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<p>Another way to game the system is in alumni giving percentage. Some schools (such as Princeton) engage in huge fund drives among the alums, urging them to give something, anything, no matter how small the donation, in order to boost their percentage.</p>
<p>Ahem:</p>
<p>D does the same. With a 99.9% donation rate from ‘alums’, er, the graduating class of '10, even before any of them had their first post grad job…thus, (nearly) all donations with daddy’s money.</p>
<p>^That’s only one class. The class of 2010 doesn’t account for the entire donation rate.</p>
<p>Also were talking like 20 bucks here. So Daddy’s money is more along the lines of saving money working at the coffee shop and not going out one night. Dartmouth is in the top ten US universities in the US in Pell Grant recipients and sends the highest percent in the US to the Peace Corps. Please don’t pass judgement on top universities as socially elitist. This is not the case at all. Schools like HYP and Dartmouth give the best students in the country the best opportunities and learning experience possible - if anything the are a social class lubricant - giving anyone with the drive the possibility to achieve anything possible.</p>
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<p>I was doing nothing of the sort. I was stating a simple fact, well two of them actually. </p>
<p>1) The Class of '10 had a 99.9% donation rate to class gift to The College. (There was one holdout.)
2) Since the Gift is completed prior to graduation, few had actual, paying jobs in April/May. Thus, the grantors used work study money, savings, or daddy’s piggy bank to for the “$20” or whatever they gave (the amount is really irrelevant since no one was yet post-grad job). But yet USNews counts it.</p>
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<p>I concur, but totally off point (made by coureur) which was how colleges can ‘game’ the rankings with alumni giving. But I hope you would agree that it is much, much easier to give when you come from wealth, particularly if that $20 is OPM.</p>
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<p>why does it matter where the money came from? The family approved of the job Dartmouth did, and wanted to give back. Isn’t that the point of any alumni giving?</p>
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<p>No, that’s a different phenomenon. That’s a show of solidarity and school spirit by the current graduating class, not a big fund drive aimed at pressuring all the alumni to give at least one dollar. If Dartmouth campaigned the same way Princeton does they’d likely have a lot higher overall alumni giving rate than their current 49%.</p>
<p>Courer, you are absolutely right. The 99.9% giving rate is a show of solidarity and school spirit by the current graduating class. Students can contribute as little as $1 (and some only give that) but it still counts toward the giving rate.</p>
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<p>No question…</p>
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<p>How can you be so sure what the point is? Do you work in the Development Office? (I would suggest that the big push to the soon-to-be-grads is to get them accustomed to giving, so when they become an alum… it’s Development 101.)</p>
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<p>Would you share why you think that would be? Do you have some experience with P’ton’s alum campaigns?</p>
<p>I went to Dartmouth and know for a fact that the campaign is around school spirit. I gave $20 bucks, but many of my friends gave as little as a dollar. Dartmouth loyalty is amazing, the fact that 75% show up for their 5 year reunion, vs around 15% for a place like Columbia, is amazing. Hidden Gem Ivy.</p>
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<p>Yes, I’ve seen it in action. It’s impressive. Plus it was mentioned several years in an article in the WSJ on the topic of gaming the rankings. P was specifically mentioned (along with several other schools) as a school engaged in large, well-orchestrated drives where boosting the alumni giving percentage was the object of the drive more than the actual dollars raised. </p>
<p>I’m not saying that P alums don’t also have school spirit. I know first hand that they do. But right here on CC you can find P boosters using their high alumni giving rate as proof of their school’s superiority. And the fact that the same giving rate can also boost their USNews ranking gives the school even more incentive to get every last donation, no matter how small.</p>
<p>Sorry to hijack a Dartmouth thread but I’d like to counter some very bad information about Princeton.</p>
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<p>I’m afraid that these are the oldest of canards about Princeton. You’ll also see claims that Princeton seeks as many $1.00 contributions as possible for the same purpose or that hundreds of alumni contribute $1.00 on behalf of hundreds of other alumni in order to boost percentages. Neither of these is true.</p>
<p>Here are the facts. </p>
<p>Princeton’s annual giving campaigns date to the very early 1900s, long before there was a U.S. News & World Report ranking of colleges.</p>
<p>The median contribution (not the mean or average that would be affected by a small number of large contributions) is a little under $100.00. In other words, the most ‘typical’ contribution amount is about $100.00 and there are almost zero contributions of $1.00. They’re considered a joke and when they appear they’re generally a ‘protest’ contribution by alumni who want to express their displeasure.</p>
<p>Last year nearly 61% of Princeton alumni contributed to Annual Giving resulting in nearly $50,000,000.00 of much needed funding. Yes, Princeton’s Annual Giving drives are certainly “large” and “well-orchestrated”. They are, in fact (along with Dartmouth’s similarly successful drives) the envy of most other schools in the country. </p>
<p>Do other schools attempt similar drives? Absolutely. I’m a Harvard Law School alumnus and I am heavily solicited by Harvard every year for contributions. I suspect Coureur, another Harvard alum, is as well.</p>
<p>Finally, it’s simply loopy to suggest that any university could dramatically affect or “game” its USNWR ranking in this way. The ‘percentage of alumni giving’ figure is the very smallest part of the USNWR calculation, amounting to just 5% of the final score. Even if one school had 100% participation and another had 0%, the advantage in the rankings could be no more than 5%. In fact, the actual differences are not nearly this dramatic. Most schools tend to have a 40% to 50% participation rate in annual giving drives. The difference between those percentages and Princeton’s 60% hardly gives it a huge advantage in the U.S. News scoring.</p>
<p>The fact is, within the Ivy League, Dartmouth and Princeton have the highest percentages of alumni participating in annual giving drives. While their outreach efforts are well-orchestrated, so are the efforts of all the other Ivies. The difference is mostly in the enthusiasm with which Princeton and Dartmouth alumni respond!</p>
<p>Alumni giving percentage was used as a measure of alumni commitment before USNWR started their ranking. When graduating from prep school in the early 70’s I remember our headmaster making a plea for even small amount since a number of foundation grants the school applied for looked at alumni giving percentages.</p>
<p>Often times alumni don’t give because they don’t think they can give enough to make a difference, but any amount of giving can often be multiplied through employer matching gifts and outside grants that are, in part, merited by strong alumni support. I don’t think this is gaming the system at all. If it is a way to game the system then I should think there would be many more schools with in excess of 50% giving rates. It’s not that easy to do. It depends upon alumni who think a lot of their mother institution and are committed to supporting it, which is what USNWR is trying to determine.</p>
<p>My only problem with using alumni giving is whether or not it is a measure of what the school is now, or what it was 10, 25, or 50 years ago.</p>
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<p>You’ve got the wrong guy. I’m a proud UC Davis alum.</p>
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<p>Yes, and on the 100 point scale that USNews uses 5% amounts to 5 points. Just two points separate the top three national universities and just 10 points separates the top 11. Five points can easily move a school 5 to 8 places on the USNews scale. Do you think a grade-conscious student would be “loopy” to care about 5% of the points available on the big exam? I think he’d be loopy not to.</p>
<p>Plus you don’t have to take my loopy word for it that colleges are indeed willing to game alumni giving percentages to boost their rankings. Try reading some new stories:</p>
<p>[In</a> Clemson Rankings Controversy, Most College Officials Assume Everyone Games the System - Graduate Students - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“http://chronicle.com/article/In-Clemson-Rankings-Controv/47707/]In”>http://chronicle.com/article/In-Clemson-Rankings-Controv/47707/)
[Views:</a> Gaming the Rankings - Inside Higher Ed](<a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/06/09/asch]Views:”>http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/06/09/asch)</p>
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<p>This assumes that other schools are standing still. They aren’t.
Dartmouth: year points/ranking
2004 88/9th
2010 89/11th
2011 90/9th</p>
<p>Im sorry, Coureur, I believed you to be a Harvard alum. Is it then your children who went to Harvard? I know that you frequently describe Harvard to others here on CC. What is your connection?</p>
<p>Im afraid you dont quite understand how the USNWR ranking system works. Yes, the alumni giving rank counts for 5% of the final score and that is equivalent to 5 points on a 100 point scale. What you dont seem to understand is that the actual spread among the top schools is very small in this category. </p>
<p>Think of it this way. There are approximately 275 universities ranked in the national universities category. If all these schools being ranked on alumni giving are distributed across a numerical range of best (a rank of 1) to worst (a rank of 275), that distribution must then be divided over a 5 point scale. In other words, the top approximately 70 schools in this category have to receive scores between 4 and 5. The next best 70 schools must receive scores between 3 and 4 and so on. </p>
<p>Using this scoring system, USNWR gives the top school a ‘5’. The second best school will receive a ‘4.985’. The top ten schools all have alumni giving rates that will place them in a range between 4.85 and 5 on this scale. </p>
<p>As you can see, among these top schools were talking not about a difference of 5 points on a 100 point scale. Were talking about a difference of about 0.15 points on a 100 point scale and yes, I contend that its loopy for any school that understands this formula to believe it could significantly move its rank by manipulating alumni giving. For a school to move a single point in the overall rankings, it would have to leap over 70 of the schools ahead of it in alumni giving. </p>
<p>In truth, I cant speak about what happens at other universities. I can tell you that both Harvard and Princeton (my alma maters) do a great deal to encourage alumni to give and that, at least at Princeton, that giving is motivated by strong feelings of support for the institution, not by any foolish desire to attempt to game rankings and certainly not by a plethora of $1.00 contributions as some of the misinformed have contended.</p>