What do all or any of you make of this? Do the recent scandals that have caught the attention of the nation as of recently have any weight to this? Yes, I understand that UVA is still among the top public institutions, but let me remind you that until 2007 UVA was considered the number one public institution in the country. Now, UC Berkeley has above and beyond surpassed UVA in both ranking and prestige.
Yes, I also understand that rankings are completely subjective and blah blah blah. But this is something to pay attention to if the overall change over time on USNWR (perhaps the best higher education metric) has NOT been reflecting in UVA’s favor.
So we are one point behind UCLA instead of tied. The Berkeley comments makes me think you have access to the scores. Can you share? Our overall “score” is a 73 this year (76 last year).
If I’m understanding the info I received, our numbers improved in:
-graduate rate (94%, highest public grad rate in the nation)
-class size (85% of classes are less than 50 students)
-student to faculty ratio (15:1, was at 16 and 17 for many years)
-acceptance rate (29% overall, though I personally don’t think that should be factor…it encourages creative counting by some)
The areas were we went down slightly were almost all related to funding, though the high school top 10% stat was also in there. So many schools have done away with rank that I find it a misleading statistic. The peer assessment went down one tenth of a point, from 4.3 to 4.2.
Really? Without any metrics about student satisfaction or outcomes?
UVa has been increasing faculty compensation recently, after years of near-freezes on pay during the recession. Some of the US News ratings are skewed towards colleges that spend more per student.
UVa is recognized by other entities as being cost-effective. As noted above, many of the top-rated universities are in extremely expensive metro areas, where faculty need high pay just to survive.
There are some universities that try to game the numbers. UVa only reports applications that were 100% complete, unlike some other colleges.
If an alum wants to help UVa in the ratings, they should make an annual contribution to the U. US News gives points for the percentage of alums who contribute. Top private schools have a higher percentage of donors. (I imagine there are some in-state alums who don’t contribute because they figure they are already contributing with their state taxes.)
There is likely a real, but not huge, difference between colleges ranked, say, #5 and #25.
There is NO difference between colleges ranked #25 and #26. That’s just a little more alumni donations one year, a “tweak” of the rankings formula the next year, etc.
Or more precisely, the colleges may be VERY different, but not in any way that is revealed by some news magazine professing to rank them in order of quality.
Throw away the magazine. It does FAR more harm than help for anyone trying to decide where to attend college.
Some US News rankings (particularly for grad arts and science and engineering programs) are also affected by the size of the program. Many other flagship public universities are twice the size of UVa. Therefore, a person providing “reputation” rankings to US News would be more likely to know profs, research and graduates from a very large department than from a smaller dept. at UVa.
In 1990, Cal was 13, UCLA was 16, Michigan was 17, UNC was 18 and UVA was 21.
All the publics have been sliding in USNWR for decades. But it isn’t true that UVA has been sliding relative its public peers. Actually slightly the opposite.
Just be glad you’re not a Tarheel. All the way back tied for #30. Oh the shame.
It’s ridiculous. How can you possibly base rankings on things like “spending per student”, when that means you can be higher ranked just by spending money in a higher cost of living area? How can you possibly base academic reputation on a survey that asks what others think of them on a scale of 1-5, instead of things like how often research from the school is cited on a per-capita basis? How can you compare the kind of education you get volunteering to assist a research professor with the kind you get at a liberal arts college? What difference does the size of the library make if most of the volumes are never used by the undergrads? How can financial aid, per student who receives aid, be taken into account, but not the average bottom line price for all students? How can you not consider things like the average length of time to graduate, or the average delay between graduating and getting a career-track job in your field?
Throw the magazine away. Visit a lot of different colleges and get some idea of the kinds of education experiences available, and what you like or dislike about each of them. Look up the CVs of professors who actually teach undergrads (not all do!) at each school. Talk to their career placement services. Look up what portion of graduates go on to grad school.
The best school for any student depends largely on what the student wants to get from going to college, but other factors like price, facilities and resources, location (climate, distance from home, local community), size, focus/emphasis on different fields, etc., should be considered too.
It is my understanding that it is not the amount donated that is important, but how many alumni make donations. We can’t donate huge amounts with 3 in college, but we donate smaller amounts throughout the year.
I see that you have only compared us to other public universities. Many private unis have much higher giving rates. It doesn’t matter how much you give, just that you give. There is no reason to not strive for higher giving rates like the top private colleges.
That’s my point. Privates almost always do better than the publics on alumni giving. That’s just how it is and one reason of several reasons why the elite publics are at a disadvantage in the formula USNWR uses.
Reich suggests a poll and presents a POV that treasures schools which put an emphasis on public service. That’s useful if that is your or your student’s objective. Not so much if it isn’t.
I don’t like the trend. Worst U.Va ranking in the history of US News list. Here is the year by year ranking from 1983 and 1988 to 2007
University of Virginia
1983-15
1988-15
1989-20
1990-21
1991-18
1992-21
1993-22
1994-21
1995-17
1996-19
1997-21
1998-21
1999-22
2000-22
2001-20
2002-24
2003-23
2004-21
2005-22
2006-23
2007-24
The criteria have changed over the years. Besides too many of the ranking measurements involve inputs (admissions difficulty), not outputs (quality of the actual education, med school admissions, etc). Also, US News places emphasis on universities that spend tons of money (and are in places with very high costs of living), as opposed to universities that are cost-effective.
If an alum wishes to help the rankings, they can make sure they provide at least one donation per year to the university, even if it is not a large contribution. That is one of the factors in the rankings.
Charlie’s right…they tweak the criteria regularly and the list shuffles. It’s well known that you can influence your own ranking by diverting resources to the 2-3 big factors they consider.
