@ClarinetDad16 “Wouldn’t it be more valuable to measure outcomes than tally inputs?”
Sort by “overall ROI” → http://universitybenchmarks.com/All_University_Academic_Rankings.html
@Dimnarion, sorry if my post came off defensive. I didn’t think you were attacking legacy kids. I just wanted to say that I believe that legacy should only factor in if the kid merits an acceptance but not if they don’t. I don’t think it works that way but I wish it did.
@prezbucky Love your appreciation for Reed! And I might quibble with Smith ahead of Barnard. Or Kenton vs Oberlin? But imperfect as it is, your approach is a nice counterweight to USNews’ specific numerical system (and its shameless treatment of Reed!)
@Gminintx "@ClarinetDad16 “Wouldn’t it be more valuable to measure outcomes than tally inputs?”
Sort by “overall ROI” → http://universitybenchmarks.com/All_University_Academic_Rankings.html"
ROI is a poor outcome metric even if you can get the data. You want to use Net Present Value.
ROI tends to choose the cheapest school. Simplified example, assuming all information is known. A student can attend school A that costs $10,000 per year, and will earn $30,000 per year at graduation, or she can attend school B and pay $60,000 per year, and earn $70,000 per year at graduation.
School A cost: $40,000
40 year income: $1.2 million
School B cost: $240,000
40 year income: $2.8 million
Incremental cost of B: $200,000
Incremental income of B: $1.6 million
In this case, scenario B is clearly worth the additional money, but ROI will like school A. The ROI will prefer the higher rate of return on investment. If the invest was the same, that works, but when the investment for some options is lower, that causes problems.
I read that legacy was established back in the 1920’s as a way to lower the number of Jewish students at elite colleges.
Hey @markham , I have spent plenty of time on both campuses. Settle down.
I had a hard time with it. I just feel like Oberlin has a bit more rep than Kenyon and the same could be said of Smith and Barnard. It could be argued that overallquality among them is equal.
Rep is hard to quantify, though, and I can be persuaded over time. hehe
@prezbucky I think those generally match reputations among students at elite universities that I’ve met with the exceptions of the LAC ones - Kenyon, Harvey Mudd, and Reed in Tier 2 (all compete for students with Ivies, I know lots of students at top 5 universities who applied to them and some who got rejected by them), Barnard in Tier 3, Davidson, W&L, Colgate, Colby in Tier 4. I also think Mount Holyoke should definitely be Tier 4 at least.
@prezbucky why is William & Mary not on your list? #1 Undergraduate Teaching for Universities, #6 Public Schools, #32 overall, and a decent rep, certainly better than many of your tier 4 publics.
It’s a difficult school to categorize, because it’s really more like a large private LAC. But I think it belongs somewhere on your list.
Princeton is a fine example of doing one thing and doing it very well. Hope it puts these “Will Stanford surpass Princeton soon?” threads to rest.
@prezbucky how are Alabama equal to Rutgers and TCNJ? I also don’t think Northeastern are better than Fordham.
I hadn’t noticed, but now that you mention it, time has been a tad belligerent lately…
prezbucky,
Glad to see I got your attention. Here are some ideas 2 weeks from now on Colgate’s campus for your consideration:
Will you be at Colgate for our Homecoming football game vs Cornell, or maybe the New Hampshire and Army ice hockey games in our new $39 million Class of 1965 Arena, or maybe the inauguration a couple of days earlier of President Casey? And that’s just for starters. Maybe volleyball vs Lehigh and Navy, field hockey vs Lafayette, or maybe women’s soccer vs Bucknell? How 'bout club men’s rugby vs Syracuse or women’s vs Oneonta.
Rest assured that I will be all settled in. down and around these activities. Hope to see you around.
Go 'gate!
@prezbucky your bracketing seems pretty spot-on to me. People are going to quibble, of course.
I assume that Tier IV includes a lot of very good colleges that you just didn’t list specifically, hence the ellipsis at the end of each entry.
@prezbucky : Some of your tier 3 and 4 schools (LACs) report higher student standardized scoring than a couple of schools from your tier 1 group. I’m assuming you are aware of this. Do you simply weight other factors much more heavily?
@Sapper119, I just found this thread so I apologize for taking the discussion back to this morning, but you got me wondering how a schools endowment would factor into the USNWR rankings with a couple of your posts.
241; "The LAC rankings are more polluted by money than the NU rankings. ... There is a point where endowment is of little relevance to an LAC."
255; "It is pretty obvious with LACs endowment is too heavily considered in the overall ranking. There is a point where it is not relevant. For LACs this is a critical consideration."
I went through the ranking methodology on the USNWR website and could not find anything referencing endowment money. The following is the scoring percentage breakdown for both the National Universities and National Liberal Arts Colleges (they are the same).
Graduation and Retention Rates (22.5%)
Undergraduate Academic Reputation (22.5%)
Faculty Resources (20%)
Endowments are not in this section.
The subset consists of; Class Size (40%), Faculty Salary (35%), Highest Degree Earned (15%), Student-Faculty Ratio (5%) and Percentage of Full Time Faculty (5%).
Student Selectivity (12.5%)
Financial Resources (10%)
It would seem that this section would be where endowments would be included but they are not. Here is the exact portion from the methodology section of the USNWR website;
“Financial resources (10%) Generous per-student spending indicates that a college can offer a wide variety of programs and services. U.S. News measures financial resources by using the average spending per student on instruction, research, student services and related educational expenditures in the 2014 and 2015 fiscal years. Spending on sports, dorms and hospitals doesn’t count.”
It seems to me that in this category USNWR is measuring what the schools actually spend per student on academic expenditures. They are not including expenditures on sports, dorms or hospitals so at least IMHO it seems reasonable.
Graduation Rate Performance (7.5%)
Alumni Giving Percentage (5%)
Endowments are not in this section either.
This section is the average percentage of living alumni who received a degree and who gave to their school.
These college rankings that are put forward by any number of “authorities” including USNWR are all imperfect. In this case however, regarding the consideration of endowment money, it does appear to me IMHO that USNWR has not really factored it into the scoring in a way that disadvantages those schools with smaller endowments.
Thanks for making me wonder.
@farandsure : Endowment is in fact not considered directly by US News.
prezbucky forgot public William and Mary
@merc81, Thanks, you said it more succinctly than I did! I just thought that for people reading this now and in the future the earlier posts (#241 & #255) needed to be vetted.
@suzyQ7 The article, which I posted on the site, tries to show that the impact of selectivity in the rankings is not limited to that metric alone; it is a major factor in graduation rates, as well as freshman retention. It is the surest path to “gaming” the system.