<p>Agree very much with this…
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<p>The reputation question definitely favors not just older but bigger universities as opposed to great little LACs that may have a smaller, more regional reputation.</p>
<p>@sally305:</p>
<p>Well, USN divide the two. Of course this means in practice that many people ignore the LACs altogether.</p>
<p>Much of this so-called “gaming” is unobjectionable, and some if it positively beneficial for the university and its students. Bumping weaker applicants into a Spring admissions pool to escape the US News radar does seem a little dodgy, but Middlebury has been doing it for years. I also have serious reservations about first-term study abroad and optional test scores for international students. It seems that test scores would be most valuable for international students because it’s so much harder to judge the quality and content of their secondary schooling, but then you hear rumors of rampant cheating on the SAT at overseas test sites in some countries so perhaps it doesn’t have much value anyway.</p>
<p>What’s more disturbing to me is the degree to which Northeastern and some other schools are allowing U.S. News to dictate their institutional priorities. Again, some of the changes are beneficial, but there’s little benefit to students from setting a hard cap of 19 on enrollment in a course that previously enrolled 22 or 25, and any marginal benefit to students who take that class is dwarfed by the harm to the 3 or 6 students who are now closed out of that class. Worse–and this is only obliquely mentioned in the article–one of the most important metrics in the US News ranking is spending per student, which impels schools like Northeastern on a mad drive to increase spending and raise tuition. It’s no accident that in the period in question, Northeastern’s tuition rose from $9500 to around $43,000. Increased spending, moving from a low cost-per-student model to a high cost-per-student model, has to be an objective in its own right if you’re going to dance to US News’ fiddle (and that’s that main reason even the best public universities don’t fare very well in the US News ranking, because they’re predicated upon scale efficiencies and a low cost per student educational model)… Once you’ve made that commitment to spend lavishly, then it’s just a question of how you allocate that additional spending to move the needle on other US News metrics. But to some extent it doesn’t even matter where you spend so long as you spend, which is why Northeastern’s president makes over $3 million and seven Northesastern employees make over half a million dollars a year. </p>
<p>I think the effect is pernicious. And I’m not sure we needed one more high-cost-per-student college in the Boston/Cambridge area, which already had Harvard, MIT, Tufts, Wellesley, Boston University, Boston College, Brandeis, etc., etc. ad nauseum, and dozens more an hour or two away. The old Northeastern was a low-cost, blue-collar, urban commuter school that served generations of part-time, evening-only, and returning students. It was populated mostly by working stiffs with jobs who just wanted to better themselves, some through degree programs and some simply by picking up a few classes here and there. That kind of school is the object of US News’ disdain. Maybe we don’t care about that market segment anymore; or maybe the private low-cost urban school is simply no longer economically sustainable, and it’s “go elite or die.” But I think it’s sad that schools like Northeastern are abandoning that market niche, and abdicating to Bob Morse to decide what they become next.</p>
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<p>Gaming the formula (or maximizing it in my NSHO) is one thing and aggressive marketing is another. Some might not like it, but the easy apps at Tulane, the spamming by Chicago or the WashU boys is just part of the new world of admissions. Gaming the formula entails the type of “come to Jesus Morse” meeting to “understand” how USNews counts the chickens and allows to discard the eggs to count as well as the hens that were ordered for the next Christmas. Talking to Morse might help a school understand that playing fast and loose with the “dedication” level of the faculty or the allocations of resources to the UG might help quite a bit! And it might help to understand that Morse counts every application but only count the “standard” freshmen who enter in the Fall. Hello Midd, here you get a pass for your Spring admits! Go for it! </p>
<p>In so many words, the resurrection of Chicago in the USNews rankings was not due to solely spamming students who had zero chances of admissions but also drastically revamp the format and contents of its numbers. Chicken and eggs story -yes those animals again- at its best. What came first? The growth in applications or the publicity earned from the rapid “climb” in the rankings? You can judge that by studying the historical data. </p>
<p>It should, however, be noted that all lying and cheating in the reports is done with the USNews rankings in mind. As an example, despite plenty of moronic rumors and “analyses” by the media vultures, the faulty reports by my own schools were NOT targeting Morse and his goons! To make it worse, the inflated numbers had ZERO impact on the rankings. Yes, ZERO as the fake numbers were irrelevant to its selectivity index, but one needs to understand how that index is computed to also understand that the ranking of CMC would not change. An idiotic error by a good person who did not know what REAL cheating looks like! The school could have used a dozen different tactics and none might have raised an eyebrow at the USNews. </p>
<p>In this regard, a cynic might notice that NO OTHER school joined CMC in an effort to clean the mess (and the outright lies) in their own reports. Not many Prez or Provost are interested to “clean” their IR departments that … deliver the numbers … needed! And then you have the named in the article mercenaries a la Lloyd Tacker who pretend to rattle at the cage of the schools in the hope of securing lucrative engagements. </p>
<p>The schools DO know they are not honest, but as long as the USNews and others have to have the data, they also know they can blatantly report numbers as silly and entirely fabricated as Columbia’s (and Cal) close to 100 percent HS top 10 percent graduates! </p>
<p>It is a game! And the losers are the students who have to put up with this lack of transparency or collusion with the “checking” magazines! </p>
<p>Working stiffs still have HES. ;)</p>
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<p>I would argue that you have to discount the number of high stats students who are drawn by merit aid-- i.e., students who wouldn’t attend without the money versus non-merit aid schools that you would want to go to without the full-freight aid. I wonder if this is how the ratings do work. Most of the top 20 schools offer little or no merit aid. </p>
<p>Incidentally, the top LAC, Williams is cagey about how they present their number one status. It’s usually something like, we don’t care about the ratings while making sure they let you know they’re first. </p>
<p>^ Perhaps, but the school did more than most to increase transparency. In the last years of Morton Schapiro, Williams was posting EVERY survey it was completing in FULL as the same time that many others were doing their utmost best to HIDE the simplistic CDS form from prying eyes. Williams probably gave up as it was painfully obvious that the term transparency means very different things at the Williams campus than in Chicago or St Louis! </p>
<p>Forbes’ ranking is output based. US News is passe’.</p>
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<p>The old Northeasten model (which was not that different from the old BU and BC model) worked well at a time when there was no real public university in the Boston area. After UMass Boston developed into a full fledged multi-school university in the late 1980’s things changed. The blue collar-working class student abandoned Northeastern, as they had abandoned BU and BC a decade earlier. A no frills private school cannot compete with a no frills public school located nearby that charges a quarter of the tuition. Northeastern had to upscale in order to survive. </p>
<p>What about Alabama?</p>
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<p>Why, latichever? Money is an issue for most people, and a major part of the decision on where to go to college.</p>
<p>If more college rankings were outcome-oriented rather than based on inputs, I think the playing field would be leveled a lot. Student satisfaction, job and grad school placement, etc. say a lot more than the entering stats of students whether they received aid or not. And students can succeed at a wide range of institutions–not just those that score highest in the rankings.</p>
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<p>Another factor in the disdaining of that old model was how its admission standards had to be much lower to serve that old market. </p>
<p>One way they maintained academic standards according to older NEU alums who graduated in the mid-'90s and earlier was for them to admit large numbers of students across a wide academic ability spectrum and then “cull out” the weaker and/or unmotivated students in the first few years. All of the mid-90’s and earlier alums I worked with/knew in the Boston area recounted hearing at orientation “Look to your left, look to your right. One of you will not be here for graduation”. </p>
<p>They also admitted many remedial students, including some whose first courses was learning how to multiply/divide fractions according to some who had remedial students as dormmates or tutoring students as peer tutors. </p>
<p>Factors not likely to encourage above-average or better students…especially those from middle/upper-middle class or higher SES families from seriously considering NEU back then. </p>
<p>Those factors combined with NEU’s increasing tuition costs* which were already causing serious financial issues with many students who were their main constituents under the old model also probably factored in NEU’s need to upscale. </p>
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<li>This was a common theme mentioned by every older NEU alum…especially those who graduated in the late '80s and early-mid '90s.<br></li>
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<p>Drexel is similar to NEU and was the same through 90s. Maybe they feel the heat from the Temple and its public school tuition or heat from the glut of average private schools in Philadelphia that offer more merit aid than Drexel does. Again, I will mention Forbes’ output-based rankings. If an output-based rating is gamed then that may be good thing for society. US News is for ivory tower worshippers.</p>
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<p>I can think of better output (that is, value added) rankings than Forbes’.</p>
<p>@1stGen They don’t enroll “on campus” until the spring term. The federal government (which collects the data, that’s used by US News and others), only require the stats for fall enrollments.</p>
<p>As mentioned earlier in the thread, some schools do Spring and Summer enrollments in an effort to increase the number of students they can admit (with the limiting factor being facilities/dorms, etc.) and it has nothing to do with “gaming” the rankings. </p>
<p>For example, the University of Florida has a program that only allows students to enroll Spring and Summer terms while at UF, and denies them on-campus classes (they can still take on-line classes) and on-campus housing in the fall (the Innovation Academy). UF had to ensure all classes required for graduation where available in the Spring or Summer, before they could start the program (it’s currently limited to 30 majors).</p>
<p><a href=“http://innovationacademy.ufl.edu/”>http://innovationacademy.ufl.edu/</a></p>
<p>The co-op tradition at NEU, may also lead them toward spring enrollments, as the student population would fluctuate based on the number doing a co-op that semester. If you have extra capacity in the spring, then by doing spring enrollments you can increase the number of freshmen admitted in a year (and increase revenue via tuition!!). It’s all a win-win for NEU.</p>
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<p>Not true. The Common Data Set – used by USNews, just speaks to “Fall enrollment.” There is nothing in the directions that say the students have to be “on campus” and with the growth of blended (online) learning, that wouldn’t make any sense anyway.</p>
<p>If NEU is giving full credit and transcript grades for fall study abroad for their Frosh, then they are gaming the system. </p>
<p>Edited to add: yes, fin aid is great point. But perhaps these lower testers who head for study abroad are all full pay?</p>
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<p>NUIn students are enrolled in the Fall semester at the partner institution abroad. They are not enrolled as Northeastern students until January. Credits earned in the Fall semester appear on their eventual NU transcript as transfer credits as a P Pass grade. </p>
<p>As a parent of a NEU grad, I can tell you that its primary draw isn’t rankings so much as is its co-op program. My daughter didn’t have the stats for Harvard – but through NEU she got to work at a Harvard research lab and use Harvard faculty for grad school recommendations. </p>
<p>Whatever its rankings are, NEU isn’t a school for everyone – I don’t think it’s a good match for humanities lovers or very artsy/intellectual/[political types – but for the right student it can offer pretty amazing opportunities… opportunities they may not get in other schools of its rankings, or higher. </p>
<p>The Forbes rankings placed Northeastern last. Why? Because it is based on 4 year graduation rates and NU’s co-op program is 5 years. So it failed miserably. By moving to a 4 year program, NU could boost its Forbes rankings. Considering that Forbes is supposedly pro-business, the fact that it excluded NU from the top tier because it gives students work experience seems pretty lame and contradictory.</p>
<p>The Forbes “outcome” based models has it’s own issues.</p>
<p>Student Satisfaction (25%)
RateMyProfessor (10%)
Freshman-to-sophomore retention rates (actual 12.5% and predicted 2.5%)</p>
<p>Post-Graduate Success (32.5%)
Payscale.com (10%)
“American’s Leader List (22.5%)
Avg federal student loan debt load (10%)
Student loan default rates (12.5%)
Predicted vs. actual % of students taking federal loans (2.5%)
Graduation Rate (7.5%) (based on 4 year graduation rates
Actual graduation rate (5%)
Predicted grad rate (2.5%)
Academic Success (10%)
Win prestigious scholarships/fellowships (like Rhodes) (7.5%)
Go one to earn a Ph.D (2.5%)</p>