Gaming USNews--boosting apps

<p>

</p>

<p>DunninLA, let me also write it before you ask … do not assume that I have a particular negative opinion on the “back door” entrance to a flagship school system. I do not believe that I written anything that is remotely negative about the multiples tiers of higher education in California. In fact, I think that I might have, in a moment of misguided distraction, quoted directly from Michael Kirst and his famous views on the K-16 system in California. </p>

<p>My comments were confined to the differences in the statistical analyses of USNews between schools that rely on large transfer admissions and the schools ranked above them. In a way, all the statistics regarding the level of the students who transfer to the UC flagship schools DO reinforce my theories on the vailidity of the USNews selectivity index of the UC schools.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Interesting logic! </p>

<p>Am I really the one who keeps “bringing up” Berkeley into the discussions? I think you must be confusing me with our resident italian/manilian friend. </p>

<p>But if discussing CMC makes you happy, be my guest! At least one of us will be doing the typing!</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Uh huh…nope, no negative opinion here. :rolleyes:</p>

<p>Well, here’s just one example. Bowdoin recently increased its total enrollment by 52 students, from 1,719 students in the Fall of 2008 to 1,771 in the Fall of 2009. Yet the size of its freshman class increased only by 5, from 488 in Fall 2008 to 493 in Fall 2009. The school was frank in acknowledging that the increased enrollment was necessary to produce additional tuition revenue. But rather than increasing the size of the freshman class, they elected to admit nearly 50 additional transfer students—a figure that represents a little over 10% of the entering class. That large a change all at once in the size of an entering class could indeed erode the school’s SAT and class rank scores, therefore its US News ranking relative to its competitors among the top LACs—though this is perhaps not quite as big a concern at Bowdoin as at some schools, since Bowdoin is already SAT-optional and therefore has more latitude than most to manage its SAT medians by admitting more SAT non-submitters if the medians aren’t holding up. Expanding through transfers has several virtues. First, obviously, it makes the SAT scores and HS class rank of the additional students a non-issue, because they’re simply off the US News radar screen. Second, it allows the school to admit more full-pays; Bowdoin’s financial aid web page is very explicit in saying that transfer students are NOT admitted on a need-blind basis. And those two features work hand-in-glove: because the SAT scores of the transfer students don’t count for US News purposes, Bowdoin can reach deeper into the applicant pool to find the full-pays it wants. </p>

<p>Conspiracy theory? Not really. It’s just not much of a conspiracy. These moves are pretty transparent. And it’s well known throughout academia that schools pull these kinds of stunts all the time. The US News “objective” metrics are a joke. And a very bad one at that.</p>

<p>You’re the one who brought Berkeley up in this thread…twice!..by jabbing the NAS members and criticizing its large transfer population.</p>

<p>UCB, you’ll have to do much better.</p>

<p>My sentence was “While the impact of transfer admissions is real, there is little evidence that this is an issue that interests USNews.” and my post 38 was in answer to Post 35 and corrected a wrong figure.</p>

<p>You’re simply too defensive and read too much in benign statements.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>I believe this is my first post on this thread. lol</p>

<p>bclintonk - OK, now you are proving that you are looking for only the most slimy of motives for everything. This is just ridiculous regarding Bowdoin. Yes they wanted more students in the upper classes. Nothing wrong with that. Does that mean they are purposely suppressing the freshman class? Puh-leeze. The entire school is about 1777 students, and the freshman class, as you say, is 493 (PR says 494 but let’s not quibble). They accepted 1153 students out of the nearly 6000 that applied.</p>

<p>Now maybe you have a crystal ball and could have forseen exactly which students fron the 1153 would pick Bowdoin, but with numbers this small, it only takes a few students to decide differently to make a big change to the school. Judging from their dorm options and the way they house freshmen, they can’t hold much more than 500. Since the whole school is considerably smaller than 2,000 students, that 493 is actually a big number. No wonder they were trying to balance out the upper classes. Of course a small school like this needs the revenue if for some reason the upper classes were much smaller than expected.</p>

<p>These are facts.You are really are starting to bleat nonsense. Please stop.</p>

<p>xiggi,</p>

<p>You stated, “While the impact of transfer admissions is real, there is little evidence that this is an issue that interests USNews.” </p>

<p>Let me get this cleared up a bit…what impact is real? I believe you’re implying that USNews is ignoring some critical information (a negative one in your eyes) and Berkeley’s ranking is artificially high. The rest of your post supports this.</p>

<p>

Perhaps, but coming from you, I assumed your statement was critical of Berkeley’s NAS members in that they may be older and out of touch with young students.</p>

<p>I knew bclintonk’s reasoning made no sense, and that he was seeing things through a very dark lens, but now I can see he is just being dishonest. Here are the Bowdoin freshman class sizes starting with 1989: 387, 406, 420, 409, 418, 431, 449, 443, 473, 434, 464, 452, 452, 458, 467, 471, 478, 474, 476, 489, 494. [Admissions</a> (Bowdoin)](<a href=“http://www.bowdoin.edu/ir/data/admissions.shtml]Admissions”>http://www.bowdoin.edu/ir/data/admissions.shtml) Just a shameful use of selective data. But then, he only used two data points. Just outrageous.</p>

<p>Tell us all again how they have made no effort to increase the freshman class size, bclintonk. I can only imagine that the rest of your examples are similar.</p>

<p>How is this bad? Not everyone can afford $50 applications.</p>

<p>It boosts awareness of a college.</p>

<p>It doesn’t make the applicants any less qualified than a college that requires an essay.</p>

<p>And I agree, my life was hectic around the time. I started looking at college way too late and only got one free application. Now I’m considering going to the college that gave me the free application.</p>

<p>It isn’t bad, Bookshelf. It just is that some people will let no good deed go unpunished.</p>

<p>People used to complain about what colleges charged for applications, and said they should be free if they were done online. Now some schools make it free and they complain they are trying to game the system. Since they cannot win, they just have to do what they think is best.</p>

<p>People just need to calm down about “gaming the system” with US news.</p>

<p>At my high school, even the smart kids don’t know about the us news rankings. It’s impact is probably limited more to the coasts/big cities.</p>

<p>Quite the Pollyanna outlook. First a school that is in desperate financial trouble and has to cut numerous faculty and programs is really now magically better; and now schools drumming up applicants–better qualified ones no doubt–are just doing a public service. Want to buy a cool bridge??</p>

<p>Quite the cynical outlook. Tulane was never in desparate financial trouble, it has between a $750,000,000 and $1,000,000,000 endowment. Obviously there were concerns after Katrina over numerous issues, but short term that wasn’t the main one. As far as the cuts, I have already refuted your ridiculous characterizations of them, but as an analogy many times companies cut unprofitable divisions and are indeed much stronger. Not magic at all. If you want to be a civil engineer or one of the other engineering majors Tulane eliminated, Tulane is not better. For all the other majors, including ones they have added (which you conveniently forget to mention), it is indeed better. The Honors program is stronger, there are new dorms and other facilities being built, and of course their committment to the community and the chance to help rebuild a major American city is unparalled. Just ask the architecture students who actually get to see their work implemented on a constant basis, or the enviromental science students who got immediately involved in hands-on testing, or the business students that got involved at the micro level with local businesses. Social work students obviously had more opportunities than could possibly be described.</p>

<p>So you are saying schools are not supposed to attract applicants? Laughable on its face. And yes, as is clear in the numbers and as Tulane as said clearly, the Class of 2012 was the strongest in the school’s history, and the class of 2013 was virtually the same, just a whisker less by the numbers. I am not sure why that bothers you so much. What is it you think these people are supposed to be doing, trying to have less people apply that are less qualified?</p>

<p>You sound ridiculous, really.</p>

<p>It seems to me that the only poster defending gaming of the rankings is someone who either attends a school that games or has a kid or kids who attend schools that game.</p>

<p>An endowment between $750,000,000 and $1,000,000,000 is not shabby but still less than that of some mediocre LACs.</p>

<p>You can argue that the strength of faculty or departments is irrelevant to LACs because their students willingly sacrifice that for greater access to professors and other resources. But Tulane sells itself as a RESEARCH UNIVERSITY. So its academic cuts aren’t being replaced by a more intimate undergraduate environment. They’re just more cuts to a school that traditionally has had relatively weak academics.</p>

<p>Not even worth responding to, it is so weak.</p>

<p>^ Yet you did respond anyway.</p>

<p>nyc,
In the world of academia, Tulane has never been a favorite. And when they cut some of the programs following Katrina, it was a certainty that this would not be forgotten or forgiven by those in the academic world. But it was the right business decision for the school. </p>

<p>I think one can make a good argument that the school is as energetic and effective today as it ever was and its statistical make-up is undeniably stronger in addition to plenty of anecdotal evidence to support the school’s claims to being far more service oriented than in years past. </p>

<p>As far as the Academics go, Tulane’s students like the school. the school earns an A- for Academics which they describe as:</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Other nat’l unis that received the same grade were:
Brandeis
Cornell
Georgetown
Georgia Tech
Johns Hopkins
Lehigh
McGill
Notre Dame
Tulane
U Virginia
UC Berkeley
UCLA
USC
W&M
Wash U</p>

<p>Not bad company. Tulane is a pretty good place for undergrads, even if the folks in academia loathe it.</p>

<p>What’s less credible? CP or someone who cites it as a valid and legitimate source?</p>