich folks who don't otherwise deserve to be there. And other schools aren't struggling to make up the difference because they are full of Harvard level talent.

But not at the same interest rates. Access to federal (and thus locked in interest rate) loans is restricted by income level, and private student loans can rival credit card interest rates.

None of my private student loans came close to credit card interest rates. Not saying it doesn't exist, but you'd be a dupe to take it. And didn't the feds monopolize this industry anyway? Anyhow, more federal aid is already available for lower income brackets. Especially these poor folks that you all seem so concerned about. They also have access and ability to take out more low interest federal loans as well. Not to mention better access to grants, and preferable treatment for scholarships. It is my experience that a poor student who is qualified to go to school will end up going to school. Colleges really go out of their way to except these kids. I cannot imagine Harvard turning down a prodigy who comes from a poor home simply because he's poor. They wouldn't let him go to a competing school. It's just bad business.

No they don't, because they school quality isn't the same.

But nothing is the same. They don't have the same brains, they don't have the same parents, they don't have the same environments. You go to school based on your ability to succeed. It would be stupid for Harvard to accept a poor person who's pretty smart, and worked exceptionally hard, to enter into a school that they cannot succeed in, simply because all things are not equal. Things will never be equal.

The Van Wilder problem is pretty easily solved by requiring a min. GPA to keep aid.

I don't know if I like this. This is like Bush's gentleman's C's situation. Or it sounds like teachers I know who can basically do nothing but still get a B. The state pays their tuition regardless of how well they really do, so colleges rubber stamp B's for grad students just to get the cash. I fear the same thing might happen if you go this route. Now, I do not think that your plan would really change anything at Harvard. I think that Harvard will continue down the road it is on, but I do think your plan could be corrupted in the next tiers of college. And be exploited especially bad in the Devry's of America.

When the government starts paying a blank check for education the real value of that education is lost completely.

No, people don't have equal opportunities to park their butts in a seat and pay attention. It's a lot easier to focus on schoolwork if one doesn't have to worry about his financial future or his current part time job. It's also easier to get those A's if one can afford a tutor for himself, instead of spending evenings at work. Also there in the States all high schools don't have the same level of education and teaching, so there's not an equal opportunity to get A's. That's the reason why a system with only public schools, like in Finland and in all other civilized countries without a capitalism fetish, is the best for education. It truly offers equal opportunities to people and effectively shows who really are the best.

When I was talking about students parking their butts and learning, I was talking about high schoolers. It is a lot easier to concentrate on school when you don't have to work. But this isn't about what's easiest. This is about finding the best candidates who can accomplish the work required to get a degree at any given educational institute. A person who can go to Harvard and work and get a 3.5 carries far more merit to enter into the college than a person who needs all of his time to get a 3.5. Am I right? Or am I wrong here? The ability to juggle and handle real life carries gravitas to college recruiters as well as employers. Who do you think an employer wants to hire, a student who did nothing but study his entire student career, or a person who got equal grades while also working? Do you think I obtained my position in life because I locked myself in the library and used every moment of my life to earn a 3.6 GPA? No, I got it because I already had an established work ethic AND I was competent at my school work. Who do you think gets more out of college, a person like me, who worked his way through college, built a work ethic, established a reputation, earned good grades, paid my own way, and am now paying back those loans, or some kid who does nothing but study at the expense of others in society? In my view my road was unequivocally better than the Finnish route, of never working before you're 22. Also, I never worried about my financial future because I knew it would pay off in the end. If anybody who takes on a loan is actually concerned about their financial future than they are in the wrong business. And this is one reason why it is so important to make adult education a personal affair and not a social affair. It helps to keep society in balance. It ensures that people are pursuing in demand careers. It ensures that colleges pay reasonable prices for the services they provide. It helps ensure that employers pay out according to degree. It's a balancing act that doesn't exist if anybody can go to college for anything at the expense of others. What's the difference anyway, instead of paying up front and then paying it back, you get it for free, and then pay it back in taxes! As for unequal teaching, that's the same everywhere. It's not unique to America, and it will never be true ever, anywhere, either.

I didn't want to turn this into an America vs. Finland post, but since you insist.

1. There are private schools in Finland.
2. Finland's per capita GDP is some 25%+ lower than America's
3. Finland's median income is about equal to the poverty line for a family of four in America, and more than ten thousand dollars less on a PPP basis than in America.

I know that Finland has the "best education in the world." But what the hell is it getting you? You want to parade around your nations egalitarian ideals, fine. You want to talk about how equal everyone is in Finland, fine. But just remember that your quality of life is way worse than it is in America, and you don't have a single university in the top 100 lists while my evil capitalistic nation has dozens that service tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of students, rich, poor, black, and white, every single year. And not to get racial, but your country isn't racial. It's about as pure of a nation as you can possibly have. It's homogeneous and has never had to face to social pitfalls that a nation like America has. So yeah, about that...

I didn't mean that the teacher would do that on purpose. An example: there are students X and Y who've got the same test results, and it's time for their teacher to give them grades. It's difficult to decide whether they would deserve an A or a B. Teacher happens to like student X for some reason, and gives him an A. Student Y is a in the teacher's opinion bit annoying for some reason, and the teacher gives him a B. The teacher gives two different grades to students because he disliked one of them a bit. He didn't do that on purpose: it's more of a subconscious thing as we make decisions without really understanding why we decided like that. Things like this have happened before and will happen in the future. We humans are prone to make errors. That's why rank in class is a bad criterion for college admissions.

And you think this can't happen everywhere else in the world too?

 

[Lay_Lay]

Rich does not necessarily mean easier time at gaining an education, when comparing one individual to another. It is only true when talking mass statistics.

Real Fairness would mean that we examine each individual's unique situation. All apsects - holistically. A rich kid from a broken home with a drug addicted mom is often not as "well to-do" as the working class kid with a solid parental unit guiding him with high expectations.
I don't support any of this social engineering, however. I am of the mindset that each citizen should pay for his own stuff in life. This implies that parents are responsible for their own child's expenses. If you cannot afford the child's expenses, then tough luck for ya'll - shouldn't have had the kid. Don't make him my burden.

 

[Lay_Lay]

I went to Michigan State.
My first semester I lived in the dorms with other 18 year olds who came from vastly different high schools from all over the state, all income levels. I came there from a big high school out of state, but I was living and studying with some "from in the middle of no where, small podunk school kids".
But they graduated high school ranked like 5th/100, or 10th/200, in small towns. Sounds impressive right? They really weren't. I am in the same Chemistry, Calculus, Writing groups as these guys, but I graduated high school ranked 13/550, from a very large and old/established suburban high school.
These guys did not know their stuff - some of them studied very hard at MSU but still flunked out within the first year. Not, partied too hard. Studied and flunked out. I'm thinkin at the time, "you are going to go back to Muskegon, and still be the hero amongst your peers, having given the Pre-Vet program your best shot." Can't even do Chemistry 102, College Algebra 101.

Nothing is equal. I was way more prepared than they. Then I found out very soon later, how underprepared I was compared to some other kids (who had gotten their partying phase out of their system pre-college.)

 

[Hitti-Litti]

When I was talking about students parking their butts and learning, I was talking about high schoolers. It is a lot easier to concentrate on school when you don't have to work. But this isn't about what's easiest. This is about finding the best candidates who can accomplish the work required to get a degree at any given educational institute. A person who can go to Harvard and work and get a 3.5 carries far more merit to enter into the college than a person who needs all of his time to get a 3.5. Am I right? Or am I wrong here? The ability to juggle and handle real life carries gravitas to college recruiters as well as employers. Who do you think an employer wants to hire, a student who did nothing but study his entire student career, or a person who got equal grades while also working? Do you think I obtained my position in life because I locked myself in the library and used every moment of my life to earn a 3.6 GPA? No, I got it because I already had an established work ethic AND I was competent at my school work. Who do you think gets more out of college, a person like me, who worked his way through college, built a work ethic, established a reputation, earned good grades, paid my own way, and am now paying back those loans, or some kid who does nothing but study at the expense of others in society? In my view my road was unequivocally better than the Finnish route, of never working before you're 22. Also, I never worried about my financial future because I knew it would pay off in the end. If anybody who takes on a loan is actually concerned about their financial future than they are in the wrong business. And this is one reason why it is so important to make adult education a personal affair and not a social affair. It helps to keep society in balance. It ensures that people are pursuing in demand careers. It ensures that colleges pay reasonable prices for the services they provide. It helps ensure that employers pay out according to degree. It's a balancing act that doesn't exist if anybody can go to college for anything at the expense of others. What's the difference anyway, instead of paying up front and then paying it back, you get it for free, and then pay it back in taxes! As for unequal teaching, that's the same everywhere. It's not unique to America, and it will never be true ever, anywhere, either.

The thing is that getting equal grades while working is quite difficult and certainly doesn't give equal opportunities to all. Sure, the employer would employ the guy who worked and got a 3.5 average rather than the guy who didn't work and got 3.5 average. But what if the guy who works gets a 3.0 because he can't focus on schoolwork, while the rich kid gets a 3.5? If the smarter guy didn't have to work, he would get an even better average, thus showing his real skills without having to rely on assumptions like "he had a job so I guess he was better." And yeah, good for you if you truly benefited from your college time, but using your personal experiences isn't really a good argument in a subject as wide as the education system of USA. Although I have to note that a part time job while studying is quite common in countries with free education as well. The most important thing is that people have a choice, that they're not forced to work while studying in order to be able to pay for their education.

The big difference between paying it yourself and in taxes is that when paying in taxes, everyone participates in your education bill. Education is essential for a society to function, so in my opinion it's natural that all tax payers finance other people's education. Having educated people is a good thing for everyone, so why shouldn't everyone pay for it?

I'm aware that the levels of teaching will never be completely equal anywhere, but I'm quite confident that the situation of it in USA can be improved a lot. A system where there is a great number of different kinds of private schools can never provide an equal level of teaching for everyone.

I didn't want to turn this into an America vs. Finland post, but since you insist.

1. There are private schools in Finland.
2. Finland's per capita GDP is some 25%+ lower than America's
3. Finland's median income is about equal to the poverty line for a family of four in America, and more than ten thousand dollars less on a PPP basis than in America.

I know that Finland has the "best education in the world." But what the hell is it getting you? You want to parade around your nations egalitarian ideals, fine. You want to talk about how equal everyone is in Finland, fine. But just remember that your quality of life is way worse than it is in America, and you don't have a single university in the top 100 lists while my evil capitalistic nation has dozens that service tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of students, rich, poor, black, and white, every single year. And not to get racial, but your country isn't racial. It's about as pure of a nation as you can possibly have. It's homogeneous and has never had to face to social pitfalls that a nation like America has. So yeah, about that...

Me neither, I was looking for an America vs everyone else... but I'll answer anyway, as I think these answers apply quite well to for example other Nordic countries and Estonia.

1. Yeah, maybe ten or more, but only Steiner schools and some Christian schools as far as I know. Not important in any way when talking about education in Finland.
2. We live in the middle of nowhere, what did you expect?
3. If my income can buy me a nice life in here, why would I care if it won't back there?

I find it disgusting that you're measuring quality of life my only material things, such as GDP. Call me a commie, but what you own isn't everything. I don't have a PS3 or an Xbox 360, but I'm still a happy person. HDI is a much better index for measuring quality of life. And yeah, there are no top universities here, but at least everyone can afford to go to the best university in here. I agree that we've never had any real racial issues, but that doesn't mean that this place has always been a Shangri-La.

And you think this can't happen everywhere else in the world too?[/QUOTE]
It happens everywhere in the world. That's why class ranks are an awful way to measure the success of students.

 

[Earthling]

You know, I don't know of any evidence that Class Rank is being taken more seriously. The recruiters who talked to me when I was applying 5, 6 years ago told us that was the least important metric (although still a metric) and the recruiters who I've talked to in HS now tell our students that your SAT/ACT is still the most important number, followed by grades. I personally think your class rank tells you very little about a particular student, although it can let you know about the general quality of his school if you're unfamiliar with it.

It's not important except for a few selective private schools or a couple scholarship things in a couple states. It would be great if FAL provides a source if he thinks otherwise, because I've never heard that it was overly important in college admissions either. (ie. Harvard will ignore people with lower class ranks). With the right grades and test scores pretty much any public universities will take students regardless of class rank.

 

[Arwon]

It's weird how people respond to "things are currently very unfair and very unequal" with "WELL THINGS CAN NEVER BE TOTALLY FAIR AND EQUAL!!!" Surely the nuance there isn't that hard to miss.

Also: GDP is not a measure of well-being or quality of life. It's a measure of the production output of the moneyed section of the economy, which used to be a reasonable proxy for well-being, but now isn't. It's also arguably not even very good at measuring production any more.

 

[Zelig]

But they graduated high school ranked like 5th/100, or 10th/200, in small towns. Sounds impressive right? They really weren't. I am in the same Chemistry, Calculus, Writing groups as these guys, but I graduated high school ranked 13/550, from a very large and old/established suburban high school.

Since you were so good at calculus, you should realize that 13/550 is a significantly better ranking than 5/100.

 

[Lay_Lay]

OK, but if I add that my large suburban public high school's top 100 students are better prepared than all 100 of the small town students, for example. It is the reality out there. Or was - it was a long time ago when I was 18 bro.