<p>Why is UC ranked in the third tier? It seems to be a much better school than the rankings suggest (new buildings, a billion dollar endowment). What gives?</p>
<p>You are asking a good question. This is especially strange since their school of Design, Art, Architecture and Planning (DAAP) does have some of the top ranked programs in the US and is very difficult to get admitted to. They also have a highly rated med and law school and pharmacy school. In addition they have a top 100 rated school of engineering and have a lot of patent revenues. HOWEVER:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Their average SATs and GPAs for the other schools aren't that great. Overall, the average SAT is just under 1100 and only 21% of the students were in the top 10% of their class. In addition, I would bet that close to half of these top 10% kids are in the DAAP school alone. If you factor in the top SATs from the other undergrad schools such as DAAP, this means that many of the schools have a lower SAT average. Thus, the lower admission standards does severely hurt overall ratings.</p></li>
<li><p>Their 6 year retention is a measly 48%, which isn't that good either and severely hurts ratings too. Retention is a major factor in US News Ratings. In addition, only 76% of the freshmen class return, which also is a factor in the ratings.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>3.For other than the top schools noted above, they have a 76% acceptance rate. If you compare this to the ivys with a 10%-20% acceptance rate, this is a very high acceptance rate that affects ratings too.</p>
<p>4.Also their average alumni giving rate is only 8%,which is lower than a number of top schools too,which factor into the ratings.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Cincinnati doesn't have a lot of geographic diversity. 92% of their students are from Ohio,which hurts their ratings.</p></li>
<li><p>They have a listed 15:1 student/faculty ratio, which is a bit higher than other top notch institutions with 12/1 student faculty ratios or even lower ratios.</p></li>
<li><p>Finally, their peer assessment is 2.7 out of 5.0. Thus, they don't get the top nobel folks and top faculty. However, lets face it, what faculty want to live in Cincinnati?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I should note that having top notch facilities or buildings is not a major factor in the ratings, which is one reason Cincinnati isn't ranked higher than it is. Moreover, having a big endowment is also not factored into the rankings. They also don't factor into the rankings Cincinnati's top notch coop program nor is the lower tuition compared to that of their higher ranked competitors given any weight.</p>
<p>Bottom line: there are a lot of factors that affect rankings that aren't necessarily that corelated to quality. Also, the overall rankings obscure some of their schools that are top rated such as the ones that I mentioned above.</p>
<p>Overall, Cincinnati is a fine school with great facilities and a great coop program. It also has a number of caring faculty and administrators. Frankly, it is more of a hidden gem. For what it's worth, their overall rankings was just 106, when compared to other doctoral granting institutions, and its rating has constantly been rising.</p>
<p>I hope that I answered your question.</p>
<p>PS: All of this information was gotten from the 2006 US News and World Report rating of Cincinnati found on the US News web site,which I am a subscriber.</p>
<p>
[quote]
However, lets face it, what faculty want to live in Cincinnati?"
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Is Cincinnati really that bad? My D is interested in studying instrumental music at CCM, and was very impressed with the facilities. Do they have problems attracting and keeping faculty? What effect does the university's third tier status have on the music school's reputation?</p>
<p>. Hmm, I forgot to mention CCM in my post.CCM is a fabulous conservatory and VERY highly ranked! It is ranked up there with Juliard and Peabody etc. I wasn't thinking of music. Their top programs, and these are really top, are in design, art, architecture, planning and music. They also have very decent programs in law, medicine and pharmacy and engineering. They don't, however, seem to get to faculty in other areas such as political science, english, history and applied science.</p>
<p>I must be more tired than I thought. Cincinnati does get good faculty,but they don't necessarily get the top "name" faculty in other areas not mentioned above. This seems to be the reason that their overall peer rating is only 2.7/5.0</p>
<p>Taxguy,</p>
<p>I thought that you might be interested in this post which was written in response to a question about the U.S. News Rankings. The post is about Northeastern but since UC also has a integrated co-op program it too probably gets unfailry penalized for having a nontraditional academic curriculum. Here it is:</p>
<p>"Northeastern is a good school. You should take the rankings with a grain of salt because they do not provide an accurate picture of the school. Here's why. The U.S. News methodology is flawed because it assumes that all colleges are following a traditional academic curriculum (i.e. comparing apples to apples). But Northeastern does things quite differently. It is one of only a handful of schools to have a fully integrated co-op program (i.e. it is an orange). For example, the way the current methodology works, the rankings make it appear as if Northeastern has a high student/faculty ratio of 16:1. But this is only because U.S. News assumes that all students are on campus taking classes at the same time. This is far from the case; nearly half of the upper-class students are off campus interning at companies (unlike most schools, Northeastern students follow rotations where they alternate semesters of academics with semester long internships related to their major). Anyone who knows Northeastern knows that class sizes are actually on the small side. The amount of money spent per student also seems low in comparison to other schools in the top 60, but again this is only because U.S. News assumes that all students are on campus at the same time using resources. Students who are on co-op should be excluded because they do not pay tuition while theyre interning. Northeastern really has more money to spend on the students who are on campus taking classes. Again, anyone who has visited Northeastern recently knows that the school has plenty of money. All the facilities are new and the professors, administrators, etc., are earning top dollar. </p>
<p>The rank of 115, although still top tier, simply does not add up. Still, even with its nontraditional curriculum, Northeastern has been climbing in the rankings. This is primary because the university has made significant gains in selectivity. Northeastern should continue to rise as it becomes more nationally known. This year, the university received 6500 EA apps out of a total of 26,000 apps which is a new record. The university is also in the process of hiring 100 new star faculty. The new faculty will significantly lower the university's student/faculty ratio (this should make up for the shortfall in the rankings).</p>
<p>As a side note, the university administration has been lobbying U.S. News to make some changes to their rankings methodology so that it takes into account the universitys nontraditional academic curriculum."</p>
<p>I think that the University of Cincinnati should be ranked much higher than it is.
Thoughts?</p>
<p>Maximus, I can't comment on US New's ranking methodology since I don't really know what goes into their analysis. What you said may be quite correct. I just don't have a basis for comparison.</p>
<p>Maybe schools with non-traditional programs such as strong coop programs can't be considered accurately using US New's criteria because many kids aren't at the school much of kid's college career. I just don't have an answer.</p>
<p>However, I do know that there are two major factors in the US News ratings: Peer review and admission's selectivity. Cincinnati doesn't have a high peer review. However, this is skewed since some of their schools are very highly ranked such as DAAP, music, Engineering, pharmacy, and law and medicine.</p>
<p>They also have lower admission's selectivity than that of many other comparable institutions with the exceptions of the schools and programs noted above. </p>
<p>They also have much lower freshmen retention, which could be caused by lower admission's selectivity. They also have lower 6 year graduation rates that that of other schools. Even with the coop taking up a full year and one-half, this is somewhat inexplicable. </p>
<p>Thus, what is the bottom line? I really can't say because maybe there is too much of an apples to oranges comparison here.</p>
<p>Here's some very nice rankings info for UC from Design Intelligence 2006 Americas Best Architecture and Design Schools: What makes this relevent is that the professionals from the communities in these disciplines do the rankings. You can purchase the whole thing at DI's website.
Most Innovative Arch/Design Schools - #1
Top 15 Architecture Graduate Programs - #2
Architecture Skills Asssesment Rankings -
Design #2
Construction Methods #1
Analysis & Planning #2
Computer Applications #5</p>
<p>Top 10 Industrial Design Programs - #2
Ind. Design Skill assessment Rankings -
Design,Creativity,Problem Solving #2
Studio Skills #2
Research and Analysis #1
Materials, Processes & Engineering Issues #1
Collaborative Learning #1
Academic Balance #1</p>
<p>Top 10 Interior Design - #1
Intr. Design Skills Assessment Catagories UC was #1 in 4 of 5.</p>
<p>UC's ranking are amazing in the design and architectual field. There was a listing of the top 25 design professors in the country, and UC had 4 of the top 25 alone!</p>
<p>Taxguy,</p>
<p>I wonder if it fair to use the six year graduation rate as retention measure for co-op schools. Most co-ops schools have five year programs (this is the case at Northeastern and Drexel). In fact Northeastern has a six year PharmD program. Yet the rankings methodology assumes that all schools are following the typical four year academic model. Don't you think that it would better to use a seven year graduation rate as a retention yardstick for schools with large integrated co-op programs like UC, Northeastern, Drexel etc.? This is yet another example of how schools with nontraditional curriculums (the oranges) get unfairly penalized by the U.S. News rankings. Thoughts?</p>
<p>Max, I fully agree the US News ranking unfairly penalize thse nontraditional curriculums. I also submit that the US News Rankings are merely a general/broad guide and offers just one methodology to measure a college or university. The fact you question their ranking criteria suggests that you already know that and have been doing good due dilligence by exploring other sources of information/rankings/etc. </p>
<p>gl</p>