<p>Oh please, your grammatical errors alone should cause anyone to pause before accepting your analysis. To quote you, “Instead it costed them a fortune since they were essentially giving away free school to national merit school finalists.” Really? Costed? </p>
<p>While you do make some valid points, I don’t appreciated the condescension nor the stereotyping of my school. Yes, there have been racial issues at UA, but one of the reasons for that is that we actually have a significant number of African Americans at UA, and the media places more scrutiny on UA than it does on other schools. Most top state flagship schools do not even have very many African Americans. And if the environment at UA for African Americans was so bad, why do so many choose to apply and enroll there? </p>
<p>Finally, there are plenty of schools throughout Alabama. The great majority have entrance requirements significantly lower than UA’s. So, UA doesn’t need to lower its ambitions. The big difference between UA’s current effort and that of Oklahoma from the 90s, is that UA’s freshman classes have been overwhelmingly from out of state, with 63 per cent coming from outside the state this Fall. Plus, UA’s avg. ACT and SAT have increased dramatically, despite dramatically increased enrollment. Just a little context for your condescension. </p>
<p>Yes there are many errors, I wrote that up quickly. I’m not writing a book, I’m justing trying to convey thought, but since you brought grammar up:</p>
<p>To quote you:</p>
<p>“While you do make some valid points, I don’t appreciated the condescension nor the stereotyping of my school.” Really? Appreciated?</p>
<p>(also the best writing is lean with small words, big words are for people desperately trying to sound smart, something you should keep in mind)</p>
<p>The racial incidents are just part of the poor perception of UA. I did not suggest the school was anymore racist than other public schools. It was an element which held up the poor perception argument. OU also had and continues to have a high out-of-state student body. But think what you like… </p>
<p>@NWWildcat, since you are a “quantitive analyst/financial engineer for a major investment bank,” perhaps you could disclose where you were educated and what your degree is in?</p>
<p>It appears you’re from the Northwest and value rankings that Asian firms (and insecure Asian-American students) value, thus your rather simplistic generalization that, “Only news you hear out of UA is football and acts of racism.”</p>
<p>And really, I understand the occasional typo, but you can’t even spell your own title correctly? Never mind such egregious (too big a word for you??) a mistake as “it’s self” for “itself” and this pearl of wisdom:</p>
<p><a href=“also%20the%20best%20writing%20is%20lean%20with%20small%20words,%20big%20words%20are%20for%20people%20desperately%20trying%20to%20sound%20smart,%20something%20you%20should%20keep%20in%20mind”>quote</a>
[/quote]
</p>
<p>And how old are you? I’m guessing somewhere between 16 and 23. So pardon me if nobody at UA is going to lose sleep over your “expert opinion” that . . . </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>But I’m delighted to see that @paul2752 “likes” and values your thoughts on the subject!</p>
<p>Sorry didn’t read the article thoroughly.I pressed like simply because it was interesting to read, 
now I have to un-like button press. </p>
<p>But it’s sad thing that many people outside UA talk about football only </p>
<p>I have to say something about ACT score.</p>
<p>Baylor university is ranked slightly higher than UA, but it has 24-29 Act middle 50%. We have 22-30. I think ours is better. </p>
<p>I’m not from the northwest. I’m from originally from Chicago, educated at Northwestern University (BS Computer Science and Mathematics, MS Computer Science.) I’m 29. My title is spelled correctly. Well most of the Fortune 500 also value these rankings. I understand since UA ranks poorly therefore you don’t like those rankings. If you are trying to imply I’m not intelligent, I promise you NU makes UA look like a community college… What I wrote are facts, nothing more. You can accept them or not. I didn’t realize the UA community is so defensive. </p>
<p>Don’t change your opinions on my account, @paul2752!</p>
<p>Why so you even pay attention to someone who shows up here with no previous history of posts. Please don’t feed the ■■■■■.</p>
<p>^^^Because sometimes it’s good to “out” the ■■■■■. </p>
<p>I LIKE the post ^^^^^. </p>
<p>NWWildcat, haha! you got me! Yes, that was a typo. But I think “appreciated” is an actual word. I have never seen “costed” in the dictionary. By the way, did you see the news release a couple of weeks ago about UA and Lockheed Martin signing an agreement to cooperate in establishing a research center on UA’s campus? See, that kind of news will not make national headlines, like sorority controversies do. But it proves my point about the focus of national media on the negatives rather than the positives about Alabama. When you stereotype, you are part of the problem. </p>
<p>Oh, and you selectively left out other rankings in which UA has an impressive rating or ranking, relative to other public schools. There was one reported in Forbes a few years ago, in which UA was in the top ten. It wasn’t the annual Forbes ranking, but a ranking that Forbes thought worthy of mentioning. </p>
<p>BLAME MEDIA.
Again our ACT is better than Baylor!</p>
<p>You do realize Lockheed Martin has these types of agreements with over 120 universities? Might be big new at UA, but its essentially business as usual at most universities… </p>
<p>And there are 660 state universities total in the U.S.</p>
<p>I don’t really have a dog in this fight (not yet… son may end up a NMF at UA), but statistics can be made to say a lot of different things. For instance, the size of the freshman class in the Honors College at UA is right around 1900-2000, or about the same size as the entire freshman classes at Notre Dame (about 2000) or Northwestern (about 2100), and significantly larger than the freshman class at Washington University in St. Louis (a little less than 1500), all of which are thought of as “elite” universities. The mean ACT for the Honors College freshmen is 31.2, and for computer based honors it’s 33. Either way, it’s very competitive with those so-called “elite” universities, and has just as many kids entering. So the real difference isn’t that UA has fewer elite intellects in their incoming classes, it’s that they have more diversity overall… more kids who aren’t at the right end of the bell curve. Put differently, UA has an elite university, it’s just embedded in a larger college that better reflects our society as a whole. And that’s a good thing, the same way it was a good thing that platoons in WW II might have working class kids fighting alongside Harvard undergrads. To the extent we’ve become a society where so-called “elites” barricade themselves in private schools and elite universities and gated communities, that’s not good and not healthy for our society in the long run. (A good read on this is Charles Murray’s recent book called “Coming Apart.”)</p>
<p>Anyway, the whole question is fascinating and forces you to think about your own biases. </p>
<p>Enough with the personal taunts and fighting off topic. Otherwise this thread will be closed. - FC</p>
I actually have the print edition of U.S. News Best College (2015 Edition). The guide states that the criteria are weighted as following:
Graduation and retention rates 22.5%
Faculty resources 20%
Peer Academic Assessment 15%
Student Selectivity 12.5%
Financial Resources 10%
Graduation rate performance 7.5%
High School Guidance Counselor Assessment: 7.5%
Alumni giving 5%
(Note that Graduation rate performance is not the same as graduation rate. Graduation performance is the differential between the school’s projected graduation rate and the actual graduation rate.)
Respecting peer academic assessment, Bama gets a 3.0 out of 5. Its a respectable number that’s the same score for Florida State University; University of Oklahoma; and BYU. (For comparison purposes, within the SEC Texas A&M and Florida both have 3.6 peer assessments scores, and Georgia has a 3.4)
There are about 11 schools with even lower peer assessment numbers that are actually tied or higher ranked than Bama on the US News Rankings. This is where you see the area that Bama needs to work on and its six year graduation rank. For example, the top public universities Cal, Virginia, Michigan and UCLA all have six-year graduation rates no lower than 90%. Within the SEC, amongst public universities Florida, Georgia and A&M have graduation rates of 83%, 83% and 81%.
Bama’s six-year graduation rank is 67%.
US News explains that this data is based on “the average proportion of a graduating class earning a degree in six years or less. We consider freshmen classes that started fall 2004 through fall 2007.” Its interesting that US News relied on data for one of their most important categories that concluded in 2007. Bama also needs to improve its freshmen retention rate which is 86%; however, that number is not far from its SEC peers noted above who are hovering at 96%; 94% and 92%. According to US News, the retention rate number “indicates the average portion of freshmen who entered the school in 2009 through fall 2012 and returned the following fall.”
I wonder what Bama’s ranking would have been with more updated graduation data that takes into consideration the changes in the academic credentials of the student body. I suspect that inclusion of that data would greatly improve Bama’s overall ranking.
At 22.5%, Graduation and retention rates have a significant impact on the ratings (80% is average graduation rate, 20% is average freshman retention rate). What drives down UA’s numbers, is its transfer-out rate.
6th Year Grad Rate/Transfer-out Rate (based on the 2007 cohort of students)
UA: 67%/22%
AU: 68%/22%
FSU: 77%/7%
UF: 87%/3%
UGA: 83%/6%
TAMU: 79%/12%
To address its graduation rate issue, it has to address the high transfer-out rate. Why do students transfer-out? Financials (cost), academics, fit?
^^ so that rate is based on students who STARTED at UA in 2007?
@amy9998 Yes, it’s for Freshman that started in the fall of 2007. It does not include any that started in the summer or spring, or any transfer students.
wont that create out dated information?