<p>Most graduates of the schools ranked in the USNWR Top 20 (National Universities and LACs) are rightfully proud of their association with their schools. In addition, many of these schools have a long tradition of their graduates giving back to their school. Should this proxy for student/graduate passion for a school be important in a college search or in the formulation of college rankings? </p>
<p>Following is the data for the Top 20 in each category:</p>
<p>Natijonal Universities
1 Princeton 61%
2 Dartmouth 50%
3 Notre Dame 48%
4 Yale 45%
5 Harvard 44%
6 Duke 44%
7 U Penn 40%
8 Stanford 39%
9 MIT 38%
10 Wash U StL 38%
11 Brown 38%
12 Rice 37%
13 Emory 36%
14 Columbia 35%
15 Cornell 35%
16 J Hopkins 35%
17 U Chicago 33%
18 Northwestern 29%
19 Cal Tech 30%
20 Vanderbilt 27%</p>
<p>Yes, because if an alumni gives to their alma matter its because they liked their school. So such a high percentage shows how happy people are/were with their school.</p>
<p>Should it have a huge affect? Probably not, but that percentage is a testament to the school.</p>
<p>Like my mom gives to her graduate school and goes to reunions etc. because she really liked it. But she didn't enjoy UChicago as much because she didn't feel like it gave her what she needed socially so she doesn't donate nor is she attending reunions.</p>
<p>I think it's an interesting measure, but it would be foolhardy to make fine distinctions between colleges on this measure.</p>
<p>It can be influenced by factors that have nothing to do with "satisfaction" with the experience. It may due to the policies and annual fund campaigns of the colleges. For example, do they require an alumni contribution for season tickets, and do they count those in the alumni giving percentage? Do they make it a point to NOT solicit gifts from recent grads with loan balances, and if so are they affected by their relatively high or low proportion of students who tend to get loans (either because of their aid policies, or the demographics of their student body, or both)? Do they have an aggressive donation-recruitment policy among new grads? How aggressive are they about keeping alumni addresses current? Do their alumni count anyone who has ever attended, or only those who have graduated? Etc etc. </p>
<p>Admittedly there may be standard procedures in some of these areas--this isn't an issue I have to deal with much professionally.</p>
<p>^ Probably that is related to the size of the institutions. With a small LAC you are getting more one on one attention than most universitys and you know a higher precentage of students giving it a more "family feel".....</p>
<p>Alumni giving is 100% voluntary. Think about that for a moment. There are a lot of things you can do with your money once you graduate.</p>
<p>If you do take the time to reach into your own pocket and donate to your alma mater it means something. It's not a "be all and end all" measure, but then again no one single measure is. Let's peer through the looking glass the other way around -- say you went to a college and had an absolute miserable experience, how likely are you to donate money when the school comes knocking?</p>
<p>IMO the alumni giving rate is not insignificant. If a school consistently exhibits a relatively high percentage of alumni giving rate throughout the years it is yet another measure that the school is doing something right.</p>
<p>The % giving can be easily manipulated. I think both total $$$ and % should be considered. Some schools do very well without hounding every alum for a small contribution to make the % look better.</p>
<p>Well, do all colleges calculate it the same way? I seemed to recall reading that one of the colleges (I don't want to name it) divides the #donate by #alums *that can be reached <a href="response%20rate">/i</a>, not the total number of alums. I don't know if others are doing the same though.</p>
<p>Alumni giving is a good indicator of school satisfaction and spirit. Schools like Duke, Dartmouth, Notre Dame, Holy Cross, Bowdoin, all have very strong alumni networks that help in job placement.</p>
<p>I think it foolish to assume that more giving = more satisfaction. While I do agree that if students hate their school they probably won’t donate money to it, I refuse to believe that students at Princeton like their school 31% more than those at Cal Tech, or 11% more than those at Dartmouth, etc. Such conclusions to me are based on false logic. It is pretty arbitrary to attempt to equate alumni satisfaction with annual giving.</p>
<p>I actually agree ^. However, when I see a school like NYU (11% alum giving rate, which is lower than several publics), I have to wonder how bad they ****ed their students off, assuming their grads are decently successful, especially Sternies.</p>
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I refuse to believe that students at Princeton like their school 31% more than those at Cal Tech, or 11% more than those at Dartmouth, etc.
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<p>Well, frankly that's a poor way to look at those numbers. I agree you can't look at the giving rate at two schools and subtract the difference and then say, "gee, School A's giving rate is 10% higher than B's so they must have liked it 10% more".</p>
<p>That said, if a school (such as Princeton or Dartmouth) continues to exhibit a higher RELATIVE giving rate vs. its peers YEAR IN AND YEAR OUT, it tells you something -- that something positive is being experienced at those schools by its respective alumni. Why exactly is this a bad thing?</p>
<p>absolutely, it generally means that the students are from wealthy families, i.e., people with connections which would be good to have a roomies.</p>
<p>It is also biased against schools like Cal Tech where a lot of grads go into academia and make less money than the people at more preproffesional schools.</p>
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It is also biased against schools like Cal Tech where a lot of grads go into academia and make less money than the people at more preproffesional schools.
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<p>That criticism would hold if these numbers were based on aggregate $s raised, but they aren't. This is the giving rate PERCENTAGE, in which case the actual amount of money raised is irrelevant.</p>
<p>"That said, if a school (such as Princeton or Dartmouth) continues to exhibit a higher RELATIVE giving rate vs. its peers YEAR IN AND YEAR OUT, it tells you something -- that something positive is being experienced at those schools by its respective alumni. Why exactly is this a bad thing?"</p>
<ul>
<li>It's not that it's a bad thing; the problem is that there is no real objective way to determine what the numbers mean without creating arbitrary cutoffs. If we're not looking purely at the exact percents and comparing them, then at what point is there a difference? 1%? 5%? 10%? 20%?</li>
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<p>That is, at what point can we say that relative to their peers, alumni enjoyed Dartmouth or Princeton MORE than Cal Tech?</p>
<p>Considered in the abstract, alumni giving might be a significant indicator of customer satisfaction so to speak. But in reality, since it is part of USNews' ranking system, it has quickly become one more factor that schools use to game the system.</p>
<p>As detailed in a WSJ article a few months ago, colleges regularly set up big alumni giving drives designed not so much raise a lot of cash but to get any gift, no matter how small, from as many alums as possible - thus driving up the precentage.</p>
<p>Some go even further by fiddling the numbers to spread a single gift over several years - e.g. to count a single $500 gift as five $100 gifts given over five years - again to artificially inflate the numbers.</p>
<p>So when one's school's numbers are better than another's it might mean merely that the one school is better than the other at working the system.</p>
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That is, at what point can we say that relative to their peers, alumni enjoyed Dartmouth or Princeton MORE than Cal Tech?
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<p>You can say that, as a percentage, more of Princeton / Dartmouth's alums give back to their respective schools than any other university in the US.</p>