http://www.golocalprov.com/lifestyle/20349/
This was an interesting article explaining some of the statistics that are often thrown around in college admissions. Worth reading if you are in the middle of applying to colleges or just starting to develop a college list.
The comments about wholistic admission fit with my experience: as much as schools, particularly very selective schools, talk about looking at the whole student, they only look at the whole students who meet their minimum criteria for the numbers. This would be unfortunate if their education was truly more effective than other schools with less selective admissions, but that is a topic that is hotly debated, and I tend to come down on the side that thinks Ivy League colleges are highly over-rated.
When looking for a college, it is helpful to look at more specific statistics than just the entry GPA and SAT/ACT scores. If your goal is graduate school, what percentage of students go on to graduate studies from that college? If a certain job is your goal, what percentage of students in that college are in that department(larger programs tend to have better facilities), and what percentage are employed in that career field within a year of graduation? It would surprise you how high some of those statistics are in schools you may never have heard of.
Remember, you will be paying a LOT of money for your college degree, so it pays to do some serious consumer research.
