US News to Nondorf: Drop Dead

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
101

@Cue7 - glad to see you back and that you have an issue to discuss.

You probably remember that my own bugaboo with UChicago is concern over the strength of the academic departments. I tend to follow AWRU more than US News for “rankings.” Over time - and assuming other aspects of college life are sufficiently positive or at least satisfactory - strength of the undergraduate program will be driven by quality of the research at the grad and faculty level - that’s what drives peer reviews (which should remain an important aspect of any “ranking”). We know from numerous CC and reddit posts that, overwhelmingly, students are attracted to this or that major, NOT the school’s social mobility ranking. The latter isn’t even necessary for discussion since attending a top school - any top school - is one for the “duh” file regarding social mobility. So if USNews wants to change its underlying metric - so what? BTW, UChicago was already one step ahead when it announced Test Optional over a year ago so they are still playing the game. I have yet to see the bigwigs there NOT care about the prevailing ranking system LOL.

Having said that, it’s also the case that Nondorf has been pushing the social mobility aspect for awhile now. He spearheaded the Coalition Ap, for example - and that was years ago. There’s actually a lot more he’d like to do. And it’s a good thing, for a variety of reasons (not least of which is that the demographic cliff is on the increasingly nearer horizon). College should always be a means of intellectual and, if desired, material improvement. So if they slip a bit as they pursue this goal - that’s a good thing.

102

^ BTW, totally agree about the “wealth” issue and obviously that’s tied to academic strength (since the former buys the latter). Uchicago does a LOT with the financial resources that it has, but it needs more in order to do more.

103

@CU123 - Chicago is certainly in good company this year. It’d be in good company if it was ranked #10 or #14, too (with, say, Hopkins, or Brown, Cornell, Cal Tech, etc.).

That’s beside the point - it’s clear Chicago’s top admins care a lot about the ranking, and they’d clearly prefer to be #3 (and above Stanford, Penn, etc.) than tied with them. Chicago dropped the farthest of all top ten schools this year, and, silly as that may be, I’m sure there is talk about how to stop a downward trend.

@JBStillFlying - there are a million good reasons to pick a school, and I agree, strength of departments matter. My sense, though, is that many students seeking “top” Unis factor a school’s ranking/standing/prominence into the decision. Chicago has far fewer “hooks” re standing than any other top 10 schools - so the USNWR rank is even more important to it. (The other schools have, say, placement in the Ivy League, proximity to Silicon Valley or expansive STEM programs - i.e., Stanford, Hopkins, and MIT - or D1 sports programs that can keep them in the spotlight - Duke and NU.)

Again, though, with this ranking in particular, I don’t see much of a way forward. Chicago has great student outcomes and a lot of money to throw around, just not in comparison to, say, Harvard, or Columbia, or Yale, etc.

104

@Cue7 If you had said that it will be hard for Chicago to make strides on the Forbes or Money ranking, I would tend to agree. I don’t see the logic of your argument though when it comes to the USNews ranking, unless Chicago decides that it doesn’t want to make any changes. Chicago made giant strides in the graduation and retention rates before and is now on par or better than many of peer institutions, even with a much smaller endowment . It does not take a lot of money to get students to graduate in 6 years given the caliber of the students these universities recruit. As of 2017 for for example UChicago’s 4 year rate is 87.5% compared to Penn’s 85.4%. Harvard is 84.2%. When it comes to retention, UChicago is 99% compared to Penn and Harvard’s 98%. So graduation and retention rates are not the issue here. The reason Chicago went down is it has fewer Pell students and there is an easy way to fix that with not a lot of money. Bring in more Pell students and reswizzle the way aid is doled out by squeezing out middle class and merit aid students.

In order for your scenario to work, you would need to prove that the way USNews measures Outcomes, will require “a Lot”, and I mean “A Lot” of money. That is just not the case. Retention (22%), graduation rate performance (8%) and social mobility (5%) which go into USNews outcomes data, don’t require a lot of money to fix. What they do require is a different list of priorities and a willingness to game the ranking, which I think Chicago has clearly shown it is willing to do.

105

@surelyhuman - how is it so easy (or inexpensive) to just “bring in more Pell students”? I imagine there is a fairly small pool of qualified Pell students for the top Unis, and competition for them is fairly significant. Moreover, if Pell students are less likely to apply ED, actually recruiting them could be difficult too - especially since many will have other good options.

Also, re the graduation rates, here’s some recent data: https://www.chronicle.com/article/Colleges-With-the-Best-and/246069

The margins are super, super thin at the top - the top schools have 6 yr grad rates around 97%. Chicago is at 93%. Sure, Chicago could move up a bit, but it’s doubtful it would get much beyond 96-97%.

And remember, we need to couple outcomes/grad rate with other big factors, like financial resources.

If Chicago is getting bigger, but not commensurately wealthier, why would we expect it does well, even IF its outcomes ranking is good, but its financial resources ranking flags?

The tippy top schools will have great outcomes rankings, AND great financial resources rankings.

It’s hard for Chicago to do both, given the limitations in front of it.

The best chance for Chicago to do well is in a ranking that heavily emphasizes academic reputation and student selectivity (and the student body was smaller). And, guess what? Earlier US News rankings did this.

Once outcomes AND financial resources get more traction, it gets harder.

106

“there are a million good reasons to pick a school, and I agree, strength of departments matter.”

  • Actually, I'd argue that there are only a few good reasons to pick a school. You want a rigorous, challenging education and you want good outcomes. Can't see how anything else is as important.

“My sense, though, is that many students seeking “top” Unis factor a school’s ranking/standing/prominence into the decision. Chicago has far fewer “hooks” re standing than any other top 10 schools - so the USNWR rank is even more important to it.”

  • Nondorf likes a high USNews ranking - no question there. But I truly wonder just how many kids who applied primarily because of a #3 US News ranking were actually accepted. Or, how many who were accepted to Class of '23 are now disappointed that it dropped to #6 and is now tied with Stanford. Of all the things I heard last weekend, that wasn't one of them. The kids who matriculate there seem to be a lot smarter than that. And I kind of doubt that anyone who is attending Stanford cares very much about US News rankings. They are there for other things. Same with those attending NU, or JHU, or Cal Tech (which is ranked a measly #12). UChicago may well move up and down the US News ranking simply because the school has made major changes over the past several years and hasn't settled yet - or won't settle. It might always be trying something new. That's kind of the nature of the place anyway.

Regarding a ‘hook’ - I could not disagree with you more. Chicago prides itself on a particular love of critical inquiry and a particular approach to a liberal ed. That’s quite a niche and it’s simply not for everyone. That fact may well push it down to the level of that other obscure niche school - Cal Tech. :wink:

As for D1 athletics - well, I simply fail to see how lacking that will change UChicago’s popularity going forward. They left the Big 10 ages ago.

107

Regarding posts #103-104:

  1. if we are doing a strict ranking by grad rates and a 1% lower rate means that you are shut out of the Top 10, that says a lot more about the ranking system than it does the quality of your institution.

  2. Empower has really changed the number of low income and first gen. students who have been accepted and matriculated at UChicago. Read about it: https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2019/07/15/chicago-sees-success-dropping-testing-requirement-admissions

  3. The big issue (and the elephant in the room) will be how the changes indicated in 2) affect the grad rates indicated in 1). UChicago needs to maintain a high grad rate - one that is consistent with other top schools - while not compromising the rigor of its curriculum in the least. But it seems to believe that such exceptional - and under-represented - students are out there. That’s why it implemented Empower in the first place.

108

@Cue7 There are a lot of poor white kids, who are academically gifted in the hinterlands that Chicago can easily go after. All they need is around 80 kids more in a class. Easily done. Even if you subsidize their entire COA, that is only around $7 M a year, which can be clawed back very easily in other ways from other students.

As I have already pointed out, their 4 year rate is already better than other elites. Yes, the six year lags a little, but again ** that is not a money problem** which is my point. The endowment difference is not what is driving this gap. If Chicago decides that this metric is important, it will not take a lot to fix it. They have done it with the harder 4 year number haven’t they?

The financial resources rank is a red herring. That has always been included in the USNews ranking and despite its low endowment, it did not cost Chicago its ranking before, because these categories are easily fungible by moving buckets of money around to get the right results. Also note the following * However, the use of the logarithmic transformation means schools that have expenditures per student that are far higher than most other schools’ values see diminishing benefits in the rankings.*. but again, this has always been there. Also note that the Faculty resources factor is weighed more heavily and has been there also and here Chicago does better than some of its peers, even with this smaller endowment.

My overall point is that to play the rankings game the way USNews has designed it, you don’t require a big fat endowment in the range of $12B or $20+Billion. This is where your analysis is erroneous.

This of course completely ignores the real reason someone would choose Chicago, which is indeed very different from at least one HYPS school from what I saw during orientation at both these schools.

109

@JBStillFlying - I was exaggerating about a “million” good reasons, but there are lots. Here are some, that are typically taken together, on aggregate: size, location, academic reputation, cost, outcomes, culture, social scene, research opportunities.

Any of those “big” reasons can then be broken down into more specific/personal reasons (e.g., closeness or distance from family - rural/urban environment, reputation or excellence in specific departments, etc. etc.)

So, lots of reasons - and usually a decision to be made about the totality of a LOT of factors.

Re the ranking, one year doesn’t make a big difference, but if there’s a consistent downward trend, head honchos at the school will worry. Heck, Chicago mag did a big story when UChicago dropped ONE spot in the rankings (from #4 to #5, back in 2013)

https://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/November-2013/Does-University-of-Chicagos-Slip-in-College-Ranking-Matter/

The fact is, this is Chicago’s lowest ranking in 7 or 8 years.

Re hooks, I stand by what I said - Chicago has far fewer hooks than its top 10 peers to draw a broad swath of students in. It’s hook that you mention (critical inquiry) is indeed more of a niche - just like how Cal Tech has a more niche hook.

And remember, Chicago doesn’t aspire to be a tiny, niche star-studded STEM school. It aspires to be the top R1 research university (and college) around. Those are different ambitions.

110

@surelyhuman - you may not need a $10B+ endowment, but it sure doesn’t seem to hurt.

Also, I just don’t know how easy it is to coax a 40% increase in Pell grant recipients (e.g., 80 more Pell grant students) in a short period of time. We will see on that front.

In terms of the financial resources rank - the factors “have always been there” - but Chicago’s rapid growth is the x factor. At some point, this will hurt the student-faculty ratio, and also the spending per student.

A different way to see this issue is: Chicago is changing/experimenting often, and most of the other top schools are not. For the top 5 schools, the status quo will more or less be maintained - their numbers are steady, their class sizes are steady, their finances are steady/growing, etc.

There’s no guarantee that, if you coax a 40% increase in Pell recipients in a short period of time, your graduation rate numbers on the other end will still be 96-97%.

Looked at another way, it seems easier to improve selectivity rankings than it is to recruit different populations of students, and then encourage top graduation rates.

To do the latter, you may not need $10B+ endowments, but, if you look at all the top 8 schools besides Chicago, that seems to be a unifying mark.

111

“I just don’t know how easy it is to coax a 40-50% increase in Pell grant recipients (e.g., 80 more Pell grant students) in a short period of time. We will see on that front.”

  • They had more than a 20% increase in one year.

“In terms of the financial resources rank - the factors “have always been there” - but Chicago’s rapid growth is the x factor. At some point, this will hurt the student-faculty ratio, and also the spending per student.”

  • So far it hasn't. The seminar capacity numbers for Sosc, for instance, are lower for Class of '23 than they were for the Class of '21.

“A different way to see this issue is: Chicago is changing/experimenting often, and most of the other top schools are not. For the top 5 schools, the status quo will more or less be maintained - there numbers are steady, their class sizes are steady, their finances are steady/growing, etc.”

-Correct, and how is this a bad thing exactly? And why expect it to “settle” and maintain the status quo at some point? That hasn’t happened for 25 years so likely not to happen going forward.

“There’s no guarantee that, if you coax a 40% increase in Pell recipients in a short period of time, your graduation rate numbers on the other end will still be 96-97%.”

  • Agree this is a risk. We will need to see what happens to the Class of '23, since that's the first class with a significant leap in "pells" and equivalent.

“Looked at another way, it seems easier to improve selectivity rankings than it is to recruit different populations of students, and then encourage top graduation rates.”

“To do the latter, you may not need $10B+ endowments, but, if you look at all the top 8 schools besides Chicago, that seems to be a unifying mark.”

  • Uchicago has made some significant gains on less. $10 bil would be great - they need to hire more top faculty. But in terms of what @surelyhuman has pointed out - and even what you @Cue7 has deemed as "necessary" to maintain a top ranking on US News - they made significant strides just in one year w/o increasing their endowment.
112

@Cue7 @JBStillFlying has already addressed the rest of your points, so I won’t go over them once more but this one

had me smiling. You walked right into the sentence that my Math/Stats teacher would often beat me over the head with. ** Correlation does not equal Causation**.

113

In looking up the Higher Ed article I happened across this comment, pasted below:

“The Empower Initiative introduced a slew of new options for financial support at the university. For students from families with annual incomes of less than $60,000, financial aid now covers tuition, fees and room and board. The school offers students from families with annual incomes below $125,000 free tuition. First-generation students receive a $20,000 scholarship and a guaranteed paid internship the summer of their first year.”

https://diverseeducation.com/article/149649/

(All this stuff can be looked up on the UChicago website but it packs a punch if quoted from an outside source)

Empower is recent. It was announced summer 2018 and applied to Class of '23 going forward. That’s why the profile of the Class of '23 is expected to be more breakout than in years past. Not that Odyssey wasn’t bringing in these kids - it was. But Empower has brought in even more. Furthermore, Dean Boyer noted in his recent WTTW interview that Empower was “test-marketed” in the Chicagoland metro for 10 years before going national in the 2018-19 admission cycle.

Now. All this sounds great. But did they actually ADMIT more kids in the <$60K family income category? Did they actually ADMIT middle class kids and offer them free tuition? The answer seems to be “YES - they did.” The stats they’ve released so far show it, the kids I met at the April Overnight show it, and the announcements made at the various Trustee and Launchpad receptions show it. Furthermore, the kids at O-Week were told they would all be graduating! How’s that for confidence??? LOL.

Most important, if you know your tuition - and room and board in some cases - is covered, why wouldn’t you apply ED unless Uchicago were not your first choice for other reasons? In other words, this type of financial aid can remove financial considerations completely from the equation.

While Empower won’t be usurping the generosity of Harvard or Princeton anytime too soon, it’s clear that you don’t need $10 billion in order to make some progress.

114

@surelyhuman - I agree completely! Wealth doesn’t cause a high ranking - but there does seem to be a correlation! The rankings right now show that school wealth correlates to a high ranking - so, much better to be wealthy in US News’ eyes.

And, correlations are important.

@JBStillFlying - remember the US News numbers lag. It’s relatively easy to cap classroom sizes, but potentially harder to fluff up spending per student when the student body grows but the spending may not keep pace.

Also, re the experimentation, note that Chicago focused carefully on improving in the rankings, for about the past 15 years:

https://www.chicagomaroon.com/article/2006/10/2/u-of-c-jumps-to-ninth-in-us-news-rankings/

At this point, though, it seems like the school has run out of cards to play. It’s maximized its scores in so many areas, and hard to see it outpacing other schools for grad rates, outcomes, financial resources, etc.

115

“remember the US News numbers lag. It’s relatively easy to cap classroom sizes, but potentially harder to fluff up spending per student when the student body grows but the spending may not keep pace.”

  • @cue7 - I have a kid in the Class of '23 and the Class of '21. Was able to compare CURRENT numbers w' me own peepers :)

However, will totally agree that USNews #'s lag. This year’s data won’t be available publicly for at least another year. The complete impact of what they’ve done for the Class of '23 and going forward . . . shouldn’t begin to show up before the 2021 USNWR rankings.

“At this point, though, it seems like the school has run out of cards to play. It’s maximized its scores in so many areas, and hard to see it outpacing other schools for grad rates, outcomes, financial resources, etc.”

  • This is a conjecture. The College has done nothing to demonstrate that it's "run out of cards." In fact, it met the challenges of the new metrics for USNews with last fall's admission cycle. We'll see how the data plays out. Other schools with their better funding could have been doing even more. Rankings are relative orderings. If #1 has marginally better #'s than #10, it's going to show up on the ranking. However, anyone placing their hopes on a school based on such marginal differences is likely to be wildly disappointed.
116

“remember the US News numbers lag. It’s relatively easy to cap classroom sizes, but potentially harder to fluff up spending per student when the student body grows but the spending may not keep pace.”

  • Want to return to this point. Where is the evidence that spending "hasn't kept pace" with student body growth? I've seen a notable positive change - in availability of summer advisors, in career placement offerings including subsidized career explorations and treks, in fixing up and building new plant . . . all while the numbers have increased. This year's enrollment might be close to 6,900 if I'm remembering the numbers from Class of '20 and '21 correctly. That is the highest it's been, and yet in two years the quality of experience for my DS is on par or higher than for my DD, from what I've seen so far. How can that be, unless spending has actually stayed put or increased?

Also, one should be very careful about interpreting any reported “spending per student” numbers included in these rankings. A friend (faculty at UCLA) pointed out that they throw in the kitchen sink, including their medical facilty, to get that number up. JHU is going to have a significantly higher “spending per student” than will Harvard, but there’s no question which school should actually be higher ranked across most if not all metrics.

117

Not sure whether this was previously known but the “Aims of Education” speaker last night said in addressing the 1,700 first years in Rockefeller, “Like some 200 of you, I was a first-generation student myself.” I reckon that figure’s approximate, but it could indicate something like 12 percent of the class, not a negligible number. I think she was specially addressing those kids.

It was an appealing address, I thought. Though an accomplished person and Dean of the School of Social Service Administration, she came from a working class background, which she described briefly, and admitted she was nervous and would never as an eighteen-year-old have expected to find herself where she was just at that moment.

The heart of her remarks were biographical sketches of the three women who were responsible for establishing SSA at Chicago approximately a century ago. That was most interesting. They were all passionate advocates for addressing the needs of the poor, but they also all believed that their passion needed to be focussed and guided by a study of society, as this can only be conducted in a great university.

She did not omit to hit the characteristic notes of Aims speakers - that this particular university will require of them independent thinking, oppenness to ideas whatever their source, and a humility in the face of all they don’t know.

She herself seemed to me to be characteristic of a certain side of the University of Chicago that we don’t so often think about - the earnest, unspectacular, even pedestrian determination to look honestly and clearly at things. As she said, citing an instance of her own, it is very hard to admit that a thesis or idea of your own creation is simply wrong, but being able to do that may be the most valuable thing you learn to do here.

Some speakers intimidate by their brilliance and supreme assurance. I found her own modesty and humbleness very refreshing. It might especially be appreciated by kids who are about to confront with a vengeance “all they don’t know.”

118

Watched this speech as well. Excellent. Just posted about it on the Housing thread.

119

If you are worried about the endowment, donate. Encourage your rich friends to donate. :slight_smile:

https://campaign.uchicago.edu/

Okay I am done with my sales pitch. Lol

Kidding aside, UChicago has not been bad at raising money. This 5+ Billion campaign is still on even after reaching its 4.5Billion goal a long time ago.

120

@FStratford - Chicago isn’t bad at raising money. It’s just that, it’s not particularly good compared to its peers. While Chicago seeks $5B, Harvard raised closed to $10B, Stanford typically raises $1B a year (even when it’s not in a campaign year), etc.

Again, an issue for Chicago is it earnestly tries to compete with Harvard, Stanford, etc., yet it has the resources of a Wash U or Emory. It’s an uphill battle all the way.

Chicago does a very good job, but it makes its hold to a top 5 (or top 8) spot on the rankings super tough to maintain.

To whit, for the past 20 years, Harvard has always been in the top 3 in the rankings, and Yale and Princeton have been in the top 3-5, too. Stanford (I believe, has always been in the top 6 or 7). Chicago, on the other hand, had a low of #15 or 16, and a high of #3.

For any ranking that features wealth/prestige/outcomes (like US News), will always have H, Y, etc. up high. No matter how you tweak the ranking (and US News has tweaked a bit in 2 decades), those schools will score high.

On the other hand, such tweaking can lead to much for variability for a school like Chicago.

Should US News tweak more to include factors like (gulp) payscale figures - watch out!