UGA rises in rankings, Tech & Emory maintains, GSU still unranked, but up-and-coming

Colleges and Universities A-Z Emory University
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<p>"The 2014 US News World Report rankings were released this morning. Tech and UGA tie for 27th best undergraduate business program, Tech maintains its position at 5th best undergraduate engineering education. UGA's Terry College of Business was named 1st in the nation for both insurance and risk management specialties and tied with UC-Berkeley in 3rd for real estate. UGA rose from 21st best public university to 20th best public university.</p>

<p>UGA rises in overall rankings and Tech maintains. Emory maintains at 20th in the nation with 17th best undergraduate business program. Georgia State University didn't quite get in the ranks this year, but they were named 14th most up-and-coming school."</p>

<p><a href="http://www.city-data.com/forum/atlan...maintains.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.city-data.com/forum/atlan...maintains.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Also shared on UGA & GT's boards. I'm glad to see the consistent improvement of Georgia schools both public and private. I only wish there was some information surrounding smaller private schools such as Mercer.</p>

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<p>Not sure about the improvement with Emory’s rankings…I’m surprised Emory still made top 20 (tied with GTown and Berkeley so really top 20-22) considering the whole SAT score reporting incident last year and Wagner’s whole 3/5 compromise statement, and it seems to be barely clinging on that. Emory’s been 20th for the past 3 years, was 17th back in 2010, and was ranked as high as 9th back in 1998 or so… So as far as I can tell, it’s just the opposite of an improvement. </p>

<p>Also notice that Emory has the 2nd highest admit rate, the lowest retention rate, and the 2nd lowest graduation rate among the the 25. Wonder what’s contributing to that…</p>

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<p>Trying to compare USNWR data from previous years is ridiculous if you don’t account for changes in methodology. I could easily point you to USNWR rankings from the 80s which indicate that Emory has shot up in renown but that would be due to the USNWR only relying on peer assessment scores prior to 1988. Also, how much has UGA actually improved? Sure HOPE made more top GA students consider the school, but is it actually a better institution in terms of overall rigor?</p>

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<p>The HOPE Scholarship and Zell Miller scholarship is attributed to improving all Georgian universities, few schools report lower average SAT scores and GPA compared to previous years. The only real instance we have witnessed in Georgia is having some institutions pass another in terms of student body. Most notable with Georgia State, in the 90s, GSU was the solid 3rd contender for undergraduate students. Now they’ve been passed by much smaller regional schools in terms of average SAT score and GPA. </p>

<p>I think UGA has done a great job changing their image. Their “party school” reputation isn’t as relevant as before. They went from being the number one party school, to second, fifth, sixth, eighth and finally eleventh. Although “party school rankings” are complete bunk generated from a small sample of surveys, some students still use them when deciding college choice. There are plenty of top research universities that regularly top the “party school” list.</p>

<p>UGA has created several new colleges, most notably the College of Engineering and GRU-UGA Medical Partnership. Research expenditure has considerable gone up. Undergraduate research participation hit an all time high this year.</p>

<p>[UGA</a> students show record levels of interest in research | UGA Today](<a href=“http://news.uga.edu/releases/article/uga-students-show-record-levels-of-interest-in-research/]UGA”>UGA students show record levels of interest in research - UGA Today)</p>

<p>Accomplishment among faculty and students at UGA has significantly increased as shown by the 2012 “award fest” at UGA. UGA was supposed to join the AAU, the most prestigious group in higher education, however, the lack of a stand-alone engineering school prevented this and Boston University took the spot.</p>

<p>[As</a> AAU Admits Georgia Tech to Its Exclusive Club, Other Universities Await the Call - Finance - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“As AAU Admits Georgia Tech to Its Exclusive Club, Other Universities Await the Call”>As AAU Admits Georgia Tech to Its Exclusive Club, Other Universities Await the Call)</p>

<p>The institution has made leaps and bounds of progress in terms of selectivity, yes, but also program offering and innovation. The GRA has done well for UGA, and they have many VentureLab companies. New President Jere Morehead is said to really change the face of the university from being the leader of the SEC to more of a top tier flagship university comparing to Ohio State, Wisconsin, Michigan, UCLA, UNC and Washington in terms of scholarly work, research and accomplishment. The alumni base is present. UGA, and if Mr. Morehead can raise UGA’s endowment to the 1 bln mark, then serious improvements will be made. Regardless, the institution has posted record breaking classes every year consistently for quite some time - even as HOPE diminishes. It’s a prime choice for students who can’t afford Emory. It’s important to remember as the flagship university of Georgia, UGA has to maintain comprehensive education. So whereas Georgia Tech has a niche field it has really done well with, UGA has to continue educating teachers and less STEM professionals. Also, UGA is a public school, public research universities can never fairly be compared to private universities. </p>

<p>However, the school makes good progress which is good for Georgia and the Atlanta economy. Grady School of Journalism is a very prestigious college that is home to many well-to-do alumni, the same can be said about Terry and SPIA. The University has significantly expanded campus and built new labs and teaching spaces. Terry recently raised over $80 million dollars for a new business learning center dubbed Correll Hall after Georgia-Pacific Chairman AD Pete Correll.</p>

<p>I can make a very similar case for Georgia Tech.</p>

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<p>I think Tech and UGA are really solid (but still…it’s nice that UGA added all of that stuff, but that won’t necessarily benefit undergrad. education and experience. However, there are awesome things they did like increase their endowment by quite a bit and add freshman seminars. That’s a step in the right direction). And CollegeStu: Gaffes don’t matter to ranking agencies (other than the SAT thing). Harvard (Larry Summers, etc), Yale (sexual assault), and schools like that have had a ridiculous amount and such things never affect the rankings. Berkeley has very serious financial issues and yet is considered solid. I thought Emory would decline slightly (as in, it could have tied us w/Berkeley and G-town at like 21 or something) because of the new numbers and then I realized that SAT scores and stuff, even for enrolled students, are very close, nearly indistinguishable, from the schools tied with us. Emory has always trailed the other top 20s by quite a bit in this category. </p>

<p>For these rankings specifically, it will have to work on that and its retention and graduation numbers (the graduation rate should be a little better I thought. We should maybe try to shoot for 92-93%). At least it’s fairly clear that we don’t necessarily have to have a super low admit rate or super high app. numbers to be successful in it, so much as begin to attract better students, retain, and graduate them. In essence, Emory can aim for a self-selected pool of good applicants to choose from. Unfortunately, it has work to do before it gets to that point. As in, it needs to be clearly offering something different or more academically interesting than many peers and attract students that it usually wouldn’t. Right now, we have things like Human Health major and stuff, but that attracts who we’ve always been attracting. I’m thinking a success in chemistry will help to set a launching pad to at least fix science recruitment. I suppose social science and humanities will have to keep marketing the faculty and success they’ve had and maybe offer scholarships for outstanding applicants that appear as if they may consider humanities/social science. Emory may also want to recruit students with better quantitative backgrounds, or at least those who aren’t afraid to use them (I know we offer little to math, CS, and physics majors but we could at least attract better pre-bus and econ. majors, which would likely help some). </p>

<p>Part of this is a numbers game (the ranking), and part of it is attracting people that don’t just merely look amazing on paper (actually making a better school). Seriously, notice how some schools admissions stats have sky-rocketed, yet the school is generally considered not much different in caliber from schools with lower stats (and some schools with lower stats. are no doubt higher caliber institutions. They take academics and academic rigor much more seriously and are much more than a “playground for smart people” or what we like to call “a great socializing experience”). I think Emory can do it better and shouldn’t go down such a path.</p>

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<p>The GRA has to do with much of the economic impact of the universities. SAT scores and acceptance rates are great and all, but they’re a small factor in what makes a university great. UGA, GT and Emory have been doing exceptionally well with research expenditure, venturelab formation, GRA and program expansion. Faculty ranks have improved, and I anticipate them all to get better. UGA is expected to make notable progress under their new president. Jere Morehead is a fantastic leader IMO</p>

<p>Again, thanks for the share</p>

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<p>This does a good job of providing non-comparable data that downplay the differences in institutions. For instance, Emory was 13th in undergraduate business this year ([U.S&lt;/a&gt;. News ranks Emory among top national universities | Emory University | Atlanta, GA](<a href=“http://news.emory.edu/stories/2013/09/upress_us_news_rankings_2013/campus.html]U.S”>U.S. News ranks Emory among top national universities)), while UGA was ranked 27th ([Rankings</a> - Terry College of Business - University of Georgia](<a href=“http://www.terry.uga.edu/about/rankings-statistics]Rankings”>http://www.terry.uga.edu/about/rankings-statistics)) for the last year I could find.</p>

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<p>Vault now does undergrad rankings.
They’re probably more reliable than USNews (but very similar) but i cant seem to find the methodology.</p>

<p>I think rankings for anything (undergrad, graduate school, companies focusing on different kinds of careers) is done very well by Vault. Since careers is essentially what the website is. But I have a limited knowledge about this stuff and I’m sure there are some political intricacies. </p>

<p>You can use your emory connection to get full access.</p>