2008 US News Rankings

<p>Don't the universities report the endowments to USNWR? Otherwise, it could have to do with how much money they allocate to their undergrads?</p>

<p>what are you talking about enders* game?</p>

<p>how am i wrong?</p>

<p>EndersGame, I posted this in the other thread you started about this question:</p>

<p>
[quote]
Endowment is not an element of "Financial Resources":</p>

<p>"Financial resources (10 percent). Generous per-student spending indicates that a college can offer a wide variety of programs and services. U.S. News measures financial resources by using the average spending per student on instruction, research, student services, and related educational expenditures in the 2005 and 2006 fiscal years. Spending on sports, dorms, and hospitals doesn't count, only the part of a school's budget that goes toward educating students."</p>

<p>Endowment size is not a factor (at least not directly) in the US News ranking.</p>

<p><a href="http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/about/rank_brief.php%5B/url%5D%5B/quote%5D"&gt;http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/about/rank_brief.php

[/quote]
</a></p>

<p>Please, for heaven's sake its John*s* Hopkins not John Hopkins.</p>

<p>Some posts in this thread are frightening.</p>

<p>Xiggi, I remember last year folks from Davis were saying that their ranking was depressed because the school had accidentally submitted inaccurate information and didn't catch it in time. They predicted a big jump for this year - looks like they were right. Nice to see that every once in a while.</p>

<p>Yes, being penalized for the submission of wrong data is unfair. For the record, in the 2003 edition of USNews, UC Davis ranked 43d. In 2006, 47th. In 2008, the school is 42.</p>

<p>Year '03 '08
Rank 43 42
Overall score 60 59
Peer assessment score 3.8 3.8
Graduation & retention rank 43 40
Average freshman retention rate 91 91%
actual graduation rate 75 80%
predicted graduation rate 75 81%
2006 overperf.(+)/ 0 +1
Faculty resources rank 96 116
% of classes w/fewer than 20 32 34%
% of classes w/50 or more 28 28%
Student/ faculty ratio 19 19/1
% faculty who are full time 95 94%
Selectivity rank 44 51
SAT 25th-75th percentile 1060-1280 1030-1280
Freshmen in top 10% of HS class 95 95%
Acceptance rate 63 68%
Financial resources rank 34 31
Alumni giving rank154 135
Avg. alumni giving rate 12 12%</p>

<p>
[quote]
Some posts in this thread are frightening.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>and yet you find them so TANTALIZING!</p>

<p>hehe.</p>

<p>s snack might need to get a life lol</p>

<p>Can someone post the top doctoral engineering schools?</p>

<p>Bigred...Wash U is a very fine school. No quarrel there. But I have never seen such an extraordinary effort..."campaign" perhaps would be a better word... to amass applications. To my mind, it is not right for students and parents to be determining how well a school fares academically, based on that school's efforts to boost its standing by campaigning for applications. And no matter what you say, this is exactly how Wash U goes about improving its lot in the stats. In fact, many students are bombarded with glossy literature, and yes, implied promises of extensive merit aid, thereby, enticed to apply. If either you or your child/ren have been in Wash U's target audience, then this is something you know.
Now, do I think that this sort of campaigning is a bad thing? No, not at all. It does, after all encourage many outstanding students to apply, whose parents are generally too well-off for any meaningful financial aid, but who could really use the help. Most of us, especially with multiple children, have carried this burden. This huge number of applicants allows Wash U to up its SAT scores, which raises the level of the general ability of its students, thereby allowing the professors to teach at a more challenging level. So their manipulation of their numbers does have an upside. And I think that many other colleges are catching on and will take a page out of Wash U's book. True academic powerhouses should not have to do this to attract a healthy student body, but with competition for top ranking positions so keen, this is what is going on.
My point was, that without PA, Wash U might be able to make an end run around several schools that are academic powerhouses, because it has recently become a "hot" school. I am not really interested in the "hotness" level of a school when my kids apply. I would rather like to base my opinions on other criteria. I will bet that in 10 years, or so, Wash U will fall into the 20s
unless it is able to raise its PA. If it does, I will be the first to say bravo...an amazing job!</p>

<p>I am just happy emory went up! that is where i am going so I dont care about any of the other schools. it is for pure entertainment to see these ranks jump around each year. maybe emory can jump to top 10 sometime soon. afterall, how many schools can claim to have someone like the dalai lama and jimmy carter?</p>

<p>Ahem....Fordham went up three spots too.</p>

<p>As for W & L...its one of those schools that is very hard to get into, but once there, its rather mundane. Their ONLY claim to fame is producing a Supreme Court Justice and having ties to Congress to place people as congressional staffers. Blah Blah Blah. Its a beautiful campus, mind you, but its faculty is aging and UNCHANGED in 20 years......and BORING.</p>

<p>Their admissions is not exactly the paragon of HONOR they profess...they regularly admit kids who DONT apply for financial aid and legacy kids..up to 25% who have LOWER scores than kids they rejected.</p>

<p>Its a game.</p>

<p>Its very preppy and girls with pearls. But its sports absolutely suck.</p>

<p>Its a small school in a small town with nothing to do but drink and go on sorority panty raids. FACT.</p>

<p>Can anyone post the link to the Top publics...</p>

<p>my computer keeps showing 'Computer error' when I go to the page on USnews' website</p>

<p>a ranking that schools dont track is ethics and ethos. If that were true, what would happen? What do they teach and instill in these kids? How to become rich on wallstreet and trade options/derivatives?</p>

<p>G:</p>

<p>If you've never seen "extraordinary efforts" on the part of a university to improve its position nationally, you haven't looked very far back in the past. It's been done. </p>

<p>"True" academic powerhouses, except perhaps for HYP, do and have done exactly what WU is doing --- market themselves and seek out increased applications from a targeted group of students. WU wants to draw from a national pool of talent and extensive advertising is the best way to accomplish this. Marketing is not manipulation, no matter how many times you say so.</p>

<p>WU is in fact, taking a page from UPenn, which launched a very effective campaign to improve its academic programs, attract high quality students, and improve its national standing a decade or so ago. It moved seven spots in USNWR in one year, from #20 to #13 from 1990 to 1991 and then maintained steady in the rankings before another leap, from #13 to #7 from 1997 to 1998, after which it was never out of the top 10. Some of its marketing and admissions policies were no doubt controversial at the time, but obviously proved to be the right path to take for that institution.</p>

<p>Some years ago, facing a budget crisis, UChicago hired a marketing specialist (horrors!) and followed this marketing specialist's recommendations to significantly boost enrollment and improve the quality of the student body. It more recently changed how it reported its faculty numbers to USNWR and has successfully improved its national ranking as a result. Taking steps to improve national ranking is not manipulation unless you choose to characterize it that way. </p>

<p>What's more, other "true" academic powerhouses also offer merit aid to attract top students --- Duke and Chicago come to mind --- and they inform prospective applicants of these opportunities --- not "promise" them scholarships --- through yes, brochures and mailings. Glossy or not, these materials are not untoward. (Unless it's WU).</p>

<p>Your post suggests that WU would not have its high ranking if it were not for its marketing "manipulation" and the student apps it brings in and I don't believe that's true. Or at least, it might have been true when the campaign first started, back some years ago when WU's ranking increased from #24 in 1991 to #18 in 1992, a time when USNWR placed much more weight in the ranking methodology on admission rates and "yield" rates. That changed several years ago and yield is no longer counted and acceptance rates count for only 1.5 percent. You are exaggerating the effects that large number of apps have on the rankings. Now given, it does give WU a large pool of students to choose among, but that again, is not manipulation. </p>

<p>All of the parts of student selectivity metric add up to 15 percent --- nowhere near the advantage that an inflated score in PA would be. Student SAT scores equal about 7.5 %, percentage of students in top 10 percent is about 6 % and ad rate is 1.5 %. WU does not score high because of this one component alone, but because all the other components in the overall score indicate overall excellence --- by objective measures, not feelings and opinions. </p>

<pre><code>WU's PA may or may not rise in coming years, but I'm pretty sure it won't fall. There's no reason to believe that it will lose the high number of NAS members among its faculty, or that faculty will win fewer honors, or that research will decline or that there will be any loss in the elements that make for an academic powerhouse. This administration is too willing to spend money on improving the academic program --- for example, three new engineering buildings and an accompanying increase in faculty hiring in those programs are planned --- and national recognition will follow. I'd be more worried about the decline of ranking for a university too dependent on PA for its spot --- you never know if USNWR will decide to eliminate or decrease the weight for that controversial part of the methodology.
</code></pre>

<p>gabriellah--I really disagree with your views on Wash U. My children received many mailings from many schools and Wash U. definitely sent out lots of mailings (although Colgate surprisingly enough sent out the most--we must have received one mailing every two weeks). However, even though my daughter visited the school and was a very strong candidate (she wound up applying early to Princeton), neither she or I ever felt that she was "promised" a merit scholarship or anything of the sort. In fact, Wash U. did not offer free applications or constantly bombard her with emails suggesting that she could still apply even though the deadline had passed (both tactics used by many other schools). Also, when she visited, she really liked the school and I think that the mailings actually caused her to visit, and become interested in, a school that was not on her original list. </p>

<p>I agree with bigred that many schools these days are trying to improve their US News rankings. I remember reading during the last two years that Cornell alumni had set up a committee to study how to improve its ranking and I know that many other schools have reviewed the US News numbers to see if there is a way to move up the list. While I think that the whole exercise is somewhat distressing (it's too bad that USNWR has such influence), I would not single out Wash U.--it's an excellent school which does a lot to make its students happy and comfortable (good food, good dorms, lovely physical plant) and it is also constantly seeking to improve its faculty and its course offerings.</p>

<p>bigred, very well put.</p>

<p>IMO it is ridiculous to even conceive of have a ranking without peer assessment. Perhaps the methodology is flawed. You MAY be right about that. I really do not have enough FACTS (and by "facts" I do not mean opinion, nor opinion that one believes so fervently so as to construe it as a fact) to determine for myself whether or not I can see flaws important enough to negate the entire process. Maybe, to assuage the naysayers, the peer process should be more transparent...less secretive...so that less trusting minds than my own can really understand the parameters and determinations of the assessment.
For now, I am quite a fan of PA, and have been one for the past many years, since I have been sending my kids to college. Again, abroad, peer assessment accounts for 40% of the international rankings. Some people actually understand that there are smart people in the world, especially within their own professions, who are really worth listening to. Others will never believe that, trusting only in their own less informed opinions.
Why don't you fly the airplane you are taking across country instead of letting the pilot do it? I have heard that there are some pilots with drinking problems. Perhaps you would like to be your own surgeon? I have heard that there are several inept surgeons out there. And those lists published by publications that survey top doctors in their specialties? They are terribly flawed, and are probably put together by a cabal of cronyistic doctors, who are looking to improve the rankings of their hospitals or departments therein.<br>
The entire conversation is silly. A change in PA methodology? Maybe. Eliminate PA? Then the list becomes a worthless farce.</p>

<p>I think the people who write the USNews ranking make up the peer assessments themselves so that they can artificially make the schools they want to be higher be that way, and the schools that won't sell more magazines like Tufts and Rice get a lower score. I mean, really, who exactly is filling out these peer assessment surveys?</p>