As I’m sure you have seen the annual US News Report of college rankings are out. We came in at #110 which if I remember correctly is a 35 point drop since our peak in 2011 or 2012. My question is: What the crap is going on? I know we shouldn’t worry about rankings and all that jazz, but until these guidance/college counselors at high schools start ignoring the rankings than we kind of HAVE to worry about them. I don’t understand it. It seems like every competition our students are in (Engineering, Business case competitions,…etc) we are dominating and they are against the “higher-ranked” universities. We used to be not too far behind UGA and ahead of UT, South Carolina, Auburn. Now we are the bottom tier as far as SEC schools are concerned. What can we do as alumni, parents of students, and students to get this going in the right direction?
I couldn’t care less. Who knows why US News ranks the way they do? I’m guessing the four-year graduation rate is at least part of the issue.
As far as what guidance/college counselors think, it doesn’t seem to be an issue. Once again, the incoming freshman class is the largest in UA history and their stats are excellent:
https://www.ua.edu/news/2017/09/ua-continues-record-breaking-trend-in-enrollment-for-fall-2017/
The US News rankings are based on the following factors:
Graduation and retention rates (22.5 percent):
Graduation rates is 80% of the score, while the first year retention rate is 20%.
Undergraduate academic reputation (22.5 percent):
The academic peer assessment accounts for 15 percentage points while the high school counselors survey accounts for 7.5 percentage points.
Faculty Resources (20 percent):
Class size is 40% of the measure, Faculty salary is 35%, proportion of professors with the highest degree in their field is 15%, student-faculty ratio is 5%, and the proportion of faculty who are full time is 5%.
Student selectivity (12.5 percent):
SAT and composite ACT scores make up 65%, proportion of enrolled first-year students who graduated in the top 10 percent of their high school classes is 25%, acceptance rate is 10%.
Financial resources (10 percent):
The average spending per student on instruction, research and student services. Spending on sports, dorms and hospitals don’t count.
Graduation rate performance (7.5 percent)
This measure was tweaked a bit this year. It’s how US New’s predicted graduation rate compares to the actual graduation rate.
Alumni giving rate (5 percent):
Used as an indirect measure of student satisfaction.
While UA’s student selectivity has increased, it’s graduation/retention rates are still fairly low, as compared to it’s peers. Also, as it’s been increasing the size of it’s undergraduate population, it’s not been keeping up with faculty. The student to faculty ratio is the worse it’s been in years (23 to 1), and I would guess that would also include class size, etc.
UA will need to stop increasing it’s undergraduate population, and start increasing the size of it’s faculty.
UA’s new strategic plan will address those issues with faculty recruitment being one of the 4 main goals…
https://www.ua.edu/news/2016/08/ua-announces-strategic-plan-for-advancing-the-flagship/
I think the old strategic plan, focused on undergraduate student recruitment, has set the foundation for this next step. If they can pull it off (and it will require funding), then the end result will be an increase in the ratings. The increase will happen because UA is doing the right things to build the university, not by gaming the “system” to increase it’s ranking.
High school counselor rankings are a huge part of this, as are PEER evaluations. It is pretty obvious that UA’s peers won’t give it higher ratings as long as it does not have similar research strengths. The reputation thing will take time to change. Part of it it could be negative attitudes about Alabama and the South, especially in this polarized era.
Also, UA needs to continue to improve its 6 Year Graduation Rate. It is too low relative to peer
schools.
GATOR: UA released its enrollment stats yesterday, and this Fall’s class has around 155 fewer students than Fall 2016. So I think the admission’s hurdle has increased a bit. But the Graduate programs enrollment significantly increased. So it seems in keeping with the strategic goals.
Lucie, actually, last Fall’s FRESHMAN class was bigger. The overall enrollment for this Fall set a record, but not that for the freshman class. This indicates that UA has started to tighten admission standards even more.
I do think Alabama high school counselors tend to be biased in favor of Auburn. The Auburn folks truly believe that Auburn is the Harvard of the South. They tend not to know how far UA has come, like how its Engineering program is now the biggest in the state, with the highest avg ACT for incoming freshman Engineering classes in the entire state.
@Atlanta68, thanks for that correction!
My son goes to Auburn, never heard anyone refer to it as the Harvard of the South. It’s a good school with great campus environment. Don’t know many at Auburn that don’t like it.
UA’s ranking from 2011 to 2018:
79
75
77
86
88
96
103
110 (this year)
Average from 2011 to 2018: 89.25
Change from 2011 to 2018: -31
Auburn’s results haven’t been that great either, they’ve gone from a low of 82 (2012) to 103, this year (2018).
http://publicuniversityhonors.com/2016/09/18/average-u-s-news-rankings-for-126-universities-2010-1017/
University of Alabama sees record breaking enrollment.
http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2017/09/university_of_alabama_sees_rec.html
Culverhouse undergrad business program moved up 18 spots to #45 - excellent program and move in the rankings.
It seems that every school has called itself Harvard of the “cardinal direction”, even Stanford, back in the day (of course Stanford is now just Stanford). What that tells me is that Harvard is the college that all aspire to be.
CU123, I am not so impressed with Harvard given the poor leadership and business dealings of its alumni.
Threeofthree: Did you grow up in Alabama?
I’ve heard folks refer to Duke and Vanderbilt as “Southern Ivies,” but Auburn? Never. It’s a public uni for one thing and has always been best known for its engineering strength, something Harvard didn’t even have until recently.
Every private school aspires to be Harvard because, like it or not, they are the most difficult (or among a handful of most difficult) to gain admission to, and they have a HUGE endowment. Public unis have a different mission. I think most public flagships aspire to be in the same cohort as Berkeley, Michigan, UCLA, Virginia, and UNC. Those are the premier public schools in the nation (along with some non-flagships like Georgia Tech), and probably a few others I’m overlooking. (I personally think of Texas that way.)
Is US News only polling Alabama guidance counselors when it’s rating Alabama and Auburn? That would be odd, wouldn’t it?
Other than Yeshiva, no university has fallen more in rankings over the last 8 years than Bama. Given what is actually going on there I found this really confusing.
Can someone who has access to the rankings see if Bama’s Peer Reputation score has stayed about the same as it was 10 years ago? I suspect it has not changed and won’t till the research programs get more attention. That takes a lot of time.
Lucie,
I am not sure which pool of guidance counselors are picked for each school, but I would imagine that the majority of guidance counselors rating UA and Auburn, are in the state of Alabama. Maybe I was exaggerating a bit when I said Auburn folks consider it the Harvard of the South, but they definitely seem to think Auburn is the better school, and in the past, they were probably right, at least when it comes to STEM programs. Growing up in Alabama, Auburn definitely had the reputation for being the science and engineering school.
In the west only folks interested in College Football may have heard about Auburn!
On the TV show “Crazy Ex Girlfriend”, there’s a running joke about how many different schools get called “The Harvard of the South”, or, really, any cardinal direction. It started with Emory. Here in Gainesville, UF gets that designation occasionally. I’ve also heard Rice, Duke, and Vandy at least a couple times each.
Atlanta68 - no I grew up a military kid - Born at Maxwell AFB in Montgomery and left when I was 3, on to Morocco, New Hampshire, Philippines, Washington DC, Texas, plus a lot of travel in between and on holiday. Father retired in Texas and I went to college there and moved to Atlanta in my early 30’s - been here 30 years. Never been back to Alabama until my son took his tousr at UA and Auburn.
I think had you been raised in Alabama you would recognize what I discussed. Back in the 70s and early 80s, UA was stagnating while Auburn was growing and gaining a good rep for its Engineering program.