How Smart Are Incoming Freshmen?

GrayEagle · March 23, 2003

I found a source for the SAT scores for the middle group (25-75 percentile) of incoming freshmen. With a little work, I set up the rank of the 117 Division 1-A teams. There is somewhat of a flaw in that not all report SAT scores but rather use ACT scores instead. Since ACT scores are much broader, I converted them to SAT by using the average SAT scores of those that reported both.

North Texas is just below the middle of the group. They are actually tied for 63rd with Alabama, Arizona State, South Carolina and Texas Tech. They do rate the highest of the Sun Belt colleges, however.

Stanford gets the highest score. Those 75th in ranking had an average SAT of 1320. In the vast majority of schools, that would be in the top 10%. Rice's 25th ranking scores were equal to Stanfords but Stanford was more solid throughout.

Here is the ranking of the Sun Belt schools:

North Texas 63

Idaho 68

Utah State 82

Arkansas State 84

Middle Tennessee 91

New Mexico 101

Louisiana 101

Louisiana-Monroe 115

Those with the same ranking are ties; all reporting the same scores.

Other universities of interest:

Rice 2

Tulane 7

Tulsa 25

Texas 28

Texas A&M 39

Baylor 41

SMU 44

TCU 48

Oklahoma 53

Texas Tech 63

Southern Miss 75

New Mexico 79

Houston 90

UTEP 117 (and last)

While there are no rankings of each university, this study more nearly ranks the caliber of new students being attracted. As we add new schools and colleges to the present university, I think that we'll advance at least a few rungs but it will always be difficult for a public institution to surpass a private one. We can never be as selective and academics are what justifies a private college's existence.

Tulsa 25

Texas

IronMan4 · March 28, 2003

It doesn't suprise me that UTEP is that low, when I was looking at admissions requirements last year, they had the easiest in Texas by far (out of D1 football schools).