<p>Congrats and Condolences to everyone who was awaiting a decision from Elon!</p>
<p>I have been trying to find Elon on US News' LAC/Universities 2009 list, but it can't be found. When I go to the main ranking page and search for it, it comes up with a ranking of 2 and rating of 94 under Universities-Masters (South).</p>
<p>Why isn't Elon undergraduate ranked by US News???</p>
<p>I believe the ranking is under U- Masters South because the highest degree they offer is a masters.... so they are # 2 of the southern U's that do not offer PHd's.</p>
<p>Yeah, No. 2 in Masters-South. The USNews is generally (though not always) based on the Carnegie classification -- in addition to the Master's degree thing mentioned by ncmomX2, the fact that the majority of their degrees are in fields other than Arts and Sciences steers them away from the LAC category. If they had Ph.D. programs they would possibly be in the National Universities category.</p>
<p>Elon is not ranked on the 100 list, but is listed as an up and coming school by US News.</p>
<p>My daughter was accepted, and while on the one hand I don't want to care about a lack of ranking for its undergraduate school, it does bother me.</p>
<p>Also, in the Northeast it does lack name recognition, and while I don't want to get caught up in that, I have to admit that I really have a hard time imagining having to explain what Elon is and where it is if my daughter goes.</p>
<p>However, we visisted the school for the Fellow interviews, and honestly, I was impressed. </p>
<p>We will just wait for the rest of schools to come in, and go on from there . . .</p>
<p>Phineas....</p>
<p>Elon is VERY well known in the Northeast! It's hugely popular with both of the public and private schools. I see ELON stickers alot. My son is graduating in May. I've nothing but positive to things to say about the school. It has served him very well!</p>
<p>Elon IS ranked. Number 2 in Masters level schools in the South. No school is rated in the main category unless they offer PhD degree I think. Elon as also named number 1 school to watch. List of rankings and recognitions is on the web site.</p>
<p>The majority of my kids friends at Elon are NOT from the south, and heavily skewed toward the NE.</p>
<p>For what it's worth, the most recent number on state of origin:</p>
<p>State
CT 182
DE 33
FL 247
GA 186
MD 521
MA 294
NJ 314
NY 165
NC 1806
OH 201
PA 323
SC 77
VA 437
WV 44
Other 626</p>
<p>so NC has almost half the undergrads, but there is a large contingent from the NE and Mid-Atlantic. As recently as 5 years, ago, the numbers from the NE states + NY/NJ were:</p>
<p>State
CT 124
MA 155
NJ 231
NY 111</p>
<p>That looks like it is either old data, or data from applications. Here is the data on the Freshman class.</p>
<p>Students in the Class of 2012 come from 40 states and 37 countries. There are 65 international students in the freshman class. These are the top ten states that incoming students are from: </p>
<p>NC 25%
MD 9%
VA 8%
NJ 7%
MA 8%
PA 6%
FL 4%
NY 4%
CT 5%
OH 5%</p>
<p>Our daughter is a Junior this year, and I DO understand having to explain Elon to those in the Northeast. When my daughter applied to Elon,very few in our town (25 miles from Boston) where familiar with the school. Oh how that has changed!!! Quite a few students in my younger daughters senior class applied this year.Elon is developing a very positive reputation!( and is becoming increasingly difficult to get into.)There are many students from the Boston area…and an established Alumni group(I think). I only expect that things will improve as far as name recognition goes. I must say my daughter is very happy; it was the PERFECT match for her. Good luck in your decision making!</p>
<p>Don’t quote me, but I am pretty sure that Elon’s acceptance rate has dropped 4% this year, from 42% to 38%. I noticed the change while updating my daughter’s list.</p>
<p>But back to my original question. I would really like to see Elon ranked in the same list as other LAC’s my daughter is considering…maybe for 2010?</p>
<p>You notice when talking to younger generations, Elon has more name recognition. If a person is 35+ they probably haven’t heard of Elon unless they know someone that has gone there directly. Don’t take it’s past reputation as an indicator of it’s current reputation.<br>
“That looks like it is either old data, or data from applications. Here is the data on the Freshman class.”
That’s just sets of data. Yours is percentages for the freshman class, while Iderochi’s is raw numbers for the entire university. In a sense they are ‘old’ numbers, but it includes the entire university instead of only the freshman class. A basic understanding of statistics would help when looking at sets of numbers.</p>
<p>When my sweet, 88 yo grandmother heard that her great-grandson was considering Elon she said, “Oh, don’t send him there. It’s a bad school.” How did she know that? Well, because her mother told her so…in 1938. :D</p>
<p>“That looks like it is either old data, or data from applications. Here is the data on the Freshman class.”</p>
<p>Speaking of data…and let me preface this by affirming my belief that Elon is a great school and is getting better by the year. I was a little astonished, however, to read on more than one occasion that Elon boasted an average GPA among admitted students of over 3.75. As a matter of fact they state on their UCAN entry that the average GPA for incoming freshmen is 3.95! Really!!! That puts Elon is rarified air. By comparison, here are the average GPA’s for some fairly good competitors:</p>
<p>Bard College 3.5
Colgate University 3.6
NYU 3.6
Mount Holyoke 3.66
University of Rochester 3.7
Vassar College 3.75
Wesleyan University 3.77
Penn 3.83
Smith College 3.89</p>
<p>Elon the Harvard University of the South? Who knew!</p>
<p>The only problem I have with inflated claims like this is that it can – even if only in isolated incidences – drive away less than perfect students who might be a great match for the school and vice versa. The son of an acquaintence actually had decided not to apply to Elon at the last minute because he thought his 3.69 GPA just wasn’t competitive. Fortunately, he looked a little deeper, applied and was accepted. Chances are good he’ll be at Elon later this year.</p>
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<p>I get the same reaction from my 76-year-old dad when I tell him of colleges that he’s never heard of…I have a feeling that Elon won’t continue to have that (non?) reputation for long.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I know a friend who had a football scholarship back in the day when they were still called the “Fighting Christians!”</p>
<p>I agree that Elon needs to be clearer on how they calculate their GPA for reporting purposes. My understanding (from 2 years ago, when I asked) is that they now report their own re-calculated GPA (an additional 2 quality points for AP grades, 1 quality point for honors). In the past, they mainly just reported what was on the student’s HS transcript. An unweighted 3.65 in a fairly challenging curriculum (which I assume includes some AP and/or Honors) is certainly competitive for Elon.</p>
<p>Bettzke, just curious…what significance do you place on a school being ranked by a certain magazine or on a certain list??</p>
<p>Agreed about methods of calculating GPA. Naviance lists 3.39 as the average accepted GPA past three years from our HS with 40 students applying.</p>
<p>ChiDad,</p>
<p>I’m sure (because you asked the question) you know that there are many rankings published each year. Is there one that is the one to be believed? I’m certainly not living day to day by following a certain ranking or list. Also, different services change methodologies from year-to-year, so there is no grounding for comparison. However, US News is one of the most highly-regarded rankings in the USA, and I am interested in what it has to say, and why some schools aren’t even on their list. Isn’t it fun to be educated by being aware of different views in the world?</p>
<p>US News is certainly one data point, based on the particular methodology that they use. It does in fact list Elon, in the category of schools whose highest degree is a masters. I believe it is second in the South region. That is an evaluation of the undergraduate program.</p>