"We find that ACT composite score distance does not correlate with peer assessment score distance and is not affected by a school’s tenure in a conference. This suggests that the convergence in academic status identified in Model 1 does not follow a similar convergence in academic quality (which, according to Model 2, does not occur), but rather reflects a change in the perception of status.6"

so the perceived status of a school converged toward its conference mates when it changes conferences, but a more concrete measure...one of the quality of the incoming students...didn't