re: Southern Universities in 2026

Says the tard from an open admissions school that sports tranny purple and gold. Notice nobody on here is wringing their hands over getting into LSU. Just stay sober enough to scrawl an X on your application and you're in.

Do admission offices have the resources to track student performance post-acceptance? My wife worked in admissions at Auburn and they didn’t have the resources nor staff to undertake that type of analysis.

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Public schools will give everyone a C to move them through. Private schools give everyone A's so the parents stay happy and keep paying that $50k a year in tuition.

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Opposite here in Baton Rouge. Public kids that can’t read out loud have 3.7 GPA or 4.4 out of 5.0. Same kids would fail out of private.

The private schools are 10 times harder and the teachers try to prove their worth by having an even distribution of grades. It’s like they get pissed at all the smart kids making A’s on tests so they look for ways to get their grade down.

This is why certain populations don’t like standardized tests, it documents what you actually know. The private school kid with a 3.0 is scoring 28 on ACT and public school kid with 4.4 GPA is scoring 17.

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Making a 31-34 on the ACT now is like making a 24-28 20 years ago.

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Respectfully, do you have any objective evidence to support this statement, other than subjective opinions, emotional pleas, or your personal intuition?

You also need to explain (1) the much lower acceptance rates that have accompanied rising scores at Southern universities and (2) the astronomical rise in rankings (presumably, if your thesis was true, then Southern colleges would be ranked similar to their positions 20 years ago, as every college would receive these falsely inflated standardized test scores).

Also, if the average ACT at UGA is “really” only a 26-27 (rather than a 32-33) does that mean the average Mississippi State student is only “really” scoring a 17-18 on the ACT, based on your readjusted metric accounting for “score inflation”?

Thank you in advance for your insight.

Overall ranking for all Southern Universities 2026;

1 Duke (7)
2 Vanderbilt (17)
2 Rice (17)
4 Washington- St Louis (20)
5 Emory (24)
6 North Carolina (26)
6 Virginia (26)
8 Florida (30)
8 Texas (30)
10 Georgia Tech (32)
11 Georgia (46)
12 Texas A&M (51)
12 Florida State (51)
12 Virginia Tech (51)
12 Wake Forest (51)
12 William & Mary (51)
17 NC State (64)
17 Miami (64)
18 Tulane (69)
19 Clemson (75)
20 Baylor (88)
20 SMU(88)
20 South Florida (88)
23 Florida International (97)
23 TCU (97)
25 Auburn (102)
25 Missouri (102)
25 Tennessee (102)
25 St Louis (102)
29 Oklahoma (110)
29 UT- Dallas (110)
31 Elon (117)
31 George Mason (117)
31 Central Florida (117)
34 South Carolina (127)
35 UAB (132)
35 Houston (132)
37 Virginia Commonwealth (139)
38 Kentucky (143)
38 UNC Charlotte (143)
40 James Madison (151)
41 Louisville (158)
42 Alabama (169)
42 Ole Miss (169)
42 LSU (169)
42 Florida A&M (169)
42 Mercer (169)
47 Samford (179)
48 Arkansas (183)
48 Florida Atlantic (183)
50 Missouri Science & Tech (192)
50 East Carolina (192)
52 Texas Tech (198)
52 Georgia State (198)
52 UNC- Greensboro (198)
52 UNC- Wilmington (198)
52 St Thomas (198)
57 Mississippi St (208)
57 North Texas (208)

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In today's era of no child left behind, has HS and testing gotten easier over the last 25 years?

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Perhaps. Why don’t all universities have average student scores in the 30s, then? Whether you believe ACT scores are inflated is immaterial. For the sake of argument, let’s accept your thesis as true.

In that case, all schools enjoy an applicant pool of inflated ACT scores. Why have certain Southern universities outpaced other colleges in obtaining far higher scoring students? Whether scores are inflated is unimportant.

The fact remains that, relative to other universities, a strong subset of Southern colleges have beaten out their Southern peers and many formerly more illustrious Northern universities, will all schools playing in the same arena (i.e., the arena in which all students supposedly enjoy inflated scores).

To draw an analogy, no one cares that one makes $75k in 2026. In 1996, that would render him upper middle class. In modern day - with inflation - he belongs solidly to the plain middle class.

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Respectfully, do you have any objective evidence to support this statement, other than subjective opinions, emotional pleas, or your personal intuition? You also need to explain (1) the much lower acceptance rates that have accompanied rising scores at Southern universities and (2) the astronomical rise in rankings (presumably, if your thesis was true, then Southern colleges would be ranked similar to their positions 20 years ago, as every college would receive these falsely inflated standardized test scores). Also, if the average ACT at UGA is “really” only a 26-27 (rather than a 32-33) does that mean the average Mississippi State student is only “really” scoring a 17-18 on the ACT, based on your readjusted metric accounting for “score inflation”? Thank you in advance for your insight.

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The overall test is shorter taking the time pressure off. Also, the science part is optional meaning you can take it if you think it will help your score, or not if it will hurt it.

As I stated in my original post there are all kinds of workshops and special classes you can take to "beat" the ACT. A simple Google search will tell you pretty much what I've said as far as better test prep, numbers of time one retakes the test, and overall teaching test taking skills, aka "beating the test".

So, overall the number of 30+ scores have greatly increased in the last 10-15 years and has diluted the significance of a 30+

Also, to answer your question about State's average ACT score being 17-18 in my readjusted metric, yes at Ole Miss also. Go read the Ayers case if you want to know why.

Here is an article explaining the "increase" of 30+ scores and how it has taken away its significance.

LINK

A simple Google search will provide much data proving this. I'm also in education, and we have PD's on this stuff all the time. I've been part of the ACT "team" in our district to increase scores and provide these workshops.

ETA: I also forgot to add stacking. My score would've been 3-4 points higher if I had been allowed to do this.

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The population in certain parts of the south keeps growing (Texas, FL, GA, TN, NC) so those states have colleges that continue to be more competitive over time. Also, normal kids from the northeast are pouring into the southeast to have non woke, enjoyable college experiences. All of that contributes. For schools in less densely populated states like Alabama and Arkansas it means you have a surge in out of state kids helping to pay for nice new facilities. All good until the woke mind virus starts showing up and ruining the fun for everybody

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Bingo. I think that’s an astute analysis.

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When I was in high school in the stone age you could get into Rice with an SAT score in the 1200's. I think the average was around 1230. If you had a solid B average and a 1,000 SAT you were fine for A&M and UT.

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I hate boomers so much it’s unreal.