Vandy’s response… how about the right not to incriminate yourself… the bit about the med school funding etc (which was one of Columbia’s culprits) is nothing short of inane. Wow, makes me not want to send my kid there…
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Right. I would include in that category the regionally well-regarded schools which more or less qualify as LACs. In the PNW, that would be UPS, Willamette, L&C, Whitworth, Linfield, Pacific Lutheran, etc. Not really nationally known or highly ranked, but very popular around our area. I left Whitman off the list purposefully because I think of it as more of a lesser known national LAC.
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Yeah, none of these categories have hard borders, particularly not functionally in the sense of which colleges certain students might cross-shop.
Bingoooo! And this followed the Columbia debacle!!! Zero ethical standing to complain. As the rapper said: “Sit down. Be humble.”
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There are enough prep school kids in the big cities to support demand for the Top 40 LAC at competitive admission rates.
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As a family that applied to some of these schools shooting for merit with high stat kids, finances can be a reason to shoot a little lower with LACs. Those schools with good merit will have a highly motivated cohort there for the cheaper price tag. My kids both got offers in range or better of our state flagships at really lovely LACs.
All this discussion today had me digging around in common data sets figuring out what percentage of student bodies are full pay out of these high end private colleges. Yikes - I got numbers from about 40% on the low end (MIT, Princeton) to over 70% on the high end (Tulane, Wake Forest) with a quick dig. 40% isn’t great but 70%!?
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Princeton and MIT have WAAAAAAY higher endowments per student.
Endowment and present gift income can be used to compensate for lower net tuition. Tulane and Wake are pretty rich, but not THAT rich.
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Not a surprise, really.
For the academic merit component of admissions, parents with money can use it to give their kids every educational advantage, so that those of the kids with sufficient talent can produce high-end academic merit achievements (whether one is looking at the “typical excellent” level that is needed for hooked applicants and those with a truly exceptional other achievement, or the truly exceptional for the unhooked applicants in the pure academic merit achievement lane).
In addition, many of the hooks valued by many of the high end private colleges correlate to higher parental money, such as legacy, recruitable athlete, and (especially) large donation. Also, those of the high end private colleges whose missions include maintaining relationships with society’s elites (e.g. politicians, elite businesses, etc.) and providing the next generation of such want to maintain a high SES social environment, so that the relatively few lower and middle SES students can become socialized into such and therefore become more suitable for joining society’s elites in the eyes of the existing society’s elites.
Of course, there is also the practical matter in that some of these colleges may not have a large enough financial aid budget to support that many financial aid students well.
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And then there is the 1 pct acceptance rate in RD for Tulane… meaning ED without financial aid competition or bust. Northeastern, Wake and Tulane aim for the 3.4-3.5 kids at fancy prep schools in ED and then go highly rejective for RD and give fantastic financial aid only to extreme performers in that round; that’s their target audience and strategy and how they got their rankings unduly inflated over the last decade while financing facilities buildouts. Gotta give them points for running a business well to KPIs!
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It looks like they were notified in May 2023, if not before
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More than the rankings, I enjoyed reading all of the five star reviews from students and alums at my kids’ colleges. A nice change from the snarky comments on CC from people with no personal experience with these colleges.
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Do you know that you can go to “niche”, and get more comments based on the topic? I would not go with only “rah-rah-rah” comments on USNews
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So it seems like the ones allegedly gaming the system fell the hardest?
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Yes, I’ve seen Niche, Unigo and College Simply reviews. Just saying since our college shopping days are behind us, it’s nice to read positive feedback that mirrors our own students’ experiences.
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This is really not a good look for them. Might it backfire and applicants get totally turned off? Kind of unbecoming of a school that wants to enhance its standing…
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US New doesn’t just include rah rah comments. There is ability to make a bad review.
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Maybe. But I saw very limited sample. Somehow Niche provides much deeper picture to me in terms of life at campus.
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Terrible look. It’s amazing to me that those who are our “leaders” or most esteemed can be so stupid.
No one is mad when they’re going up even if they come out and say - kids should find the right schools and not look at rankings. We don’t like rankings.
Yet they are right there with Rice, tied with Dartmouth - it’s not like they’re in a bad spot. I mean, Emory and WUSTL flat out fell out of the top 20 - and they’re sort of - peers, etc.
No one is re thinking their Vandy app because of this - most likely.
But it’s not a good look.
But it’s also not a good look for US News - that their methodology shifts.
But for US News - it’s keeps the old school media company going!!
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Well you would be very wrong.
Paywall. Can you gift the article ?
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