2008 vs 1999: What’s changed in the USNWR data? Who’s hot and who’s not?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I often hear comments about a certain school being “hot” or one that has “momentum.” For confirmation of whether this is truly the case or not, I looked at the data for national universities in the 1999 USNWR Top 30 vs the 2008 USNWR Top 30 and how their numbers have changed over the last 10 years. There are some pretty interesting changes (and non-changes) herein:</p>

<p>GRADUATION & RETENTION RANK </p>

<p>2008 Rank , 1999 Rank , Positive Change, College</p>

<p>35 , 69 , 34 USC
32 , 44 , 12 Carnegie Mellon
24 , 35 , 11 UCLA
20 , 28 , 8 U Chicago
7 , 14 , 7 U Penn
25 , 31 , 6 UC Berkeley
20 , 25 , 5 Caltech
9 , 14 , 5 MIT
9 , 14 , 5 Columbia
17 , 22 , 5 Wash U
5 , 8 , 3 Brown
26 , 29 , 3 Vanderbilt
3 , 4 , 1 Notre Dame
9 , 10 , 1 Georgetown
18 , 19 , 1 Tufts
2 , 2 , 0 Princeton
1 , 1 , 0 Harvard
3 , 2 , -1 Yale
5 , 4 , -1 Stanford
20 , 19 , -1 Johns Hopkins
15 , 14 , -1 Rice
26 , 25 , -1 U Michigan
7 , 4 , -3 Dartmouth
13 , 10 , -3 Northwestern
13 , 9 , -4 U Virginia
26 , 22 , -4 Wake Forest
9 , 4 , -5 Duke
15 , 10 , -5 Cornell
32 , 25 , -7 U North Carolina
26 , 14 , -12 Emory</p>

<p>FACULTY RESOURCES RANK </p>

<p>2008 Rank , 1999 Rank , Positive Change, College</p>

<p>28 , 45 , 17 USC
36 , 52 , 16 U Virginia
15 , 30 , 15 Dartmouth
50 , 63 , 13 U North Carolina
10 , 17 , 7 Columbia
18 , 25 , 7 Brown
38 , 45 , 7 Georgetown
1 , 6 , 5 U Penn
7 , 12 , 5 Northwestern
21 , 26 , 5 Notre Dame
17 , 22 , 5 Carnegie Mellon
3 , 6 , 3 Duke
7 , 9 , 2 Wash U
15 , 17 , 2 Rice
10 , 12 , 2 Emory
10 , 12 , 2 Vanderbilt
25 , 26 , 1 Tufts
3 , 3 , 0 Princeton
3 , 2 , -1 Harvard
2 , 1 , -1 Caltech
9 , 6 , -3 Yale
6 , 3 , -3 U Chicago
14 , 9 , -5 Cornell
22 , 17 , -5 Johns Hopkins
38 , 31 , -7 UC Berkeley
42 , 35 , -7 UCLA
38 , 31 , -7 Wake Forest
13 , 3 , -10 Stanford
20 , 3 , -17 MIT
69 , 45 , -24 U Michigan</p>

<p>AVERAGE SAT SCORES (no adjustments made for any re-centering effect) </p>

<p>2008 Avg , 1999 Avg , Positive Change, College</p>

<p>1450 , 1300 , 150 Wash U
1370 , 1220 , 150 USC
1375 , 1285 , 90 Vanderbilt
1410 , 1325 , 85 Tufts
1395 , 1320 , 75 Notre Dame
1425 , 1355 , 70 U Chicago
1295 , 1225 , 70 U North Carolina
1430 , 1365 , 65 U Penn
1435 , 1370 , 65 Columbia
1445 , 1390 , 55 Duke
1440 , 1385 , 55 Brown
1390 , 1335 , 55 Georgetown
1485 , 1435 , 50 Yale
1410 , 1360 , 50 Northwestern
1295 , 1250 , 45 UCLA
1315 , 1270 , 45 U Michigan
1480 , 1440 , 40 Princeton
1385 , 1345 , 40 Cornell
1395 , 1355 , 40 Carnegie Mellon
1385 , 1355 , 30 Emory
1520 , 1495 , 25 Caltech
1450 , 1425 , 25 Dartmouth
1325 , 1305 , 20 U Virginia
1320 , 1300 , 20 Wake Forest
1390 , 1375 , 15 Johns Hopkins
1490 , 1485 , 5 Harvard
1435 , 1430 , 5 Rice
1325 , 1320 , 5 UC Berkeley
1440 , 1440 , 0 Stanford
1470 , 1475 , -5 MIT</p>

<p>TOP 10% STUDENTS </p>

<p>2008 , 1999 , Positive Change, College</p>

<p>86% , 52% , 34% USC
90% , 59% , 31% U Michigan
83% , 62% , 21% Tufts
87% , 70% , 17% Rice
79% , 63% , 16% Vanderbilt
95% , 86% , 9% Wash U
76% , 67% , 9% U North Carolina
93% , 85% , 8% Columbia
88% , 80% , 8% U Virginia
75% , 69% , 6% Carnegie Mellon
94% , 88% , 6% U Penn
80% , 76% , 4% U Chicago
80% , 76% , 4% Johns Hopkins
99% , 95% , 4% UC Berkeley
94% , 90% , 4% Princeton
95% , 91% , 4% Harvard
97% , 93% , 4% MIT
91% , 88% , 3% Brown
89% , 87% , 2% Stanford
89% , 87% , 2% Duke
90% , 88% , 2% Dartmouth
84% , 82% , 2% Cornell
88% , 86% , 2% Emory
84% , 82% , 2% Georgetown
95% , 95% , 0% Yale
97% , 97% , 0% UCLA
63% , 66% , -3% Wake Forest
83% , 87% , -4% Northwestern
84% , 88% , -4% Notre Dame
88% , 99% , -11% Caltech</p>

<p>ACCEPTANCE RATE </p>

<p>2008 , 1999 , Positive Change, College</p>

<p>38% , 62% , 24% U Chicago
34% , 58% , 24% Vanderbilt
47% , 69% , 22% U Michigan
25% , 46% , 21% USC
21% , 40% , 19% Wash U
32% , 46% , 14% Emory
27% , 41% , 14% Johns Hopkins
18% , 31% , 13% U Penn
27% , 40% , 13% Notre Dame
13% , 25% , 12% MIT
26% , 36% , 10% UCLA
25% , 34% , 9% Cornell
9% , 18% , 9% Yale
34% , 43% , 9% Carnegie Mellon
24% , 31% , 7% UC Berkeley
23% , 30% , 7% Duke
17% , 23% , 6% Caltech
16% , 22% , 6% Dartmouth
12% , 17% , 5% Columbia
27% , 32% , 5% Tufts
9% , 13% , 4% Harvard
11% , 15% , 4% Stanford
14% , 18% , 4% Brown
24% , 27% , 3% Rice
10% , 13% , 3% Princeton
34% , 37% , 3% U North Carolina
43% , 44% , 1% Wake Forest
30% , 29% , -1% Northwestern
37% , 36% , -1% U Virginia
22% , 21% , -1% Georgetown</p>

<p>PEER ASSESSMENT SCORE </p>

<p>2008 , 1999 , Positive Change, College</p>

<p>4 , 3.7 , 0.3 USC
3.5 , 3.4 , 0.1 Wake Forest
4.8 , 4.7 , 0.1 UC Berkeley
4.9 , 4.9 , 0 Princeton
4.9 , 4.9 , 0 Harvard
4.9 , 4.9 , 0 Stanford
4.5 , 4.5 , 0 U Penn
4.7 , 4.7 , 0 Caltech
4.9 , 4.9 , 0 MIT
4.1 , 4.1 , 0 Wash U
4 , 4 , 0 Emory
4 , 4 , 0 Vanderbilt
3.9 , 3.9 , 0 Notre Dame
4.2 , 4.2 , 0 Carnegie Mellon
4 , 4 , 0 Georgetown
4.5 , 4.5 , 0 U Michigan
4.2 , 4.2 , 0 U North Carolina
3.6 , 3.6 , 0 Tufts
4.4 , 4.5 , -0.1 Brown
4.2 , 4.3 , -0.1 UCLA
4.8 , 4.9 , -0.1 Yale
4.6 , 4.7 , -0.1 Columbia
4.6 , 4.7 , -0.1 U Chicago
4.3 , 4.4 , -0.1 Dartmouth
4.6 , 4.7 , -0.1 Cornell
4.3 , 4.4 , -0.1 Northwestern
4.6 , 4.7 , -0.1 Johns Hopkins
4.3 , 4.4 , -0.1 U Virginia
4.4 , 4.6 , -0.2 Duke
4 , 4.2 , -0.2 Rice</p>

2

<p>There is at least one school on the list that shows positive change (a large one in some categories) for the first five measures, but no change whatever for peer assessment and virtually no change in rank. PA movement is glacial; or perhaps the "peers" are not really interested in graduation rate, faculty resources, SAT scores, applicants' class rank...</p>

3

<p>Yes, Tufts in particular. Tufts has really been shafted in PA even though it has improved in just about everything else.</p>

4

<p>It was Vanderbilt Univ. that I noticed first, but there are others.</p>

5

<p>Can anyone explain how "peer assessment rating" is calculated?</p>

6

<p>
[quote]
Peer assessment (weighting: 25 percent). The U.S. News ranking formula gives greatest weight to the opinions of those in a position to judge a school's undergraduate academic excellence. The peer assessment survey allows the top academics we consult-presidents, provosts, and deans of admissions-to account for intangibles such as faculty dedication to teaching. Each individual is asked to rate peer schools' academic programs on a scale from 1 (marginal) to 5 (distinguished). Those who don't know enough about a school to evaluate it fairly are asked to mark "don't know." Synovate, an opinion-research firm based near Chicago, collected the data; of the 4,269 people who were sent questionnaires, 51 percent responded.

[/quote]
</p>

<p><a href="http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/about/rank_brief_3.php%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/about/rank_brief_3.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

7

<p>^^^FWIW (which is not much) see page 2. Basically, a survey of various administrators at other institutions; it accounts for 25% of the total score.</p>

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

8

<p>Hawkette, aren't those the 1999 rankings (which came out in 1998)? </p>

<p>I distinctly remember the 1998 rankings because Duke and Yale were tied for #3. :)</p>

9

<p>re: WashU and USC test scores....just goes to show what can happen with merit money targeted towards NMFs. In USC's case, it's also a great signal that they weigh test scores heavily in admissions.</p>

10

<p>Strange that Stanford's SATs are falling behind Yale and Princeton's so much.</p>

11

<p>warbler, you are correct--the rankings are the '99 rankings that were published in '98:</p>

<p><a href="http://chronicle.com/stats/usnews/index.php?category=Universities&orgs=&sort=2007%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://chronicle.com/stats/usnews/index.php?category=Universities&orgs=&sort=2007&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

12

<p>USC's SAT scores jumped 70 points in two years. I find it hard to believe that is due to merit money. They must have pumped millions into their gift aid in 2001. Or, they found a new way to calculate their SAT range....
If their graduation rate doesn't improve dramatically over the next few years, that will be suspicious (because the SATs of the USC 2001 freshman class jumped).</p>

<p>The 1998 comparison with 2008 is just one pair of years. The picture can look quite differently if you choose different years. There is a lot of random fluctuation.</p>

<p>In US News rank, I went back to 1988 when the rankings were based on peer assessment. For years, US News only ranked the top 25. If the school did not have a 1988 rank, I went back to the oldest US News rank I could find. If you selected different years, you might get yet another picture.</p>

<p>It would be interesting to compare the 5-year average rank 1988-1992 with the 5-year average ranks for 1993-1997, 1998-2002, and 2004-2008. </p>

<p>More than half the schools changed rank by 5 or less over 20 years 1988 to 2008 despite changes in ranking method. The publics went down in rank considerably when US News went to a formula-driven technique.</p>

<p>If you exclude publics, nearly 75% of the private schools are within 5 of their original 1988 rank.</p>

<p>2008-1998 diff, 2008-1988 diff, school
14 17 USC
4 16 Caltech
1 14 U Penn
4 12 Wash U
1 9 Columbia
-1 8 Emory
1 5 Vanderbilt
-3 4 MIT
0 3 Princeton
-4 3 Northwestern
0 2 Johns Hopkins
-1 1 Wake Forest
3 0 Carnegie Mellon
-1 0 Harvard
-2 0 Yale
5 -1 U Chicago
-1 -1 Notre Dame
-2 -1 Duke
-6 -1 Cornell
1 -3 Rice
0 -3 Stanford
-3 -3 Tufts
0 -4 UCLA
-4 -4 Brown
-1 -5 Dartmouth
-3 -6 Georgetown
-1 -8 U Virginia
-1 -11 Coll of Wm and Mary
0 -15 U Wisconsin
1 -16 UC Berkeley
0 -17 U Michigan
-4 -17 U North Carolina
7 -18 U Illinois
5 -19 U Texas Austin</p>

13

<p>
[quote]
Strange that Stanford's SATs are falling behind Yale and Princeton's so much.

[/quote]
No offense, cherokee, but this kind of observation always cracks me up. 1480/1485 vs. 1440 = "falling behind so much?" </p>

<p>Most analysts agree that there is no meaningful difference between a student with a 1440 and one with a 1480. </p>

<p>Stanford rejects ~half of the applicants with perfect 1600 scores. If they wanted to bump that average SAT #, they could do so easily. So could several of the schools this high in the rankings.</p>

14

<p>Hawkette, Penn's sat scores for this year's us news, I believe, are inaccurate. If you look at Princeton Review's numbers in their updated book, collegeboard.com, peterson's guide, newsweek's hottest schools, you will see that Penn is at 1330-1510. And the average SAT for UPenn is a 1408 as of last year (718 M, 690 V). Therefore, your numbers are a little flawed.</p>

15

<p>wow, I don't understand why Duke, Chicago, and UPenn were able to lower their acceptance rates in that time so dramatically while NU wasn't???</p>

16

<p>^ Columbiahopeful!, regarding Penn's "average" SAT, I think what hawkette refers to as "average" SAT scores are actually the split differences between the 25th percentile and the 75th percentile--not technically an average, or even a median, but an approximation of a median based on the only available "official" information. I'm also assuming--based on Hawkette's data--that in the 2008 US News data, Penn's combined SAT range for the middle 50% has a split difference of 1430 (I don't have access to the Premium Online Edition to verify that).</p>

17

<p>45 percenter, I am saying that us news has the wrong range. I don't think that Princeton Review, Collegeboard, and Peterson's guide would all be mistakened. These guides have the right numbers for almost every other school. I don't see it as an exception with Penn.</p>

<p><a href="http://collegesearch.collegeboard.com/search/CollegeDetail.jsp?collegeId=1464&profileId=6%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://collegesearch.collegeboard.com/search/CollegeDetail.jsp?collegeId=1464&profileId=6&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

18

<p><a href="http://www.petersons.com/ugchannel/code/searches/srchRslt.asp?InunStr=5111,5407,5410,5421,5456,5563,5887,5976,6034,6146,6261,6361,6446,6447,6573,7140,7244,7358,7773,8207,8805,8895,9036,9246,9250,9334,9364,9441,9530,9785&sponsor=1&searchtype=related&related=true%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.petersons.com/ugchannel/code/searches/srchRslt.asp?InunStr=5111,5407,5410,5421,5456,5563,5887,5976,6034,6146,6261,6361,6446,6447,6573,7140,7244,7358,7773,8207,8805,8895,9036,9246,9250,9334,9364,9441,9530,9785&sponsor=1&searchtype=related&related=true&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

19

<p>^ In that case, Penn's "average"--based on how I believe hawkette is deriving it and the data from collegeboard and Petersons--would be 1420 (the midpoint between 1330 and 1510).</p>

20

<p>yeah...that is exactly what I was trying to say. US news has it wrong, I believe. And to prove that, you can see that only 50 percent of Penn's enrolled students have above a 700 on verbal. That is equivalent to that at Northwestern, which has a 650-740 range (which is indeed the range that collegeboard has for penn). I am almost pretty sure that us news has it wrong for some strange reason. if you go to the bookstore, look at Princeton Review's new college book, and you will see Penn at 650-740 for verbal and 680-770 for math. Not a big deal but a difference.</p>