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<p>And are the single heaviest factor in the weightings.</p>
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<p>Oh, please. How naive are you? Columbia doesn’t report GPAs or test scores for undergrads enrolled in its College of General Studies, even though they sit right next to Columbia College students in the same classes (except a couple of CC “core” classes that are closed to GS students); most observers believe Columbia’s SAT scores would be significantly lower if it honestly reported on its entire undergraduate student body. Numerous colleges have gone “test optional” or “test flexible” in a transparent attempt to boost SAT scores, on the theory that if standardized tests are considered but not required, only the high scorers will report them. I believe Baylor hatched a scheme at one point to pay entering freshmen to re-take the SAT in the Fall so they could add those results to their reported superscores. Some schools report class medians based on superscores, others report only best sitting. Schools that are ACT-dominant are at a disadvantage because almost no schools superscore the ACT (mainly because reporting multiple ACT scores is very expensive and they don’t want to disadvantage low- and moderate-income applicants); so people end up comparing non-superscored ACT medians at some schools with superscored SAT medians at other schools. Private schools have more leeway to jack up tuition and then recycle that money right back to the students as increased financial aid; this nominally boosts their financial resources-per-student and they get credit for it in their U.S. News ranking. In contrast, a public university may be providing an equally large student subsidy in the form of a deep tuition discount for in-state students, but because no money changes hands it doesn’t count as financial resources-per-student; U.S. News punishes them for keeping tuition low and rewards privates for having high tuition and providing aid to students in the form of FA dollars rather than overt tuition discounts. Beyond the public/private divide, though, this is manipulable, and some privates have boosted their US News ranking by jacking up tuition. Some publics may now be following suit. Many schools have manipulated class sizes to boost their U.S. News rankings by, e.g., consolidating 2 60-person sections into a single 120-person section, thereby cutting in half the number of “classes 50+ students”; this does nothing for the quality of instruction except possibly to make it worse, and it may reduce student educational opportunities by forcing more students into scheduling conflicts, but U.S. News counts it as an improvement. At the other end of the scale, some schools have capped classes that previously had 20-25 students at 19 (so they’re reported to U.S. News as “class size < 20 students”); these small shifts in class size don’t materially affect the quality of classroom instruction but they may actually limit student opportunities because more students get closed out of these classes, but U.S. News counts it as an improvement. </p>
<p>Then there’s admissions. First, there’s the obvious ploy of spending thousands of dollars to generate additional applications so you can turn down most of them. Just switching to the Common App also helps in this regard, as a number of schools have found. Other schools have offered free on-line applications to boost their selectivity, inviting poor unwitting dupes who no realistic chance of admission to apply just so the school can boast about its low admit rate (and get credit for it in its US News ranking). Some schools have been known to limit freshman enrollment to artificially boost their entering class stats, but then to offer “likely transfer” or even “guaranteed transfer” to the next batch of applicants who just barely miss the cut for freshman admission; these students end up spending 3 out of 4 undergraduate years at their preferred school, but their SAT scores are never reported because they’re never there as enrolled freshmen. Middlebury’s been known to do similar things with its “Febs,” applicants for Fall admission who are offered a place in a second cohort that begins in February; Middlebury only reported the Fall semester freshmen SAT scores. I’m not sure they’re still doing this, but since they went test-flexible it probably doesn’t matter as much. Then there’s the waitlist trick: underenroll your freshman class but create a large waitlist, then take off the waitlist only those students who promise to enroll if offered a place. Great yield management tool, and it improves your admit rate. You can also achieve that at the other end of the process by taking a larger percentage of your entering class Early Decision; you’ll get almost 100% yield out of that group, so you can much choosier in the RD round and your overall admit rate will be much lower.</p>
<p>Student-faculty ratio, average faculty compensation, proportion of faculty who are full-time, and percentage of faculty holding highest terminal degree may also be manipulated by who the school counts as “faculty,” which is some cases may not be the same people for all these categories. (In fact, we know it isn’t, because some of the categories are based on “full-time-equivalent faculty” and others on “full-time faculty only,” creating, shall we say, arbitrage opportunities). “Faculty compensation” may also be measured in different ways. Does the imputed value of that coveted faculty parking space get counted? What about the heavily subsidized housing that Columbia and NYU need to provide their faculty in order to make it possible to live in Manhattan on an academic’s salary?</p>
<p>Then, of course, there’s just flat-out lying, which some schools have been accused of. </p>
<p>There’s hardly a category in the U.S. News ranking that isn’t manipulable. Except maybe the PA. Your own school’s president and provost may vote however they please, but that’s not going to budge your school’s PA score one way or the other because it’s the collective votes of all those responding that matters. The schools that rise in PA are going to be those that are genuinely well respected by their peers.</p>
<p>Here’s what law professor Brian Leiter had to say about the US News Law School rankings some years ago. They use somewhat different categories to rank law schools, but much of what he says applies to the “objective” measurements in the undergrad rankings as well:</p>
<p>[Brian</a> Leiter The U.S. News Law School Rankings: A Guide for the Perplexed](<a href=“http://www.leiterrankings.com/usnews/guide.shtml]Brian”>Brian Leiter The U.S. News Law School Rankings: A Guide for the Perplexed)</p>
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<p>Not true. PA now counts for 15% of the total US News score (66.7% of 22.5%). Graduation rate counts for 16% (80% of 20%). So graduation rate is the single heaviest factor. Freshman retention is another 4% (20% of 20%) but that’s really measuring the same thing at an earlier stage in the process, so there’s a kind of double-counting going on there; add those two together and it’s a full 20%. Faculty resources counts for 20%; US News breaks that down into various subcategories but they’re also interlinked and overlapping. There’s also double-counting in financial resources per student (= total spending per student), which counts for 10%, and faculty compensation which is just one (albeit major) element in spending, which is worth another 7% (35% of 20%). So just sheer expenditures account for 17%; the more a school spends, the better US News thinks that school is, whether it spends wisely and well or foolishly, lavishly, and unnecessarily. I can’t prove it, but I’ve long suspected this is one factor driving up college tuition: you get rewarded for it in U.S. News! Seriously: hike tuition, and give the additional proceeds right back to students in the form of FA to make up for the higher tuition, and US News in effect says “splendid job!” and your ranking goes up. Better yet, hike tuition, give half of it to the faculty in higher salaries and the rest back to students in need-based FA (since roughly half the class are full-pays at most elite privates, so you don’t need to give anything back to them), and US News says “magnificent job!” (because the part going to faculty salaries gets double-counted in the US News formula). It’s like a magic elixir. And it does way more than filling out those PA surveys to boost your school’s ranking, because your vote on PA is going to be drowned out by hundreds of others who are going to determine your PA fate; whereas additional tuition revenue is under your control.</p>
<p>^^^Well said bclintonk. The two most outstanding comments I’ve read here on CC in ages.</p>
<p>Bad news for the goldenboys</p>
<p>[Wall</a> St. Layoffs Take Heavy Toll on Younger Workers - NYTimes.com](<a href=“Wall St. Layoffs Take Heavy Toll on Younger Workers - The New York Times”>Wall St. Layoffs Take Heavy Toll on Younger Workers - The New York Times)</p>
<p>bclintonk, you make a lot of good points. But are you sure US News counts financial aid in their “financial resources” figure? I don’t think they do.</p>
<p>I think financial aid plays a part in their “best value colleges”, but only in that they assess the cost of attending the university net of financial aid. So there’s no real reason to raise tuition and then give it back as financial aid, because the net cost remains the same.</p>
<p>I suspect the reasons universities are increasing tuition and returning most of it as financial aid is to make college more affordable to more students. If you charge everyone $30,000 per year, then some people might not be able to afford it. But if you charge some people $10,000 and some people $50,000, your university can become affordable to more students with no loss in revenues.</p>
<p>barrons,</p>
<p>I am sure I won’t cry for these young financiers even if they are starved to death. LOL! You’d think with the kind of salaries they were getting, they would have quite a bit of savings to live by for a while but looks like they didn’t save any. So the Wall St crowd are not even conservative about their own money; no wonder they got us into this huge mess.</p>
<p>Bidder offers OSU $483 million for 50-year parking lease</p>
<p>[Bidder</a> offers OSU $483 million for 50-year parking lease | The Columbus Dispatch](<a href=“http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/06/01/osu-parking-bid.html]Bidder”>http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/06/01/osu-parking-bid.html)</p>
<p>OSU offered as much as $523 million to lease its parking</p>
<p>[OSU</a> offered as much as $523 million to lease its parking | The Columbus Dispatch](<a href=“http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/06/05/OSU-Parking-06.html]OSU”>http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/06/05/OSU-Parking-06.html)</p>
<p>This one time payment of approximately $half-billion dollars will be funneled directly into Ohio State’s academic cores based on its strategic plan to become one of world’s top universities.</p>
<p>Thanks for reopening this thread Sparkeye. It gave me another chance to read bclintonk’s brilliant analysis of what is wrong with the results at USNWR that are followed like gospel here by many on CC. Glad to see that OSU is getting out of the parking lot business as well. :-)</p>
<p>^^ No problem, rjk!! 
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<p>I am just glad that the school is getting more than it had hoped for. The word on the street has Indiana University confirmed on Monday that it is also in the early stages of exploring a long-term lease of its parking facilities.</p>
<p>The bold plan for an Ohio State Arts District is well under way</p>
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<p><a href=“http://oncampus.osu.edu/2012/03/the-bold-plan-for-an-ohio-state-arts-district-is-well-under-way/[/url]”>http://oncampus.osu.edu/2012/03/the-bold-plan-for-an-ohio-state-arts-district-is-well-under-way/</a></p>
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<p><a href=“http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/06/05/OSU-Parking-06.html[/url]”>http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/06/05/OSU-Parking-06.html</a></p>
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<p>[OSU</a> picks its parking contractor | The Columbus Dispatch](<a href=“http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/06/09/osu-picks-its-parking-contractor.html]OSU”>http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/06/09/osu-picks-its-parking-contractor.html)</p>
<p>Go Bucks!! :)</p>
<p>Hey, maybe they could sell off the research labs, then lease them back!</p>
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<p>Sounds like a brilliant idea!! I thereby nominate “bclintonk” for the head honcho job at UVA!! :p</p>
<p>University-own golf courses are next in line for privatization according to Gee!!</p>