<p>Yep, the Washington Monthly is serving us the new edition of its Mother Teresa College ranking.</p>
<p>National</a> University Rankings 2013 | Washington Monthly</p>
<p>This year, they have outdone themselves. UTEP, an academic wasteland, is ranked ... Seventh. And that is only one of the silly choices in their top.</p>
<p>Only the clowns in the White House are smiling.</p>
<p>Frankly, these rankings are ridiculous. Their ranking criteria are also ridiculous.</p>
<p>Because making chicken salad out of chicken **** is really tougher than taking a prime filet and not screwing it up?</p>
<p>Wow… UCSD, Texas A&M, UCR, Case Western are the top 4. Harvard is 8th, MIT is 11, Princeton is 31 (1 below Michigan state)</p>
<p>Well at least they get points for boldness. I don’t really understand the criteria for these rankings though. How dos the rate of the student population receiving Pell grants, Peace Corp rank, ROTC rank and hours of community service rank have anything to do with the quality of the university? Does anyone know what these categories are supposed to tell us?</p>
<p>It probably also does not adjust for the overall qualities of the student body. For instance, at Princeton, ROTC is not very big and not very advertised, so it’s not a very big chapter. Compare that with A&M, however, where there is a very strong military tradition, you’re going to have a big discrepancy. </p>
<p>I think they just published those ridiculous rankings to get reads. Nobody wants to read rankings where HYP are the top colleges - that’d just be reaffirming what we already intuitively know.</p>
<p>Most students in the US do not have the grades and exam scores for admission to the USNWR “top” institutions.</p>
<p>Most students in the US do not have the financial wherewithal to readily afford higher education.</p>
<p>Most students in the US do need to be able to enter the job market directly after college.</p>
<p>The Washington Monthly ranking is for those people. The 98% as it were. This ranking answers the questions as to where an average high school graduate with limited financial resources can get a college education that will not destroy the family finances, and that has a likelihood of helping that newly-minted college grad get a job. Which are different questions entirely from those that the USNWR ranking system answers.</p>
<p>It would be interesting to see the WM rankings without the points for sending grads into the Peace Corps, etc. My personal guess is that by eliminating those points the HYPSM-type institutions would fall even further.</p>
<p>^ UC Riverside is really that much more affordable than the other UCs and CSUs?</p>
<p>What about Stanford? I see it ranked 6th but obviously the “average” student has no shot of getting in.</p>
<p>Wouldn’t someone with “limited financial resources” (Median household income is what 45k?) end up getting enough financial aid from many “elite” schools so as to make them affordable?</p>
<p>barrk123 -</p>
<p>Affordability isn’t the only factor taken into account by the WM. The number of Pell Grant recipients who are enrolled, and on-time graduation for those students are also factors. I haven’t looked carefully at the formula, so I can’t tell you how each factor contributes.</p>
<p>It’s a strange rating. To me, what doesn’t make sense is the research element.</p>
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UTEP’s 4 year graduation rate is 10%.</p>
<p>Does it sell magazines? Does it cause on-line discussions? If so, then it’s a valid ranking.</p>
<p>Dang, those Stanford kids are awful stingy with their volunteer time compared to Harvard. What’s up with that? Maybe the nice weather is just to tempting…why spend time at the soup kitchen when the beach is only moments away.</p>
<p>The ranking seems to make more sense if viewed in the context of the discussions about whether universities really should qualify as “non-profit charitable” organizations for tax purposes, as opposed to a way for an individual student to select a university (of course, that also depends on whether your definition of “charitable” matches the ranker’s).</p>
<p>@happymomof1</p>
<p>If this ranking system was directed at the"98%" (who) “do not have the financial wherewithal to readily afford higher education” (and plan) “to enter the job market directly after college”</p>
<p>Why would they have categories such as “number of science and engineering phd awarded” “bachelors to phd ratio”. If this ranking is really for the group you specified then the numbers of phds are irrelevant? In addition, these factors will hurt many LACs in the rankings, which could be ideal for the groups you mentioned because many LACs focus on undergraduate education as opposed to graduate school and research.</p>
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<p>“Mother Teresa Ranking” expresses it nicely.
WM wants to compare schools for their “contribution to the public good”.
So it might be a good ranking to consult if you’re old, rich, and thinking about changing your will. </p>
<p>In my opinion, academic excellence is the best thing a college (as such) can contribute to the public good. The middle “Research” columns are fairly informative in that regard.</p>
<p>I don’t speak for the evaluators at WM. They would have their own reasons for including the factors that they include. But it is important to remember that wanting to leave the possibility open for one day pursuing a PhD is not exclusive to the 2%.</p>
<p>As for LACs being good places for Pell students to study at, that may well be true from a social and academic point of view. However few LACs have the financial wherewithal to admit more than a small handful of Pell students each year. Ultimately, most Pell students end up at their local CC or in-state public U because those are their most affordable options.</p>
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<p>The USNWR rankings are based primarily on input factors. They hardly rank anything that the universities actually produce… which is why they have such a dubious reputation.</p>
<p>Granted, these Washington Monthly rankings are also pretty ridiculous. </p>
<p>What we need are rankings that rank the quality of the actual SCHOOLS, not the students (like we have now)… rankings that account for curriculum rigor, quality of facilities/labs/equipment, campus safety, student-faculty ratios, and placement rates for related career fields and/or grad school. </p>
<p>This type of ranking system would also provide a way for smaller, lesser known schools to improve their standing, which, under the current ranking system is damn near impossible. Under the USNWR “prestige”-driven ranking system, the prestigious schools stay at the top, and the lesser known schools stay on the bottom. High achieving students flock to the prestigious schools, helping these prestigious schools maintain their rankings, while the lower ranked schools are pretty much left with the scraps. It’s a broken system that doesn’t allow for performance-based improvement.</p>
<p>As others have noted, USNWR rankings may be successful in the marketplace for such because they (a) generally conform to popular perception of “quality”, at least for those schools that one has heard about, and (b) are relatively stable from year to year. This does not necessarily mean that they are the optimal rankings for any given student selecting a college.</p>
<p>I’m all for using different ranking methodologies from USNWR. However, this ranking methodology is quite odd. For example, ULa Lafayette had a predicted graduation of 47% and and actual graduation rate of 41%. Most would consider that poor, but instead it received ones of the highest rankings in this category since the graduation rate is divided by average cost of attendance, and their in-state tuition is low. Similarly it is quite unique to place so much weight on things like the percent of alumni in Peace Corps or ROTC. For most persons attending college, they hope to excel in other fields more related to their major & classes, so why not also consider the percent of graduates that excelled in fields related to their major & classes?</p>
<p>Whatever we may think of this ranking system, UCSD understandably likes it:</p>
<p>[University</a> of California, San Diego](<a href=“http://www.ucsd.edu/]University”>http://www.ucsd.edu/)</p>
<p>It’s currently prominently trumpeted as a banner across their home page (in rotation with three other banners).</p>
<p>Pretty funny. Middlebury, with its 90 percent graduation rate and 2.4 million in annual research expenditures is one place behind Oglethorpe U (who?), with its 48 percent graduation rate and zero research dollars.</p>
<p>Wheaton, Trinity, Bard and St. Lawrence are all beaten by the crappy open admit school (97 percent acceptance) down the road from me, with its 34 percent graduation rate.</p>
<p>I should be happy. My school made out quite well, scoring better than it has in any other ranking I’ve ever seen. All I can say is if the college tries to brag about these rankings they’ll be missing my donation this year!</p>