<p>Not sure if it is completely accurate, but it is being reported that Emory is now number 18 in the US News and World Report College Rankings (the most widely accepted college rankings). Though Emory was tied at 17 last year with Vanderbilt and Rice it is allegedly ahead of both schools which now sit at 19. </p>
<p>As far as Southern universities go, Emory now has sole posession of the number 2 spot.</p>
<p>That’s not right. I think it’s been released to Atlanta-Journal Constitution. We’re 20 as expected because the rankings included analysis of class of 2013 which gave less applications and was less selective than 2012 (yahh! that’s me). Expect another drop or stagnation next year, because there were less applications for 2014 also, even though the stats. are slightly better (unfortunately we may get murdered because the 25th percentile is in the 12s, at least the 75th improved though). Honestly, we know US doesn’t recognize the actual attempts for the school to better it’s offerings and opportunities. It looks at class-sizes, freshmen data set, etc… None which have changed much at Emory. However, Vandy and Rice are getting better students now. All of the peers surrounding (and above) us improved in this arena while we struggle. You can’t actually expect us to be ahead of them. I’m actually surprised we aren’t 21-23.
Until Emory gets the applications back up and starts to pull freshmen with higher stats. than before, you will not see an improvement in the rankings. As I say, Emory should work on marketing. We clearly need more aggression (not WashU agression, but much more than we have) if we want to play this game well lol.</p>
<p>I just found it, and someone else did too. They beat me, I responded. There is a big thread where people tried to make predictions. It started a while ago ( a month or two). But yeah, someone beat me to it. </p>
<p>I can’t see Emory above Vandy and Rice at this point. I think they are about the same (though I personally prefer our faculty), but US News would probably make the differentiating factor the freshmen class stats. Emory hardly ever improves much in this area for the last 5 years. The percentage of international students admitted and enrolled in class of 2014 indicates that Emory is finding ways to increase revenue as opposed to it’s ranking. Not a bad move if you ask me, however, we will have more trouble rebounding application numbers this year because of this drop in rank. I’d imagine most people just look at the number, and do not seek what is behind it. This will be a huge problem for those who recruit/market Emory. </p>
<p>I also believe that Emory could become more selective if it wanted to. But unlike Vandy for example, it isn’t willing to take a risk with it’s yield. I personally believe Emory would still yield the same percentage if it admitted less students. There is the risk that the high caliber students will not enroll, but 2013 wasn’t bad at all and we admitted a higher percentage. So Emory a) has to get more applicants or b) remain stagnant and admit less and hope for the best. UGA, for example, lost a good deal of applicants and decrease admit rate and improved the stats. a solid amount this year. What Emory doesn’t need, is another decline in applications. I hope the marketers are working hard!</p>
<p>What is Emory doing to attract more students? Are special measures being taken? I really hope so. We need to attract students with higher SATs and ACTs as well. I just hope we don’t drop out of top 20.</p>
<p>I don’t know. Normally there is small fuss when Emory’s rank drops even one spot. As in worthy of an Emory Report or Wheel article. Of course, the administrative figures will deny that it’s a big deal, and do the common thing and refute the U.S. News’ Methodology (which I kind of do too, but in this case we know why we dropped), and perhaps pretend as if they don’t know why.</p>
<p>Knowing that Notre Dame is above us is somewhat irritating. Are we so much different that we don’t even deserve a tie? Seems weird. I think we are being punished for the decline in applications. It’s not like the school itself got worse or that Notre Dame got better. Perhaps USNews shouldn’t do this every single year. It’s not really like schools themselves change that much within a year (though the economic fiasco clearly had an effect, all of us were affected). I think 3-5 years is enough time to really measure any significant changes. Otherwise they are merely playing with ranks to sell. And I hate to say this, but I don’t understand why a school like Vandy that has improved it’s freshmen class and application levels was not rewarded. Instead, it’s in the same spot. Seems as if Emory, Rice, and Vandy are stuck in a rut with the current methodology. And the top 10-15 seem to experience weird changes too. I really don’t get any of this, w/e.</p>
<p>Just looked at Notre Dame’s website, and looked at admissions. Seems to be a great design that truely markets the experience of the students. While the Emory admissions website has greatly improved, it (or any media through which we market ourselves) is still very lackluster compared to that of our peers. I feel that we must use more than a few outdated pics of the campus and you-tube videos to get the point across. We need to implant videos (that are not a part of Youtube) that perhaps emphasize the actual academic experience of various students in some sort of detail. Even amongst You tube videos, you rarely hear current students (not recent graduates) talk about an actual class or perhaps have a camera follow them to one. Normally they give a rather generic infomercial about a particular program/department they are involved in. We really don’t even have a legit video (there is one that tours more historic areas, but it was done in summer and hardly captures the activity of the campus) posted by anyone fully touring the campus with inclusion of newer buildings, academic/meeting hubs (such as Cox bridge, Tull Plaza, Callaway area, and under Cannon Chapel), B-school, Duc, Med. School etc.</p>
<p>A lot we could be doing better starting right at our website or YouTube channel.</p>
<p>I’m just curious to know how risky you believe Vanderbilt has been with its yield? It seems to be fairly consistent from year to year. What has Emory’s yield been the past few years? Has it remained constant as well?</p>
<p>I take a little umbrage to the yield comment because I feel it implies a WashU admissions mentality, which is to admit very few and as a result take a large number of people off the waitlist in order to improve their acceptance rate.</p>
<p>No, I mean in a good way. I mean that it will decrease admissions rate with some confidence that the yield will stay the same or get better, and with some confidence that the students remain the same or get better. I will admit that this year’s applications skyrocketed at Vandy, however, in other years, I think they legit accepted less students than the year before to push admissions rate down (I don’t know if that was their exact intent, but it was the result nonetheless). They did so successfully. I believe that when you accept less students (not merely in terms of percentage), that you are taking a risk with the yield. Unless you have many ED applicants, you cannot know for sure. Emory hardly ever does this. In fact for class of 2014, if it had not decided to admit slightly more people than in class of 2013, it may be possible that the 25th percentile would not be in the 12s (a high 12, but a 12 nonetheless). We’ll never know. I don’t think Emory is at that confidence level yet. However, it should realize that it yields about 30-31% (in fact it may be increasing a little. Each freshman class is getting larger despite declines in the applications) even when there is a decline in admissions. The student body doesn’t change that drastically in such cases in terms of the stats. Eventually, it should be able to play around with the admissions rate a little. However, right now Emory should probably work on boosting applications close to class of 2012 levels. Look at our website and you’ll see the headline about the ranking that never actually states the rank given to the university, but states a bunch of other ones (probably in denial at this point). Somebody will soon probably hold the administration/admissions accountable for the drop. It happened my freshman year when we dropped to 18. But anyway, me and some other students saw it coming.</p>
<p>I also wouldn’t really ever expect Emory to reach the 40s (it’ll probably never really get higher into the 30s) in terms of yield anywhere in the near future, as it has a lack of D1 sports and large recreational venues and events that perhaps garner some school spirit. Unfortunately most of our peers have this, at least those in the immediate vicinity in terms of rank. Also many stereotypes are associated with us that would deter some types of students and demographics from even considering attending the school if admitted. This is probably why we lose cross-admit battles to Vandy. Not to mention that because of this we hardly draw many “typical” high-performing southerners like Vandy. That’s basically one less demographic that we can market to. It seems only Duke can attract everyone. It’s a solid school admittedly, but so are the rest of us. I’d imagine the research endeavors helped them out a lot, and the success of the athletics too. And being rewarded by being put in the top 10 isn’t bad either.</p>
<p>sorry guys but my class of 2013 is filled with A LOT of ■■■■■■■…I think Emory had to take students with sub-par stats because of the recession ( kids who would have normally attended Emory couldn’t because of lost $$$ during the recession. )</p>
<p>Don’t say that. That’s like saying that those that cannot be admitted into a top school are ■■■■■■■. That’s a very strong word that I would not use so quickly Colleges even though I know what you mean. They are merely unprepared. But then again, most students at top colleges are. This explains grade inflation, and the relative lack of change in rigor of coursework despite the change in student bodies at most top schools. I bet many of us would be struggling if the level of rigor at Emory is where it should be based upon our stats. To me, anyone who decided to better themselves and pursue a college career is not a ■■■■■■.<br>
However, I will admit that I heard that your classes had a higher number of students performing poorly in intro. science classes than normal. That was weird, but believable I guess. Technically the size of the sections were larger for many of them, which is not good. The increase in enrollment is a good short-term solution, but it is bad in the longterm if the number of faculty does not adjust. Also, Bio 141 was much harder your year because of the line-up of profs. So I imagine more struggled there. We will probably hear the same in 141 for this incoming class b/c 3/4 (same as yours) of the professors are considered tough to most (Calabrese and Eisen being very tough). Don’t know what will happen with 142. Possibly a correction for the last 2 years which were easy. Chem. will remain relatively challenging. </p>
<p>This year may put a strain on resources, as class sizes will increase some, and the number of international students will require more ESL classes and tutors. And to my surprise, I’ve also heard that international students (even Koreans) do not perform as well as we’d like to believe, or even as we’d like them to. Even if many of their scores are skyhigh, for some reason many struggle, especially freshman year. Given that, other learning resource/outlets may need beefing up. This year will be interesting indeed. I actually can’t wait to see what unfolds. Surely I’ll get some insight as I expect to make friends with some of the freshmen.</p>
<p>To be honest I don’t feel like reading all of these posts haha, but what does this mean for HS students who will be applying to Emory for either ED or RD? </p>
<p>Basically Emory will reject more kids this year than last year?</p>
<p>No, it doesn’t. I just said that Emory has a confidence issue. Plus it is trying to boost revenue. It won’t reject more people unless it has reason to believe it is a feasible option. This will only happen if your class gives more applicants than the last two which were consecutive declines. Even if it rebounded to say my year, Emory would just admit the same amount. Emory doesn’t really respond to its rank in such ways (or at all it seems). You’ll be fine unless the aforementioned occurs. Good luck if you actually are considering coming though.</p>
<p>Not true, one of my friends mom is an adcom at Emory, and she thinks that Emory really cares about where it ranks simply because rankings play a major role in a student’s decision to apply/enroll in Emory. (I know its ■■■■■■■■, but a lot of kids I have met really look at rankings when choosing to apply/enroll in a school).</p>
<p>It cares, but it doesn’t respond in the most typical fashion or at all. Response is not equivalent to caring. I don’t respond strongly to many things that I care about. I think it needs to respond this time. It could very well slip out of the top 20 if it doesn’t do something to attract a class that reflects its momentum in other areas. However, it could also do things like try to boost the number of faculty in certain depts., but I’d imagine it wouldn’t want to since the “money is so tight”. All 4.6 billion dollars of the endowment and other sources of funding that is. Very tight lol.</p>
<p>Thanks Bernie for the response. I am very strongly considering Emory, most likely for Early Decision. I’m actually going to visit next week.</p>
<p>Do you guys think not being Division I hurts this school, and not even having a football team? I mean besides the Ivys, only 5 schools ahead of Emory in the USNews rankings are Division III (MIT and CalTech, but do those really count? Also UChicago, WashU, and Hopkins, but JHU is DI lax). Correct me if I’m wrong, but coming from a sports fans standpoint, I first learned about colleges because of the DI football and basketball, not academics.</p>
<p>Yeah, it does in a sense because that’s one less venue through which Emory can be marketed or garner attention. Also, as a newcomer that could even use lots of improvement on the academic front (I mean I love it so far, but some things could be done much better), this is the potential source of school spirit that we need. </p>
<p>UChicago has an awesome research/intellectual rep., JHU is known for all things healthsciences, and so is WashU due to the very high-ranked med. school (3 isn’t it). when Emory started to rise, it was a somewhat spontaneous whereas all the others were already known for doing something really well before we even arrived on the scene. It is difficult to compete with history when you have no big time athletics and happen to be the newcomer to top national universities. Emory is basically trying to use it’s money to propel itself forward, which is sensible. Emory needs to capitalize on what it can do academically, especially in terms of undergrad. teaching. It needs to be more innovative if it ever really wants to rise. It needs something that is a bit different from peers that are very similar. If you read stuff on what the University’s goals are (strategic plan for example), they sound good, but it seems we have trouble following up. And Emory sometimes goes on the right track with some ideas perhaps launched in one dept., but then that idea is eventually thwarted by the status quo. Basically, Emory needs a sense of direction. Unfortunately, it is struggling to do so, and is still just going with the flow of the green ocean of cash. And honestly, some of the money could go to better use. We’re still a very young institution, and it’s obvious. But I like watching it gain maturity over time, even through this recession. I think Emory will eventually get where it needs to be.</p>
<p>Basically, we have our problems and growing pains, but I think it’s actually a really vibrant campus. Especially for one lacking sports. The diversity makes it seem like a cultural center of some sort. You see some of the most interesting and random cultural scenes on campus (rather it be an event or a mere individual). The campus is designed and feels much different than other schools architecturally and socially. It feels even weirder considering it’s location in the southeast. I personally think it’s interesting to see the Tibetan Monks on campus. They normally appear very frequently in the spring (beautiful by the way. Trees are in bloom and it’s not hot to the point where all the plants are burning like it is now. Often the colors of flowers/blooms coordinate and contrast well with the buildings). However, since the Dalai Lama is returning, they may appear earlier in the fall semester.</p>