<p>Unigo:</a> Top 10 Colleges with the Happiest Students</p>
<p>Don’t tell me, let me guess - UW-Madison was ranked quite high, right?</p>
<p>Sure, predictably barrons is going to intercede when Wisconsin gets a good ranking. But you’re missing the point. There’s about zero correlation between how happy students are and their subsequent giving rate. That seems to be a function of the size of the institution (larger=lower giving rate) and the effectiveness of the alumni fundraising operation. Neither of which has anything to do with the quality of the experience. So here are the schools with the happiest students, and their respective alumni giving rates:</p>
<ol>
<li> Wisconsin 11%</li>
<li> Barnard 22%</li>
<li> BU 7%</li>
<li> Grinnell 41%</li>
<li> GW 9%</li>
<li> Brandeis 28%</li>
<li> Colgate 40%</li>
<li> Carleton 60%</li>
<li> UNC-CH 22%</li>
<li>Vassar 31%</li>
</ol>
<p>Pretty much all over the map in giving rates.</p>
<p>By way of comparison, Harvard, supposedly the gold standard in U.S. post-secondary education, has an alumni giving rate of 35%. Yale has an alumni giving rate of 36%, and Princeton reports 61% (suspiciously high, IMO, in a desperate attempt to keep up with Harvard).</p>
<p>BU and GW, LOL.</p>
<p>But I like that GWU kids are happy, deff applying there.</p>
<p>bclintonk:</p>
<p>Do you know if they include giving to the athletic department in that % or is it just people giving through the annual fund/foundation? Just curious. I know lots of alums that donate money to the athletic department of the state u where I teach so they can get seats for football/bball games but nobody gives to the foundation.</p>
<p>wow another list, it must be true!</p>
<p>holy cross has an alumni giving rate of 56%</p>
<p>Yes Wisconsin leads the Big 10 in total fundraising nearly every year.</p>
<p>[Top</a> 20 Colleges in Fundraising: Who?s Best at Tapping Alumni?](<a href=“http://www.advisorone.com/2012/03/08/top-20-colleges-in-fundraising-whos-best-at-tappin?page=2]Top”>http://www.advisorone.com/2012/03/08/top-20-colleges-in-fundraising-whos-best-at-tappin?page=2)</p>
<p>I’d be very suspicious of any one-year snapshot of total fundraising for a college or university. A large fraction of their total haul comes in connection with capital campaigns, which are cyclical, so schools in the middle of capital campaigns will be high on the list, and schools not in capital campaigns will be much lower. So mostly the list is just going to tell you which schools are in the midst of capital campaigns.</p>
<p>Reported totals may also be misleading in another way. Colleges and universities almost universally include pledges of future support in their capital campaign totals. So for example, if in 2012 Alum A pledges $1,000/year for 5 years, that’s counted as a gift of $5,000 toward the capital campaign goal and included in the 2012 fundraising total. Then when the second $1,000 actually comes in in 2013, it may be counted a second time toward 2013’s total. Similarly with testamentary gifts. In 2012 Alum B pledges 1,000 shares of 3M stock at his death. Most colleges are probably going to count the full present value of that stock in their 2012 totals, based on today’s stock price (even though a more honest accounting would be to discount the present value based on Alum B’s actuarial life expectancy). Then when B dies somewhere down the road, they’ll probably count the actual value of the stock a second time, in that year’s totals. There just aren’t any binding standards for how they report these things, and they all want to make themselves look good.</p>
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<p>Looking over US News’ description of its methodology, it looks like giving to the athletic department would be included. “Average alumni giving rate” is defined as “The average percentage of undergraduate alumni of record who donated money to the college or university.” </p>
<p>It goes on to say: “Alumni of record are former full- or part-time students who received an undergraduate degree and for whom the college or university has a current address. Graduates who earned only a graduate degree are excluded. Undergraduate alumni donors are alumni with undergraduate degrees from an institution who made one or more gifts for either current operations or capital expenses during the specified academic year.” So, gifts for “either current operations or capital expenses”; that could easily include annual giving to the athletic department, or a gift to a capital fund for improvements to the stadium, and I would imagine most schools would include such gifts to make their totals look better.</p>
<p>A few other odd features. First, a gift from a former student who didn’t graduate doesn’t count. So if former student A went to Wisconsin for 2 years, then transferred to Stanford and finished there and started a company in Silicon Valley that made him fabulously wealthy, and in gratitude he gives $30 million to Wisconsin, that gift doesn’t count for Wisconsin because A is not an “alumnus of record.” </p>
<p>Alumna B went to Marquette for undergrad and to Wisconsin for law school; her gift to the law school doesn’t count, nor does her gift to support undergraduate education. But Alumna C got both her undergrad and law degrees from Wisconsin; her gift to the law school does count, because she’s an undergrad alumna of record.</p>
<p>Alumnus D got his undergrad degree from Harvard but doesn’t care to give money to the College because he thinks Harvard has plenty of money already, but he does give to Harvard Medical School because he values the cutting-edge medical research being done there. His donation counts. Alumnus E got his undergrad degree from UC Berkeley but doesn’t care to give money to it because he thinks funding public higher education is the state’s responsibility, not his; but he does give money to the UCSF Medical School across the bay in San Francisco because he supports the cutting-edge medical research being done there. His donation does not count for UC Berkeley, because UC Berkeley and UCSF are administratively separate units of the UC System.</p>
<p>Notice also that a school could improve its alumni giving rate by conveniently “losing” the addresses of long-time non-givers. They then drop out of the denominator because they’re no longer “alumni of record” if the school doesn’t have their current addresses, so that if giving otherwise remains constant, the percentage of “alumni of record” making contributions goes up. (Those whose addresses are lost are still alumni, of course, but that doesn’t matter to the formula–even if the college could easily locate them if it had a mind to). By the same token, a school that makes a big push to find the addresses of all its alumni and fill the gaps in its records could see its alumni giving rate go down even if giving remains constant, because it’s expanding the denominator.</p>
<p>Incorrect in every way. Reporting requires only cash in the till-not pledges. Also UW has been in the Top 15 for this for many years. Usually was Top 10. They have not had a cap campaign in a decade. Actually overdue.</p>
<p>You can do your own look here and go back to 1990. Since 1990 UW’s avg overall rank was 7th of all U’s. </p>
<p>[Research-</a> The Center for Measuring University Performance](<a href=“http://mup.asu.edu/research_data.html]Research-”>http://mup.asu.edu/research_data.html)</p>
<p>Those figures are for total donations, including donations from foundations, companies, non-affiliated persons, government etc… I wonder what universities receive the most money from alumni.</p>
<p>Princeton is widely recognized as a global leader in this area, bclintonk. Who knows if the exact percentage is exaggerated, but I am certain they are ahead of HYS.</p>
<p>I see your point, barrons. The figures you’re citing are for “annual giving” which is a separate category from capital campaigns, which apparently are not reported here. Capital campaigns would fluctuate in just the way I describe, and I know for a fact that universities include pledges in their capital campaign totals. </p>
<p>But Alexandre’s right, “annual giving” can’t be taken as a proxy for alumni support, either, without knowing how much of the total comes from alumni.</p>
<p>Also notice that most of the schools at the top of the “annual giving” charts are schools with large medical schools. So Princeton, without a medical school, comes in 26th, with a little over $200 million–just over half Yale’s take, and just over a third of the Stanford/Harvard level. Cornell is a notch even below Princeton at #27, but its medical school, the Weill Cornell Medical College, is listed separately at $108 million; if you added that to the Cornell total, Cornell would edge out UC Berkeley for the #12 spot. Notice also, though, that UC Berkeley impressively holds down the #12 spot without a medical school, an impressive feat.</p>
<p>I’m sure it’s not just the lack of a medical school that separates Princeton from HYS. Law and business schools tend to be cash magnets, too.</p>
<p>Among the Ivies, Dartmouth and Princeton have the highest alumni giving rates. Among the top LAC’s, Williams, Amherst, Holy Cross, and Bowdoin are always the leaders. Holy Cross at 56% is also the best among the top Catholic schools.</p>
<p>Its interesting that Rice was first on princetonreview for happiness but not even in the top 10 for huffington</p>
<p>So true, barrk! Something is seriously awry. Princeton Review’s analysis of Rice University is spot on.</p>
<p>Alumni donation rates mean very little for various reasons. The amount that alums give is what is more telling. That is where Stanford and Caltech really do well.</p>
<p>Interestingly, there is zero overlap between the Princeton Review and uni go (as reported in HuffingtonPost) lists of schools with the “happiest students,” and little correlation of either list with alumni giving rates. Numbers in parentheses represent alumni giving rates, which US News takes to be a “proxy” for “student satisfaction.” The rule of thumb on alumni giving is that 1) smaller schools do better, probably because the relationships are more personal and there are simply fewer alumni to hound for donations, and 2) private schools do better than publics, partly as a function of size (a major public can’t possibly reach all its 500 thousand or so alumni with a personal phone call) but also probably because with public institutions there’s always a question about whether this is something that taxpayers, not alumni, should be supporting. </p>
<p>Princeton Review “happiest students”</p>
<ol>
<li> Rice (32%)</li>
<li> Bowdoin (49%)</li>
<li> UC Santa Barbara (15%)</li>
<li> Clemson (28%)</li>
<li> Vanderbilt (23%)</li>
<li> Claremont McKenna (39%)</li>
<li> Thomas Aquinas (51%)</li>
<li> Kansas State (19%)</li>
<li> USC (39%)</li>
<li>Pomona (43%)</li>
<li>Stanford (34%)</li>
<li>Ole Miss (13%)</li>
<li>Penn State (21%)</li>
<li>Brown (36%)</li>
<li>SMU (19%)</li>
<li>University of Dayton (18%)</li>
<li>Hamilton (48%)</li>
<li>Loyola Marymount (19%)</li>
<li>WUSTL (29%)</li>
<li>Occidental (36%)</li>
</ol>
<p>uni go “happiest students”</p>
<ol>
<li> Wisconsin (11%)</li>
<li> Barnard (22%)</li>
<li> Boston University (7%)</li>
<li> Grinnell (41%)</li>
<li> George Washington (9%)</li>
<li> Brandeis (28%)</li>
<li> Colgate (40%)</li>
<li> Carleton (60%)</li>
<li> UNC-Chapel Hill (22%)</li>
<li>Vassar (31%)</li>
</ol>
<p>Generally, then, inclusion of the percentage of alums who contribute as a factor in the US News rankings would tend to bias those rankings in favor of smaller schools and private schools.</p>
<p>The alternative conclusion, for those who want to insist alumni giving is a meaningful measure of student satisfaction, is that alums of LACs are generally much more satisfied with the experience than alums of research universities, including even the most elite research universities.</p>