Niche.com, a site that seeks to “make choosing a neighborhood, college, or K-12 school a more transparent process” by “providing reviews and insight from everyday experts,” has ranked Auburn University’s student body the “smartest” in Alabama.
Niche’s “Smartest Students” ranking “assesses the intelligence of the students at traditional four-year colleges and universities in the United States. It uses data sourced from various government and public data sets, Niche’s own proprietary data, and 83,762 opinion-based survey responses about students from 55,044 current students and recent alumni.”
The rankings took three primary variables into considerations.
Thirty-five percent of each school’s score is derived from student surveys, which asked students to rate the intelligence of their peers. Thirty-five percent of the score is the percentage of a student body whose composite SAT/ACT scores are in the 25th percentile or above, nationally. Thirty percent of the store is the percentage of a student body whose composite SAT/ACT are in the 75th percentile or above, nationally.
In short, Niche says “a high ranking in Smartest Students generally indicates that: 1. enrolled students scored very well on SAT/ACT tests; and 2. Students report that their peers on campus are very intelligent.”
The top ranking schools in the country are University of Chicago, Stanford, MIT, Yale, Rice and Washington University in St. Louis.
Here are Alabama’s Top 10 schools:
1. Auburn University
2. University of Alabama – Huntsville
3. Samford University
4. University of Alabama – Birmingham
5. University of Alabama
6. University of Montevallo
7. Auburn University – Montgomery
8. Oakwood University
9. Tuskegee University
10. University of North Alabama
The full Alabama list can be found here. A complete explanation of Niche’s methodology can be found here.
(h/t al.com)
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