US News 2015 Rankings - UA top university in Alabama

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Alabama
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<p>BigDaddy88, I am a big supporter of UA raising its admissions standards, but the minimum you suggest would have two detrimental effects: 1) too steep of a decline in freshman enrollment, which could seriously affect the financial health of UA, and 2) a drop in applications as many high school students would not want to get rejected (UA’s selectivity rating benefits from the high number of applications it receives, and the high rejection rate that comes with that). I think the first effect is something most are not considering. </p>

<p>In some ways, UA is funding its ability to teach ever increasing numbers of the top tier students in Engineering and other expensive majors, with the tuition from lower tier students in Education, Social Work, and other less demanding majors. Those hard science courses are very expensive to offer. Auburn is facing this issue right now, because its enrollment has been stagnant, despite an increase in Engineering students. With less state money, Auburn is having a hard time with faculty pay increases, and paying for the cost of its most arduous majors. So, I think UA would be smarter to first raise the minimum standard from a 21 ACT to a 22 ACT. Also, it could raise the minimum GPA. Shouldn’t anyone enrolling in the state flagship school have a GPA of at least 3.0? Over time, it can become even more selective, but it needs to be careful. </p>

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<p>Gatror88NE. I see your point. I just believe that at some point, UA is going to need to be more selective. Selectivity itself is a criteria that attracts more and better applicants. Eventually, you want both high stats OOS and top IS kids to see UA the same way that high school seniors view UVA, Michigan, Cal, W&M and UNC-CH among other top publics. </p>

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<p>While its nice to have higher ratings, chasing ratings can definitely have side effects. Here in Illinois, the competition to get into the flagship university (UIUC) has gotten to the point that unless you have a 32+ ACT you shouldn’t count on getting into engineering. Same for the B-school. Maybe a few 30’s make it in the B-school, but you can’t count on it - the other schools are less competitive. </p>

<p>To the suggestion by @Bigdaddy88, what UIUC does have are articulation agreements with most Illinois Community Colleges. If you complete certain classes and receive a certain GPA, you can transfer to Urbana-Champaign for junior and senior year. It’s not just Illinois. In the past, many kids in our neighborhood wanted to go to Wisconsin-Madison (I don’t blame them, a much better college atmosphere!) Now, if you are from suburban Chicago, you better have at least a 31-32 ACT to have any chance of being admitted to Madison. While they are more lenient with in-state students than OOS, Madison is rather generous with transfers from other colleges - especially other Wisconsin system schools. </p>

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<p><<<<
I’m wondering if the push for high stats students has reached its maximum return for USNews ranking purposes? Unlike some flagships, like Cal, Michigan, UVA, UIUC etc., “regular” Alabama in-state students can readily attend their flagship. I’m guessing, but maybe Bama needs to address the “lower end” of the accepted students ACT/SAT range to see future increases in its USNews ranking? My guess is that politically, that option is not feasible.
<<<</p>

<p>It would be difficult for Bama to exclude many of those low ACT scoring kids. Sadly, in this country, the avg ACT for an AA student is 17. So, if Bama were to exclude many of those ACT 21/22 students, they likely would be excluding a good number of promising AA students who have been good students at their HS’s. </p>

<p>The school, instead, should consider going “test optional” for those with GPA’s above a certain cut. Perhaps if a student has a 3.0+ GPA, he wouldn’t have to submit his test scores (but of course would be excluded for merit, so the better scoring students would still submit).</p>

<p>Other schools have gone test-optional just so that they can admit "good students but not have to include their low test scores in their reports.</p>

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<p>UA doesn’t need to exclude students with very low ACT scores. They just need to defer them until the spring OR offer them admission to one of the other UA system schools with the opportunity to matriculate in Tuscaloosa IF they prove themselves in a college setting.</p>

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<p>the UA system is NOT like the PSU system or similar. The UA system is like the UC system in Calif. Each univ is completely separate. UA cannot offer admission to another school. The PSU system can do that.</p>

<p>Yes, we could defer them to spring if that didn’t mean interfering with dorm occupancies. The school isn’t going to want to have empty-beds for fall.</p>

<p>Better to just make the school test-optional for those who have a minimum GPA (3.0) or similar. </p>

<p>@‌bigdaddy88 </p>

<p>We also don’t know how many of those low scoring kids are Tuscaloosa county students. If a number of them are, then they likely can only afford to commute. They may not be able to afford to get housing somewhere else. The county has a high AA population, so likely a number of those low-ACT students are local. </p>

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<p>Instead of trying to figure out how to “Game” the USNWR ranking system to improve a few places, we should figure out how to get graduation rates up for the students that currently attend UA. President Bonner wants to do this but it will be difficult since at least according to Department of Education data, African American students are not graduating at a very high rate and UA has quite a bit of African American students. Doing this will help students while moving up the rankings more than actions intended to move up rankings that have little or no benefit to actual student learning experience.</p>

<p><a href=“Race Gap Narrows in College Enrollment, But Not in Graduation | FiveThirtyEight”>http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/race-gap-narrows-in-college-enrollment-but-not-in-graduation/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>As I stated in prior postings, if you want to “game” the system, Northeastern University has the play book. Many of the things Northeastern did were gaming, but many things actually helped benefit student learning. If you want to"game" the system, let’s focus on those things that will actually help the students of UA.</p>

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<p>If college rankings have you down, flustered or just plain confused, check out Malcolm Gladwell’s article on College rankings (from 2011):</p>

<p>The Order of Things (What college rankings really tell us)</p>

<p><a href=“The Trouble with College Rankings | The New Yorker”>The Trouble with College Rankings | The New Yorker;

<p>The University of Alabama makes a surprise appearance!</p>

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<br>

<br>

<ol>
<li>University of Chicago</li>
<li>Brigham Young University</li>
<li>Harvard University</li>
<li>Yale University</li>
<li>University of Texas</li>
<li>University of Virginia</li>
<li>University of Colorado</li>
<li>University of Alabama</li>
<li>Stanford University</li>
<li>University of Pennsylvania
>>>>></li>
</ol>

70

<p>DS has a good friend from high school who is full pay at USC with the intention of ultimately heading to law school. In my opinion the friend’s family is paying a fortune for the hype of USC which has climbed the rankings in much the same way as Northeastern. I joked to DS that his friend might well turn up at UA law since the job placement and prospects were much superior to USC law.</p>

<p><a href=“The Jobs Crisis at Our Best Law Schools Is Much, Much Worse Than You Think - The Atlantic”>The Jobs Crisis at Our Best Law Schools Is Much, Much Worse Than You Think - The Atlantic;

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<p>So as a summary; what I have learned from this thread…college rankings are completely useless because everyone except UA games the system. Secondly; if they used the metrics that truly mattered, UA would rank number one. Do I have that correct?</p>

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<p>Well, no. Rankings are only important if you know and are aware of what the rankings actually encompass. The “metrics that truly matter” vary from student to student, so in some cases - yes. In others - absolutely not.</p>

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<p>@PennsyDad, I think you’re mischaracterizing what folks are discussing in this thread. </p>

<p>I’m a PennsyMom with a PennsyKid, so perhaps our experience will make some sense to you. We were comparing Alabama head to head with Penn State, both of whose engineering schools accepted my son within a couple of weeks of his applying last fall. They were his safety schools, frankly. But they were rock solid safeties, so he could focus on much more selective schools that offered better need-based financial aid and the smaller-school experience he thought he wanted at the time.</p>

<p>Penn State is ranked much higher than Alabama, across the board and for engineering. At the time, Penn State was also ranked the most expensive state flagship in the country for in-state students. (Now there’s a No. 1 to brag about!) It also has a highly-selective honors college, which my son was denied entrance into. He wasn’t sure about engineering, but either school could also offer any of the other subjects he was interested in studying. And we (theoretically) could afford either one of them. Alabama also offered automatic (stats-based) entrance into its honors college. He also applied to a number of private schools, some of which offered merit aid and others that did not.</p>

<p>For us, it came down to two things: What was the best value overall (up to a certain price point) and which school did he just plain prefer? </p>

<p>When April rolled around his actual choices (not factoring in any wait-lists) were Penn State at $34,000 a year, Bama at about $15,000 (due to scholarships), and two selective private colleges, one with engineering and one without, at a cost of around $45,000 and $30,000 a year, respectively. In the end, after visiting all the schools in contention, my son vastly preferred what Bama was offering him. Did the cost factor into his decision? Not really. He knew we would find a way to stretch to pay for Penn State or the less expensive LAC, but he’d come to the conclusion that he wanted to study engineering and he wanted to do that somewhere with maximum flexibility, both in terms of major and socially. For him, Bama ranked No. 1, and nothing else at that point mattered.</p>

<p>So far (knock on wood), he’s a very happy freshman and has been delighted by the caliber of the students he’s met in his classes and befriended in his dorm.</p>

<p>Every school, with the exception of places like Reed College that have basically told US News to go screw itself, are “gaming the system” in one way or the other. Honestly, from a business point of view, who can blame them? But UA needs to attend to the various interests of its core mission, and I think they’re doing a great job at that. Could it be improved? No doubt, but any minimal gains have to be weighed against their real impact on Alabama students and the state’s long-term interests.</p>

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<p>“No doubt, but any minimal gains have to be weighed against their real impact on Alabama students and the state’s long-term interests.”</p>

<p>Well said.</p>

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<p>I think the problem with the rankings is that most of the ranking has little/nothing to do with the quality of the classroom instruction, which most people don’t realize. They think…hmmm…#65 has better profs/instruction than #85 because 65 is higher than 85. </p>

<p>If I remember correctly, academic strength is only about 40% of the ranking…and good heavens, sometimes the differences in calculations are miniscule. So, in that case how much can rankings mean? </p>

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<p>Isn’t that why the dean of Harvard asked US NEWS to stop ranking the school?</p>

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<p>@paul2752‌, could you please cite the source for that claim? I’ve never heard that Harvard has asked to stop being ranked. They could certainly stop submitting their stats if they wanted to, the way Reed and a handful of other schools have. I’d be shocked if Harvard would do that without an agreement with all the other Ivies and elites also to stop participating. It would be admissions suicide to ‘unilaterally withdraw.’ Not to mention few schools benefit from this obsession with rankings as much as Harvard does. </p>

<p>Now if Harvard were worried they might drop substantially in the rankings for some reason . . . </p>

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<p>I read that in Korean wiki, so I can’t track the source. Sorry :frowning:
I could have read an info that was totally made up</p>

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<p>Korean wiki? Yikes.</p>

<p>For the record, I love and contribute to Wikipedia (founded by native Alabamian, Auburn grad, and former UA doctoral student Jimmy Wales, BTW), but you always need to verify any entry’s sourcing, @paul2752. Surely you realize that.</p>

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<p>Being a big nerd, I had to chime in on this…</p>

<p>I’m currently a quantitive analyst/financial engineer for a major investment bank and my job basically is to make sense of large sets of data. Also part of my job is to create a list of target institutions for recruitment for my firm based on many factors including world rankings of universities. I’m currently also looking around for a part-time MBA program which brought me to this site.</p>

<p>Many of you on here are wondering why the drop in US New rankings for the University of Alabama:</p>

<p>You need to take a holistic view on this, you guys are just focusing on one ranking which is heavily based on peer assessment:</p>

<p>UA Rankings for 2014</p>

<p>US News Ranking: 88
Forbes Ranking: 335
Wall Street Recruiter Survey : UN-RANKED<br>
Times of Higher Education World Rankings: UN-RANKED</p>

<p>The point here, there is consistency in the rankings. If anything US New has a very favorable ranking for UA. The Wall Street Recruiter Survey is probably the best ranking out there since it measures the quality of the product of the university. The WSRS surveys Fortune 500 companies and various head hunting firms and tries to determine which school produce the best graduates based on their performance.</p>

<p>30 plus ACT scores aren’t really a big deal anymore:</p>

<p>10 years ago when I graduated high school, in my graduating class, 17% of my graduating class of (about 1,200) had an ACT score of 30 or higher (one being a perfect 36). 4 years ago, when my sister graduated from the same high school the principle stated 43% of the graduating class had an ACT score of 30 or higher. It is not uncommon for students to have a ACT comp average of 30 or higher who enroll in 4 year major universities. Given how many resources high schools provide for ACT prep, it is really no surprise. Plus one can take the ACT as many times as they like and only the highest score stands. If one takes the ACT enough/practices enough, getting a 30 or higher is not very difficult. </p>

<p>UA being a southern school keeps it from being rated higher/being invited to the AAU:</p>

<p>Many southern schools rank well and maintain national prestige. Georgia Tech University being a southern school which was just admitted to the AAU. Think Duke, UNC and Vanderbilt… The University of Florida and the University of Georgia also rank very well for public state schools. While individuals may hold personal biases/stereotypes, these rankings do not. </p>

<p>Why UA doesn’t fair well in public perception/rankings:</p>

<p>UA needs a major PR campaign. Only news you hear out of UA is football and acts of racism. UA keeps shooting it’s self in the foot. The whole black girls not being bid to all white sororities and the latest incident of greek racism isn’t helping. UA has a double standard due to it’s ugly past. In terms of rankings, UA has a long way to go. You have to remember, UA’s peer institutions are also getting their best freshman classes every year and they are also recruiting worldwide for the best and brightest. UA seems to essentially have to give away free school to students who otherwise would not attend if it wasn’t free. Top publics get those same students to pay full price. UA does not have a top ranked engineering school or business school, which are keys for top rankings. Outside the southeast, no one has ever heard of the Culverhouse School of Commerce. I travel between NYC and San Francisco for work and I see all the top B-schools represented but never UA.</p>

<p>A lesson can be learned from University of Oklahoma:</p>

<p>In the late 90s and early 2000s OU began a similar recruitment/turn around as UA is presently doing. Fast forward to 2014, OU still hasn’t budged in rankings or prestige. Instead it costed them a fortune since they were essentially giving away free school to national merit school finalists (they rivaled Harvard at one point in terms of National Merit Scholars enrolled). There hopes were eventually top students will go to OU without any incentive. That never happened and they have scaled back their recruitment. </p>

<p>My take on UA:</p>

<p>Don’t worry about rankings. UA is UA. Don’t try to be like the Michigans, UC Berkelyes, UNCs, Illinois, Virginias of the world. Thats not UA. UA should be a place where some kid in Alabama can get into and graduate and hopefully live a better life. There are enough prestige schools. UA chasing the unattainable dream of being the next academic powerhouse will only lead to the degradation to educational opportunities in the state of Alabama… </p>