Rose-Hulman amongst the smartest in the nation

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTHI) - Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology has been ranked among the smartest colleges in America, and its students have been cited best in the nation for their memory skills. The rankings are based on an analysis of human cognitive performance from game play data conducted by Lumosity, a national neuroscience research company.

Rose-Hulman ranked No. 9 among the top 50 smartest colleges in the Lumosity report. Here is the top 10 college on this year’s list:

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2. Harvard University
3. Stanford University
4. Northwestern University
5. Yale University
6. Washington University in St Louis
7. Dartmouth College
8. Wellesley College
9. ROSE-HULMAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
10. Duke University

Examining cognitive performance areas, Lumosity researchers announced that Rose-Hulman students have the best memory among institutions on America’s Smartest Colleges list.

“I love to see Rose-Hulman students gain national attention for their intelligence and academic accolades,” stated Michael DeVasher, Ph.D., Assistant Vice President for Enrollment Management and a former mathematics professor who specializes in statistical analysis.

However, DeVasher was even more delighted to see that the Lumosity study revealed that Rose-Hulman students show a remarkable improvement in their cognitive skills throughout their college careers. The Lumosity median grand index score for Rose-Hulman far exceeds the students’ predicted score, based on original SAT and ACT composite scores.

“This means that Rose-Hulman has a huge positive residual effect, nearly the largest of all the 403 ranked schools,” DeVasher stated. “For schools with entering SAT and ACT scores comparable to ours, Rose-Hulman’s Lumosity grand index score is much higher.”

The study examined game play data from over 60,000 college students across five cognitive areas: memory, processing speed, flexibility, attention and problem solving.

"This new metric is really interesting because for the first time, we are able to directly measure cognitive performance by looking at the underlying core cognitive abilities of a student population," said Daniel Sternberg, Ph.D., Data Scientist at Lumosity. "Deciding where to go to college can be a difficult decision, and this analysis provides college applicants another data point to determine what the right college fit might be for them."

The study included only users who had played at least one game in each cognitive area, and who had provided their date of birth and gender. The list includes only institutions with at least 50 users who had complete score and demographic data.

The complete whitepaper including a full list of over 400 colleges and the top 50 schools by cognitive area is available at http://blog.lumosity.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Lumositys-Smartest-Colleges.pdf.