What difference does it make? How many #10 Wisconsin people would have gone to #1 UMich just to be number 1? Few, very few. If people are choosing Michigan just for the ranking, let them. Students at UF don’t want to be at UC-B, they want to be Gators.
I never understand the purpose of these lists.
Maybe internationals choose based on lists/prestige.
Oh come on. Don’t act like everyone’s an idiot. There’s a wide range.
Humans. We like to rank things.
This seems like a rather subjective criterion. Is geographic diversity good? Is racial diversity good? Is socioeconomic diversity good? Something like admitted test scores is used as a proxy for the academic strength of the university, under the fairly uncontroversial basis that the better students tend to have better test scores. Since the main intended end result of going to college is to receive a degree, better graduation rates should be better than worse graduation rates. I don’t see the same objectivity in diversity.
I think the whole idea of ‘what is a public university’ is changing. Reading posts here on CC the past couple of years has revealed to me that some state universities of note aren’t very public at all, relatively speaking. That is, their share of the State Budget has been significantly minimized in the last 20 years, they are not the same bargain for state residents that they once were (weren’t the U Texas System and CUNY free up until the 1980s, for example?), and in-state high school applicants find themselves left out as the university further capitalizes on its popularity by attracting greater numbers of full-pay or nearly full-pay non residents and internationals.
Good point LakeWashington.
And yet another ranking. Eventually, if I live long enough or if more and more publications come out with lists to generate publicity/sales, the school that my kids attend will be near, or at the top, of the list. I just have to wait and it will happen.
What’s the point of setting a higher OOS tuition if you’re just going to give OOS students all the money they need?
High SES applicants tend to be admitted in greater numbers than low SES applicants, so UVA and UNC-CH will still have many OOS students paying much or all of the additional OOS tuition.
While there are a few state flagship universities that have more OOS than instate, I still think the majority of public schools still serve their states first. States the might be heading toward the 50% mark at the flagship have other schools in the state that are at the 90% instate mark. CU-Boulder has about 45% OOS, but CSU, UNC Mesa, CU-Denver/Pueblo/Springs are all heavily instate, and of course community colleges are almost all instate students.
@Booajo,@Madison85 do you have kids going to college already or applying for class of 2019
There are all kinds of screwy things taken into account in that ranking. For instance – cost of off campus housing. If you want to understand why Berkeley fell to #5, I bet that had something to do with it. There are lots of “value” factors that have nothing to do with educational value.
New College of Florida is tiny (and thus probably didn’t make the list for that reason) but is the public that approximates some of the top LACs the most. W&M does as well, however.
New College of Florida is number 50. Truman State at number 40 is considered in that vein also.
“High SES applicants tend to be admitted in greater numbers than low SES applicants, so UVA and UNC-CH will still have many OOS students paying much or all of the additional OOS tuition.”
Having very high admission standards for OOS applicants will tilt the admitted pool towards kids from more well to do backgrounds. Giving out-of-state legacy applicants a bit of a break on admissions (as UVA, UNC and I think UM do) is another thumb on that same scale.
A kid from Texas or California (especially if a legacy) who enrolls at UVA or UNC is not all that likely to be a high need case. VA and NC put strict limits on the number of seats that UVA and UNC can allocate away from in-staters. Since those limited seats can be sold at the higher OOS price, it isn’t in their interest to go out of their way to sell those OOS seats at a big discount to the sticker price.
Another useless ranking list claiming to measure the “best educational experiences to their students” that ignores the quality of teaching and the classroom experience in favor of selectivity and prestige.
UVa uses the high tuition from international students and affluent oos students to pay for financial aid for lower and middle class oos US students.
Does anyone actually ask the students at colleges how happy they are and use that in the rankings?
Princeton Review claims to poll 130,000 students for their publication. I’m not sure how scientific those poll results would be. What is known is that selectivity figures can be manipulated by colleges and may not say much about educational quality. Places like Kalamazoo College (67% accepted) and Hendrix College (80% accepted) are not selective, at least on paper, but deliver a fine educational experience. Prestige can be driven by research output by the grad programs, etc., and not say much about the undergraduate experience in the classroom. I think that students are best served by learning about what colleges offer and to look for a fit rather than chasing rankings up a ladder.
If by “fit”, you include opportunity and cost, then yes, I agree.
@123Monkey I have 2 HS kids, but no seniors. No idea where they will apply yet.