Alabama 96th in Latest USNWR Rankings

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Alabama
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Totally agree with @mom2collegekids - USNWR has always struck me as a rigged game. 22.5%, nearly a quarter, of the ranking is based on “reputation”, a canard that perpetuates itself often for generations against all evidence.

There is, in this, a huge, unavoidable bias implicit in this measure against public schools and anything in “fly over” states.

Also agree that what Minnesota has done in becoming more restrictive is NOT a good thing. It runs counter to the goal of educating all of our state’s citizenry, and I’ve seen little demonstrable improvement in our reputation out there in the 30 years since I was a student. BioSciences, Chem and ChemEng were stellar programs in my youth, they remain so now. If anything, CompSci was more prestigious here in my youth than it is now… anyone remember ‘gopher’- the predecessor to the world wide web?? (Yes, I’m that old)

My favorite rating in our search was from niche.com… Alabama was, and still is, rated A+ there, which caught my eye even before I learned about the scholarships. USNWR measures something, I’m sure. Just not much of what I’m interested in having measured.

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Bernie Madoff had a good reputation for a long time too!

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@mom2coIIegekids @khidhala I never really thought about the low end being URM. Thinking about it that way, I agree that raising the low end is not good because good/hard working students do not get a good chance to improve their economic position.

@mom2collegekids Your points in post 37 are very good and do make sense how the USN&WR is biased against many Public Universities. UMN does not need many OOS students because it has a huge draw from the Twin Cities. UA does not need a big endowment because the football team brings in enough money. @khidhala can talk more to this, looks like UMN does qualify applicants by college and offers other options. UIUC has been doing that since I applied in 1978 when I applied for accounting and they offered me engineering (obviously they knew what I really wanted)! FWIW, your posts are good because of detail and they are thought provoking!

@khidhala Thanks for the site niche.com How did you find it?

@mom2collegekids I respectfully disagree with your thoughts that raising the bottom of the roster makes the whole team stronger. I really believe that a stronger bottom on a team makes the whole better from my many years in team athletics. I bet if you had a conversation with Coach Saban, he would agree. Look at the UA Football roster, they have all-state players as back-ups. However, education should not be compared to sports. My bad :frowning:

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Typically, the top football schools have pretty low academic rankings. Notre Dame and USC are exceptions. I just wanted to point that out there.

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^^ and Stanford, UCLA even GTech

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Lets look at…

Financial resources (10 percent): … U.S. News measures financial resources by using the average spending per student on instruction, research, student services and related educational expenditures in the 2012 and 2013 fiscal years.

IPEDs measures 3 metrics:

Instructional Expenditures/Total FTE
**Student Related Expenditures/Total FTE:/b
Educational & General Expenditures/Total FTE: This is a broader category, which includes the instructional expenditures listed above, plus expenditures for research, public service, academic support, student services, institutional support, plant operation & maintenance, and scholarships.

You can use the College Results Online tool to compare the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities with UA:

Instructional Expenditures/Total FTE: UM-TC $15,083; UA $9,020

Student Related Expenditures/Total FTE: UM-TC $10,588; UA $9,797

Educational & General Expenditures/Total FTE: UM-TC $55,616; UA $20,415

Using the 3rd metric would put UA at a significant disadvantage over UM. FSU (the other 96th ranked school) numbers are very similar to UA, at $20,668

http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/search1ba.aspx?institutionid=100751,134097,174066

I’m not a big fan of having freshman apply to a college/major and then limit their ability to switch majors. I would much rather we let them in and have them take a year or so to figure out which major is the best fit. I know this lowers the 4 year graduation rate (but not the 6 year rate), but I think it’s worth it. How many 17/18 year olds know what they want to do in life?

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How about the high school counselor rankings? Why are those relevant? Am I missing something? Since it is such a big part of the reputation part of the score, maybe UA needs to do a better job of communicating its quality to these people? I think in Alabama, they are still biased in favor of Auburn, perhaps because in the 70s and 80’s, UA allowed Auburn to become the top school ( in terms of research and science degrees given) in the state.

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Typically, top football programs are associated with state public universities, and these don’t, on average, do well in the US News rankings (which favors smaller private universities).

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^^ $20k in Tuscaloosa can buy you much more then $20K in Minnesota - Twin Cities.
So Expenses will be higher in Schools up North as compare to South…

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@Gator88NE

There is likely some truth to that. Certainly some, if not many or most, of the athletes a D1 school recruits and admits will not help the class’s GPA and test score stats.

There are exceptions: schools like Duke, Stanford, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Rice, and the service academies tend to admit fewer low-scoring athletes than powerhouses like Ohio State, Alabama and USC.

Speaking of USC – USC and Notre Dame are high stat schools that, it appears, do recruit a lot like the B1G and SEC. With many of their athletes dragging down the test score and GPA averages, the rest of the students must really be superstars.

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Come on. Give football players some love. How many recruits/scholarships a year? 25? I don’t think that will drag down a large school’s class GPA/scores that much…and I’m sure there are going to be at least a few of that group who are well above average.

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I am grateful for Bama football! The players make the awesome scholarships possible from all the bowl game revenue!

Can someone give me an amen?
Er, I mean, can someone gimme a “roll tide”?

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^^ Roll Tide and Beat the Tigers then OSU…

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<<<
UA does not need a big endowment because the football team brings in enough money.


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Not true. Crimson Tide Sports is a separate entity. And, all it would take is an NCAA big sanction/probation and the annual football income would take a dive. Losing Saban would also hurt big-time.

Endowments aren’t that vulnerable. And, the univ controls it.

Yes, back-ups (2nd string, and even 3rd string) are important. Bama has 6th stringers that rarely/never see game time. Their strength or weaknesses are meaningless to the team in the long run.

But, you’re right, the sports analogy isn’t really relevant.


[QUOTE=""]
I'm not a big fan of having freshman apply to a college/major and then limit their ability to switch majors. I would much rather we let them in and have them take a year or so to figure out which major is the best fit. I know this lowers the 4 year graduation rate (but not the 6 year rate), but I think it's worth it. How many 17/18 year olds know what they want to do in life?

[/QUOTE]

I agree, but there’s some problems with that. Funding for 5th and 6th years is often not available from schools or parents or states. Eng’g is tightly sequenced.

I agree that many don’t know what they want to be when they “grow up”. Mostly because there are so many careers that they’ve never heard of…and because many gravitate towards “known careers,” for the wrong reasons (parental pressure, high salary, prestige).


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Typically, the top football schools have pretty low academic rankings. Notre Dame and USC are exceptions. I just wanted to point that out there.

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right, and their stats are often in the lower quartile. Each year only brings in - what - 25 frosh - so their stats are of minor impact when the frosh class is >6000.

That said, Bama’s football team has a high college grad rate. And, many get masters degrees while in the football program.

@natajacobson74

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To improve the 6 year grad rate a bit, I think that those who are accepted but will be taking sub100 classes, should be required to take some of those over the summer between senior and frosh year at their local CC.


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3 That 18% grad rate within 6 years is a problem (that seems very low...is that including those who drop out or transfer out?) Some of it is simply that UA sits in a good-sized city where locals also slowly get their educations there...working, going to school, etc. I also think that too many people confuse "12 credits is full-time" with graduating on time....and then kids run out of aid, parents money, etc. I also think that there is a BIG problem with the parent loan situation. Parents (not just here) borrow to pay, and then either realize that they're borrowing too much or they're next year's loan is simply denied.

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I thought that I had corrected the above 18% to 66%, but I guess the edit “didn’t take”.

I wonder if Bama became an optional CSS Profile school asking for NCP info (for institutional need-based aid consideration) and did try to meet need for instate students, if that would help?

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I think one thing we can all agree on is that Bama deserves better than #96.

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^^ Agree lets Flip the #s…

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^^^ @dadfor2014 heck, let’s just subtract the numbers lolz!

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I believe every college/university, especially large student body schools, can possibly improve their student adjustments for academic success especially during first term. Perhaps having some programs a few weeks before school begins for structuring things like time management, expectations for specific majors. If a student is not showing up for several classes, send a follow up email and ask them to walk in to see their adviser by a particular date (and have advising staff available).

I exchanged messages with a mom today whose son is a sophomore at UA like my DD. He had two room-mates, both OOS Presidential Scholarship. “They struggled away from home which resulted in a lot of skipped classes. My DS said it was like “deer in the headlights” paralyzation. They felt out of control and spent too much time in the video game world. A world where they were comfortable, could control and restart when they screwed up. Both were Presidential Scholarship recipients. Smart kids, they just weren’t ready to be completely on their own.My son just watched them go down in flames. They were nice guys, but were overwhelmed from day one. One thing I think helped my DS was being a military kid. He is used to starting over in new places, and making new friends.”

There are some things at a large school that may have adjustments be difficult even for smart kids - they may not have had to have much work ethic for HS grades, but college is a whole new world. How they choose to cope - if they captured identifying those students on adviser radar, at least the students could be directed to tutoring and other study skill resources. Mid-term grades were available for all but one of DD’s courses her first semester - that could also identify students who are not having early academic success.

Athletes with scholarships have tutors and academic help available so that they are successful in their classes - I was mildly surprised to see a room full of support staff for this function for UA football program. And some of these athletes are standout on academics - U WI QB is a senior in civil eng; UA had a center who was a 4.0 accounting graduate and I believe he won the academic award for the entire SEC football players.

As a parent, there was a bigger learning curve for DD at UA than DD at UAB, for both parent and student. If a student wants to get lost in the shuffle at UA, they can disappear among the students.Students at age 18 and 19 are making choices and they may not fully understand the ramifications of their choices.

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UA does offer Freshman Compass courses (worth 1 semester hour of credit) to entering freshmen in an attempt to help them be successful in college out of the box.

Now hearing and following advice are two different things haha…