<p>The annual USNWR college rankings have been released minutes ago, and as I had expected, Wesleyan's rank fell. It dropped more than I had expected, from last year's #12 to this year's #17. Amazingly, Hamilton has inched past Wesleyan, which, if one did not know the flaws in USNWR's rankings--and in the whole notion of rankings in general--would be quite a surprise. I will leave it to others here to analyze the reasons behind this, but I surmise that it has less to do with academic quality and more to do with the financial robustness of the institution. I recall that the Class of 2015 had a higher admit rate than the prior year's class, and that was why I suspected that Wesleyan would drop down. Add in the still relatively weaker Wesleyan endowment and you have another reason why the USNWR rating system would hit Wes hard. So will this make you less likely to apply to Wesleyan or choose it as your ED1 pick? Well, as someone who keeps his eyes on what goes on at Wesleyan on an almost daily basis from afar, I can say that the academic quality of the faculty and students has not fallen from last year. But we will be able to look back and see what impact this rating will have on applications, admit rate and yield.</p>
<p>Agreed - the rankings align almost precisely with endowment $/student, and Wesleyan has hit “above its weight” for years. Hamilton and Colby have caught up in terms of finances, so it’s not surprising. Also, the rankings are very tight, with only one or two points separating multiple schools. Hopefully as the endowment starts to grow, things will improve. Vassar jumped from #14 to #10 in one year, so an increase of just a few categories can have a large effect.</p>
<p>Wesleyan is still one of the little three</p>
<p>The rankings mean little to me. The only rankings that matter to me, are my own personal ones, about how good a fit a college is for me.</p>
<p>And in my rankings, Wesleyan is the #1 fit for me, so I just hope I get in!</p>
<p>I think the CC fixation on USNWR rankings is bizarre.There are many college rankings, and USNWR is just the oldest - and not necessarily the best. Increasingly parents and students would be advised to look at Forbes (ranked 21 against ALL colleges and universities) and Payscale.com rankings. These place a higher value on student OUTCOMES - how they do and earn in the real world. Wesleyan is actually very successful. Ahead of many schools more highly ranked by the USNWR criteria. It ranks 51st out of 1248 schools tracked by Payscale for earnings - ahead of Swarthmore (3 in USNWR LACs) and U of Chicago (USNWR Nat Univs). I’m not a Wes alum, just a parent evaluating options for my rising senior. As someone who has taught at an Ivy League grad school for 20 years, I’ve noticed that Wesleyan students have been among the brightest, most engaged I’ve ever had. Just another opinion.</p>
<p>These blips do tend to come and go, and you can’t bother too much with them (I personally think 17 is a blip, but I don’t necessarily think there is a “true” number out there). For example, the fictional person who decided to go to Wes rather than Vassar only because Wes was rated higher, would now be in a world of hurt because the tables turned – when in fact Vassar was just as good a school last year as this and they should have gone where they would be happy since frankly any normal person whom you might hope to impress would know nothing more than Vassar and Wes are both very good schools, and have no idea of rankings. </p>
<p>And speaking of normal people, as a hiring partner in a big firm, I run across law students who choose schools based on rankings, and I can tell you my partners and I are sometimes surprised and mystified by these choices. You see, in the real world, school reputations are built over many, many decades, and no one checks the rankings – reputations form and became difficult to shake so what was considered a good school 50 years ago, is still generally considered that today (and unfortuantley the inverse is true too). So, in this instance, if people know Wes its because they’ve always known it; its a little three and in the real world, that is as much as you are going to get (actually, first they’ll say, “isn’t that a girl’s school? Oh no, that’s Wellsley…”) Its reputation attracts a certain type of intellectual, curious and spirited student – most of whom happen to be brilliant – whether it is 10 or 17. My S is daily amazed, and inspired by the intellectual firepower and curiosity of the students. He is working harder than he ever has, and is having more fun then he ever has. He is, in fact, wholly engaged. That’s what you want to find – the school that does that will be different for different people, and you can’t figure it out by just analyzing the rankings.</p>
<p>Focussing mainly on academic quality and outcomes, Wesleyan is clearly a top 5 LAC. The U.S. News rankings are more flawed than ever…</p>
<p>The #17 rating reflects Wes weak endowment. Although one may wish to ignore this issue, the fact is that it ends up affecting the overall college experience in the short and middle run. An example is the recent incorporation of “need awareness” in Wes’ admission decisions algorithm, a development that most people would see as a negative, but a necessary tightening of the belt due to financial concerns.</p>
<p>So, even if students should not take the ranking blindly when making college decisions, they may nevertheless look at what is the rationale for a school to be ranked high/low and decide if those reasons are relevant to their decisions. As mentioned in some other threads on CC, one of the merits of the US News rankings is to consolidate a lot of information, thus allowing interested applicants to dig deeper and use that information to aid their college decisions. Some students may indeed be better of by deemphasizing schools that are more likely to experience financial problems in the near future; thus, Wes #17 ranking may actually be appropriate.</p>
<p>I don’t know that anyone who has studied Wesleyan’s finances could make a reasonable case that it is a college that has any significant chance of experiencing financial problems in the near future. Wesleyan’s decision to admit the last 10% of each class on a “need aware” basis is actually a prudent financial practice that is being examined by Grinnell College as something they may also start to do in the near future. Grinnell has a huge endowment, and their well-known benefactor Warren Buffett is not facing hard times, either. Both Wesleyan and Grinnell are well-managed. But I think, as others have said here, that choosing a college primarily based on the USNWR is short-sighted.</p>
<p>Wesleyan is an unique incubator of unusual talent. It is where fun goes to LIVE - if you consider fun a serious enterprise for extremely self-motivated intellectually curious musically talented students who have a wide range of interests.</p>
<p>I do not think that people choose colleges primarily based on rankings per se. What I believe is that people choose good colleges over bad colleges. Provided there is some positive correlation between a college overall “quality” and the rankings, then using the rankings to inoform, and even guide, decisions is not a bad course of action.</p>
<p>“That would be more than a crime; it would be a blunder.”</p>
<p>With its $1.5 BILLION endowment, this move makes Grinnell look as greedy as any Wall St bankster with its flagpole proposal to drop need blind. Wes probably needs to drop need blind, at least in part, and seems to be doing so with a certain sensitivity and applied intelligence, as illustrated by Roth’s town hall meeting with students on the issue (available on you tube). Grinnell just looks rapacious. </p>
<p>Have they forgotten Sen. Grassley’s shot across the bow (to wit: you Harvard bastards amassed an endowment ($36 BILLION at top pre crash) larger than the economies of most countries save a handful of the largest, and it was done relying on your status as a tax free entity (ie, when a gain is made in any year, you can reinvest the whole larger pie rather than having to take a step back and pay Uncle Sugar anything, so your compounding grows faster and higher. Huzzah! but only because of the slop in the tax code, funded by the US taxpayer, and what do you think you should do re that? So, shazam, Harvard, Princeton and the rest all of a sudden discovered the ‘no loan’ policy if you make (at H) under $80K, etc etc. and grants galore, etc etc. All to preserve and protect the special status which allows nontaxed compounding and investment.) </p>
<p>So, now, Grinnell thinks that maybe its greed won’t be noticed in D.C.? Or that so long as H or Y or P open the coffers a bit wider it won’t have to? I’d be amazed if Warren Buffett had anything to do with this public relations disaster in the making. Wes needs the dough; Grinnell needs a trip to the woodshed.</p>
<p>Or is the fix already in? Grassley’s from Iowa; Grinnell’s in Iowa - did they get clearance or a nod and wink from the senator before going public with this? If so, it sends the worst possible message, straight to HYP, to close the coffers, no further DC trouble expected. This really sucks, and so does the $1.5 BILLION endowed Grinnell.</p>