<p>The use of “should” made my sentence unclear. I am not proposing any changes. </p>
<p>The alumni giving is a DIRECT representation of several elements such as the satisfaction of students with the education they received, the alumni’s desire to help their alma mater offer the same opportunity to others, and the overall positive perception of their school. Of course, it does require the financial capacity to donate, which again is a direct correlation to the value of their education in terms of earning power.</p>
<p>Less satisfied and less wealthy alumni have fewer incentives or moral obligations to donate.</p>
<p>^^ Cash to donate also may represent “family” wealth. Perhaps the recent grads (May/June '10) are “donating” really daddy’s money. For example, Dartmouth had a 99% participating rate this year towards their alumni class grad gift, but yet only ~35% of grads indicated that they had jobs. Obviously, it’s much easier to donate (and demonstrate “alumni” satisfaction) when its other people’s money… :)</p>
<p>True, but it does not invalidate the overall concept. After all, it shows that the people who sent checks for 4 years to an institution are happy to support their offspring’s desire to show their appreciation. Again, nothing precludes the parents of students who went to schools that do not enjoy a substantial giving index to … give a few bucks to their kid(s.) Unless I am mistaken there are no minimum sizes for the alumni donations.</p>
<p>Oh, I could not avoid smiling at the implication of the last sentence. Since public institutions have elevated the spending of “other people’s money” to an art form, they should be experts at finding more of the same kind of money and expect their graduates to have learned the finer points of that exercise! :)</p>
<p>May I be so bold as to edit your sentence to make my point: After all, it shows that the people who sent checks for 4 years to an institution and have the financial means are happy to support their offspring’s desire to show their appreciation. </p>
<p>When 30+% of your student body is Pell grant-poor, it is much harder to come up with $10 to send into the alumni donation coffers. In contrast, many/most? top privates are ~50-60% full pay, i.e., top 5% income earners in the US.</p>
<p>Do you think in the future that there may be a separate ranking of honors programs which are within public universities? They seem to be so diverse in structure, but some are distinct enough to even be considered LAC’s unto their own. Imagine if someone ranked them head to head with LAC’s. I sense that the public/CCer’s would be ravenous for this information. Would that blow the field open in terms of competition akin to what USNW did with its original ranking? Would that create a negative pressure on tuition?</p>
<p>it would be pretty interesting if they made at least a few major changes.
personally im hoping for something different.
so my list would be as follows:</p>
<p>1) Harvard
2) Yale (better or as good as Princeton)
3) Princeton
3) Stanford (Deserve to be in the top 3 by now)
5) MIT
5) Columbia (On par HOLISTICALLY with MIT if you take into account the liberal arts as well research activity)
7) Penn (Wharton has dropped significantly in the graduate school rankings and I think that would be refected in undergrad as well considering Wharton is Penn’s main strength)
7) Caltech
9) University Of Chicago
10) Duke
10) Northwestern (NU had a great year with the highest number of fulbrights in the country, higher acceptance stats i.e SAT Ranges, lower acceptance rate and higher yield etc so i see it moving up a spot)
12) Dartmouth
13) Wash U in St.Loius
14) UC Berkeley (Def deserve to be in the top 15. kind of ridiculous how US News under rate public schools so much)
15) Cornell
16) JHU
17) UCLA
18) Brown
19) UVA
20) CMU
20) University of Michigan Ann Arbor</p>
Saying that Wharton is Penn’s “main strength” is like saying that Columbia’s Journalism School is its main strength (albeit only a graduate school). They’re both legendary in their respective disciplines, but not to the exclusion of eminence in other parts of their universities. In fact, Penn’s liberal arts departments generally rank at about the same level as Columbia’s (some higher, some a bit lower), and Penn’s College of Arts and Sciences is more than 3 times the size of Wharton Undergrad (and also significantly larger than Columbia College ).</p>
<p>sure. penn’s liberal arts and wharton are great and in fact all rankings are subjective.</p>
<p>since this is a prediction of the us news rankings and according to a us news - columbia law, engineering (as well as journalism) are ranked higher than those of penn while wharton has dropped a few ranks (pretty major drop actually);
i would assume columbia might beat it in the undergrad rankings as well.</p>
<p>and while columbia college may be lot smaller than penn’s college of arts and sciences, thats probably what enables it to hold onto its quality and exclusivity (note that us news does take into account exclusivity and class size). its like comparing harvard law and yale law…i guess yale law generally has an edge because its a lot smaller (and hence more exclusive etc i assume?)</p>
<p>penn is a brilliant college no doubt. i just feel for the reasons mentioned above that columbia might tip it for a top 5 spot in the rankings this year…</p>
<p>There is no chance of Columbia leapfrogging Penn this year or any year in the future. Penn is the Ivy of the future and is rapidly approaching HYP with regards to academics, student body strength and recruiting.</p>
).</p>