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Outbyte Driver Updater FREEFix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Outbyte PC Repair FREERepair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →MIT, Harvard and Stanford ranked first, second and third in Lumosity’s 2012 “Smartest Colleges in America” list, as reported by VentureBeat on November 1, 2012. The ranking compared scores from a selected sample of Lumosity users associated with colleges—not the intelligence of every student at each institution.
What the 2012 list ranked
VentureBeat presented the list as a playful college comparison. Its ranking was based on Lumosity game scores, not admissions statistics, grades, research output or a direct assessment of all students. The reported top five were:
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
- Harvard University
- Stanford University
- Northwestern University
- Yale University
In Lumosity’s analysis, MIT had a median Grand Index score of 113.88 and Harvard had a median score of 113.31. These are results for the study’s eligible Lumosity users assigned to those institutions; they are not scores for the student bodies as a whole. VentureBeat’s November 1, 2012 report reproduced the ranking and its methodology.
How Lumosity calculated the ranking
Who was included
Lumosity reported 89,699 candidate users. The final sample consisted of 60,366 users affiliated with 411 institutions. The final sample’s median age was 21.1 years, and 49.4% were female. These figures describe the analysis sample, not the colleges’ overall populations.
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Reported eligibility requirements included being 17–25 years old, playing at least one game in each of five areas, and supplying date-of-birth and gender information. Lumosity assigned users to universities using self-reported email addresses and/or the web domain associated with an IP address; VentureBeat said the email address took precedence when those signals conflicted.
How scores became a college ranking
The analysis used users’ first scores in games covering Speed, Attention, Flexibility, Memory and Problem Solving. Lumosity reportedly normalized scores, adjusted them for gender and linear and quadratic age effects, and combined the adjusted results into a Grand Index. Institutions needed at least 50 users meeting the score and demographic requirements to appear on the list.
The methodology, as reproduced by VentureBeat, put it simply: “We ranked institutions based on their median Grand Index score.” In other words, the institutions were ordered by the median of eligible users’ combined scores, not by the highest individual score or an average across every enrolled student.
What the results can—and cannot—show
The ranking indicates how the eligible Lumosity users attributed to each institution scored under Lumosity’s game-based measure. Because it relied on a selected group of app users and institution assignment based on email or IP-domain signals, it cannot establish that MIT students in general were smarter than Harvard students, or rank the intellectual ability of entire student populations.
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It is best read as a historical comparison of a specific user sample and scoring method. The sample sizes and minimum threshold do not turn it into a representative census of college students.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Later lists used different years and methods
“Smartest colleges” lists from different years are not interchangeable. Lumosity’s 2013 edition put Washington University in St. Louis first, followed by MIT and Princeton, according to a reproduction of its announcement by MarketScreener. A separate 2015 Business Insider ranking used SAT and ACT scores converted to a common metric, as described in a Yahoo Finance republication. Those lists answer different questions because they cover different years and use different data.
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