A dozen+ years and I never once heard an adcom even mention USNews as a magazine.
I assume UCR has a larger proportion of PELL-eligible students than other UC campuses (perhaps with the exception of UC Merced?). What’s the reason for the higher Social Mobility Index as measured by USNWR? Does UCR do anything special for low SES students that other UC campuses don’t? Or is it just due to a less rigorous curriculum that made it easy for everyone to graduate?
Re: #81
The USNWR Pell related measures are Pell graduation rate and the gap between Pell and non Pell graduation rate. For UCR, the gap is 1% (74% versus 75%).
Other UC campuses have gaps of 1% to 4%. Having better in-state financial aid than most states’ public universities probably helps.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2017/10/25/a-look-at-pell-grant-recipients-graduation-rates/ suggests that the overall gap is around 8%, but some colleges are worse (e.g. University of Alabama with a 17% gap, 57% versus 74%, presumably hurting its USNWR ranking, and Penn State with a 9% gap, 79% versus 88%).
^If a college adopts an easier curriculum, lowering the bar for everyone, presumably the gap between the graduation rates of PELL-eligible and PELL-ineligible students would also decrease or even disappear. So, it seems to me that the Social Mobility Index can be manipulated without doing something to actually help PELL-eligible students.
In other words, you are assuming that Pell students are academically inferior to other students, so that a college must be reducing its academic rigor to help them graduate.
But then it may not be academics that are the hard part for college students from low SES backgrounds, as Anthony Jack writes in “I Was a Low-Income College Student. Classes Weren’t the Hard Part”: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/10/magazine/college-inequality.html
@INJParent…ucbalumnus answered your question well in #82 above.
UCR has one of the lowest gaps (1%) between Pell and non-Pell graduates along with better financial aid in many cases…to entice students to head inland rather than the “more desirable” big city/beach locations for some. The curriculum is just as rigorous as the other UC’s…basic undergraduate requirements are similar. I’m not sure what the Pell (low SES) students are majoring in versus non-Pell students? Would be interesting to see that. However, UCR has a number of student support/tutoring groups for those that are struggling and will “crack the whip” to make sure they work harder to improve and make the grade. The hard numbers keep increasing…3.9 average GPA now. Lots of very smart college students out there that don’t come from wealth…their chances to graduate and succeed are greatest at a school like UC Riverside (or just about any other public UC school). Hopefully someday, they will have similar chances/outcomes at the expensive Privates across the nation!
PELL-eligible students are presumably disadvantaged. That means they’re possibly, on average as a group, less academically accomplished than their counterparts with higher SES. SES has nothing to do with intelligence, so some PELL-eligible students could be very well accomplished (like Anthony Jack) or even geniuses.
Having said that, the questions still remain. Why is there a disparity in graduation rates between PELL-eligible students and others? Is it all financial as you imply? What have UCR done differently to alleviate the financial burdens of these students that other UC campuses didn’t do? If these questions aren’t answered, what good is the Social Mobility Index?
@ucbalumnus …thanks for that great Anthony Jack article!
While I was a non-Pell student, my Mom has always been very frugal…probably why I attended the public UC Riverside campus rather than a much more expensive private college! I do remember those 29 and 39 cent hamburger/cheeseburger nights at McDonalds back in the day as well!
UCR’s Pell/non-Pell graduation gap is 1%. Other UCs have gaps of 1%-4%, which is on the low end of gaps generally (about 8% overall). UCs’ relatively good in-state financial aid is likely a significant factor here, compared to other states’ public universities, since the most common reasons for dropping out of college are money related.
So UCR is not unique among UCs, as you seem to be assuming.
I think there was a time these rankings were super important. In today’s day and age I think most people are looking at cost as most important.
I am watching top students go to state flagships and to the best school that gives them the best $$. Times have changed.
If all UC campuses are equally generous, why is the Social Mobility Indices vary significantly from campus to campus (1-4% as you indicated). Are the UCs more generous for in-state students on PELL grants than even the rich privates (such as Princeton or Harvard)? If not, why do they have lower Social Mobility Indices?
https://www.ucop.edu/uc-mission/
https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/uc-system
Yes, UC’s more generous for in-state students on PELL grants compared to rich privates with better financial aid (especially at certain locations like UCR) to the best of my knowledge.
Look at the University of California Mission statement above…very interesting.
Also in second link…37% of ALL UC students are considered low income.
I share an article about Reed College’s USN ranking. https://www.reed.edu/reed-magazine/articles/2019/usnews-discrepancy.html
Forbes ranks them #105
Niche ranks them #97
College Factual #187
Are all of the rankings wrong or maybe Reed is a very niche LAC with few undergrads (1,400) that are mostly intellectual, elitist group looking to go to grad school and/ get PhD’s in the Humanities?
Let’s keep it real so there is no confusion. UC Riverside has a capped weighted GPA average of 3.81 (2nd lowest of the 9 UCs) and their unweighted GPA is more like a 3.3 or 3.4 and SAT (25th/75th) median range is 1130-1380. Forbes ranks them #199.
2018 UC capped weighted GPA averages:
UCB: 4.23
UCLA: 4.23
UCSD: 4.16
UCSB: 4.13
UCI: 4.13
UCD: 4.11
UCSC: 3.96
UCR: 3.81
UCM: 3.71
2018 Data:
25th - 75th percentiles for SAT:
UCB: 1360-1540
UCLA: 1340-1540
UCSD: 1300-1520
UCSB: 1270-1500
UCD: 1220-1480
UCI: 1230-1490
UCSC: 1210-1450
UCR: 1130-1380
UCM: 1020-1280
@socaldad2002 . Are you asking a question or offering a personal opinion? If you had any knowledge of Reed at all you would know that Reed ranks very highly nationally in the percentage of its graduates who earn PhD’s in the physical, biological, and mathematical sciences (as well as in social sciences and humanities). https://www.reed.edu/ir/phd.html
“If all UC campuses are equally generous, why is the Social Mobility Indices vary significantly from campus to campus (1-4% as you indicated).“
If the gap is being attributed largely to financial issues then it is likely that the differing costs and availability of housing between campuses will be a significant factor. There are lots of articles about the struggle to find housing at UCB for example, and even UCLA only guarantees housing for three of the four years and is in a very expensive city.
@socaldad2002 … Thanks for that data and the UCR capped weighted GPA average of 3.81.
https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/campuses-majors/riverside/freshman-admit-data.html
The UCR GPA range shown on link above… 3.69 to 4.11 (middle 25%-75% students)
Average that out and you get a 3.9 GPA.
The “hard numbers” will continue to increase at UC Riverside (and ALL UC’s), and the rapid growth at UC Riverside will continue its movement onward and upward in a big way.
@mackinaw…very interesting article on Reed College…trying to decipher it. Ranked #68 Nationally for Liberal Arts Colleges…very good and apparently majorly underscored! They haven’t submitted forms to US News for the last 24 years on amount of money spent per student (very high…over 50K per student) due to prior scandals/negative publicity? Any other reasons for that or is it just principle? Seems they should do that and “play the game” and watch their ranking shoot up much higher! Although, it is kind of admirable that they are holding out on those forms as the other criteria at Reed seem to be in line just fine with happy students not completely hung up on US News ranks.
“The rankings certainly add some numbers to the mix of information, but I don’t know anyone, anywhere, who thinks the rankings are all the information necessary to choose a college, or even to choose a college among a set of colleges that are realistic admissions and financial prospects.”
It may be the bay area I know a lot who use the rankings to figure out first where to apply, then to choose among where they get in. Especially the undergrad engineering and comp sci rankings, they’re taken as gospel. And any school that moves up in the rankings will definitely tell prospective students and parents.