Perhaps almost everyone gets a discount at the following (percentage of frosh/all undergraduates getting grant/scholarship aid, from https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/ ):
100/100 Soka University of America
100/99 DePauw University
100/99 Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering
100/98 Austin College
100/98 Mars Hill University
99/98 University of Puget Sound
96/98 Hillsdale College
100/97 Cooper Union
100/96 New College of Florida
98/96 Rose Hulman Institute of Technology
100/95 Mount St. Mary’s University
99/95 Drake University
99/94 Worcester Polytechnic Institute
97/94 Stevens Institute of Technology
100/93 Illinois Institute of Technology
95/91 Wheaton College (MA)
97/90 Baylor University
97/90 Earlham College
93/90 Ithaca College
100/89 Milwaukee School of Engineering
96/88 Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University - Prescott
88/88 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
98/87 Seton Hall University
96/85 Hofstra University
95/84 Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University - Daytona Beach
95/84 Liberty University
94/84 Pace University
98/83 University of Redlands
100/82 Prescott College
Some seem to have high frosh grant/scholarship percentage, but much lower for all undergraduates:
91/59 Hawaii Pacific University
97/53 Saint Louis University
However, high percentage of students getting grant/scholarship aid may not necessarily have much to do with whether a college is “overrated”.
Despite that reputation it doesn’t have deflation, but it has experienced less inflation than most privates, however, if you account for selectivity versus some higher ranked privates, it is pretty much on par with the lower grading among them such as Emory and JHU. Both of these recruit better test takers on average I guess.
Emory and it are identical and I believe Emory is a little more selective (maybe like 80-100 points on the SAT in the last cycle which maybe predicts .10 difference…in the first year so maybe not much different upon graduation).
Just because things “feel hard” doesn’t really make it harder than other similar and higher caliber places. You would be surrprised to find that grading practices among even elite privates in things like STEM (as well as grant heavy social sciences like economics, anthropology, and even political science) for example, are pretty comparable. There are some schools that grade especially high, but many are similar and may be considered harsh if you take into account the intellectual demands of the course and the level of content covered (like a Harvard intro. STEM course curved to B versus elsewhere curved to B- may not be very generous on Harvard’s part, especially if their rendition of the course is loads more difficult which is the case versus more elites than one would think). Either way, there are several schools with students who constantly play the grade deflation card. Usually it isn’t that true. Grading is just maybe more rigorous than some other places, but the annual trends show increases, and many top privates schools with the loudest students have averages closer or even higher than like lower Ivies and places like those I mentioned. Again, seems some student bodies complain less. I have never heard many students back at Emory complain of grade deflation despite grades being similar to or lower than places where students do complain a lot (I know usually when it comes up on CC, rarely, thank goodness, I don’t even have to comment. Others just go in and say: “You get out what you put in”). Maybe people don’t really know what it is so assume it is rampant when most classes have mostly B grades (something no one at the school is used to), or certain schools are just very culturally different. Some schools may have more students that anticipate the rigor and just suck it up, and others have many that just still like to act surprised and uncomfortable despite what they should have known going in.
To me “internal” grade deflation only really occurs when grades can be curved down. Since I was in STEM, this was rare. A course would have exams and assignments that land at a certain not but so generous average (like classic B- or C+/B- for pre-health cores) on the regular scale, or courses would have hard exams and assignments and grades recentered to those, and the instructor chooses how many A grades to award based upon their adjustment/curved distribution and historical perspective taking into account how difficult their assignments were that year versus others and performance of past cohorts. The business school does use a grading distribution and will “curve down” (adjust cut-offs of normal scale up) to fit specific recommendations for A bracket, B bracket, and C brackets. But for true deflation, school needs annually decreasing grades or completely flat grades as other peers increase. Wake Forest does not have this. Simply say: “Like almost every other selective private schools, it is rigorous”.
@ucbalumnus : Aren’t publishing of grade distributions more common at publics though? Seems privates, especially the selective ones like to stay much more tight lipped about their academic environments/course work on average (part of why MIT Open Courseware is a surprise, but I suppose they have little to hide).
I am sticking with: “Wake Forest has similar grading to lower grading highly selective privates”…that is just what the overall number suggests. Plus though “Work Forest” is a challenge to its own students/it feels that way. It isn’t clear how it stacks up to other privates/publics say the VU/Rice/Cornell/Brown through the Berkeley group. Doesn’t seem it compares as well in something like STEM (mainly complexity required), but I wish I had a bigger sample of course materials (more faculty). Even with that said, Wake Forest likely benefits from being much smaller than average. Means they can give more graded assignments and stuff without overburdening faculty. I imagine lab components for those courses would be better on average as well. Grading standards is one thing and cognitive complexity/intellectual demands is another. and as long as the first doesn’t run away too much (as it apparently has at Brown for example), and you know I feel the latter matters much more.
And of course most selective publics are less inflated versus privates (but they are also substantially larger. One has to wonder how section sizes influence grade distribution in courses delivered at a similar level of rigor).
Is heavy merit discounting a positive, negative, or neutral indicator for a school’s future?
I would think that, compared to a Full Need policy, a Big Merit strategy is a less expensive way to shape a school’s enrollment profile (and that a Full Need commitment suggests greater confidence in the school’s financial strength, going forward.) Almost all of the 60+ colleges that claim to meet full need are rich, selective, private schools with high US News rankings. Many of them award little or no merit money.
I’d consider it a bit of a negative indicator longer term. I’d liken it to the retailers that always run sales. They are discounting their value in the eyes of consumers. People learn not to shop their without a discount.
Two factors worth considering in these ascending/descending discussions are DEMOGRAPHICS and, relatedly, RESOURCES. Emory’s rise is not unrelated to Atlanta’s growth, for example.
Looking ahead, this suggests differential outcomes for Illinois, with state fiscal shambles, versus Wisconsin (more prudent) or Florida (better demographic trends). Similarly, relatively obscure places with massive per student endowments (e.g., Olin-Engineering or Berry College in Georgia) should fare better directionally than some high-reputation places like Cornell, Barnard, or Pitzer.
However, these schools mostly have smaller percentages of students with financial aid need, so they can better afford to “meet full need”, which they themselves also define to various levels of generosity or stinginess.
A few schools have retreated from earlier commitments to be need-blind in admissions while maintaining their commitments to meet full need for all who are admitted. Brandeis and Reed come to mind. This could happen at more schools if costs keep escalating.
Other colleges may be able to reduce their incoming frosh financial aid need while remaining need blind by adjusting how correlates to financial aid need are considered. E.g. more ED admission and greater legacy preference can reduce overall financial aid need. So can requiring non custodial parent finances if it does not already do so.
You an also look this up in IPEDS. Among non-military colleges with a 75th percentile ACT of 30+, on average 67% of students received some form of grant aid. The colleges that I’ve seen discussed on this site where the largest portion of students received grant aid are:
Webb – 100%
Olin – 99%
St. John’s – 98%
Gonzaga – 96%
Rose Hulman – 96%
Stevens Institute of Technology – 94%
The colleges in this group with the smallest portion receiving grant aid are:
Tufts – 40%
UVA – 40%
Colby – 41%
Georgetown – 41%
University of Wisconsin – 41%
Middlebury – 43%
Even the richest colleges have budget and planning constraints.
Nevertheless, many of the so-called “full need” private schools do provide need-based aid to about 40%-55% of enrolled students. These percentages compare fairly well to state flagships such as Berkeley (57%), Ohio State (46%), Alabama (42%), Michigan (37%), and UVa (32%), according to USNWR “cost & aid” numbers for students receiving n-b aid. They compare even better for a strong but needy student who is less likely to get adequate n-b aid from an OOS public school.
I don’t know, but, making a full-need +need-blind commitment strikes me a better sign that a school has “arrived” than jacking up merit aid offers. When schools like Brandeis and Reed backtrack from that commitment, to me that is a sign they are struggling, if not in actual decline.
However, the lower list prices (particularly for the in state students) at the public schools means that, for a similar family income distribution, a smaller percentage of the students will need financial aid.
Or they have not figured out how to adjust admission criteria to reduce financial aid need while still being need blind.
Another way they reduce financial aid cost is to redfine “need” less generously.
Really, “meet full need” is a promise that needs further investigation, rather than being taken at face value.
I wouldn’t be too hard on Reed and Brandeis. I believe both schools are need-blind for about 95% of their entering lass, but once they’ve exhausted their FA budget on that 95%, they become need-aware for the final 5%. That doesn’t mean those 5% are all full-pays, either; it’s just that the school can’t afford huge FA awards for that final 5%, so they parcel out those admission offers more frugally… And if you look at the bottom line results, they’re awfully close to other top schools. At Brandeis, for example, slightly under half of all undergrads received need-based FA in 2017-18 according to their CDS, with an average package of $43,353.
Inability to be need-blind + full need is a reflection on the state of their endowment, not necessarily a decline in educational quality. Brandeis made the shift to partially need-aware after suffering huge endowment losses due to the collapse of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi schemes, which coincided with a general downturn in endowment asset values during the Great Recession. Other college and university endowments also suffered huge losses during that period, and they coped with it in different ways. Some backed out of previous no-loan FA guarantees. Some redefined need to make their FA policies less generous. Some significantly increased the percentage of ED admits, which tends to produce more full-pays. Many raised tuition dramatically, to take it out of the hides of full-pays. Some made larger budget cuts in areas other than FA.
I wouldn’t take Brandeis’ approach to mean it’s in decline. Its endowment, currently somewhere shy of $1 billion, is now recovering, but it’s never been among the very largest, Brandeis’ endowment per student is nevertheless pretty similar to Johns Hopkins and stronger than schools like Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown, and USC—hardly bad company.
@bclintonk : Then there is the conversation of whether huge endowment necessarily = academic quality. There seem to be lots of liberal arts focused schools with far smaller endowments (and lower incoming stats, sometimes substantially lower) than these elites and “name brands” yet they are extremely good academically and manage to go forth with lots of academic innovation. Less endowed schools may often not look and feel as “pretty” as most elites though, and prospective students love certain amenities that contribute to quality of life (perhaps more so than actual academic quality). Also I think care must be taken when interpreting endowments. Usually these universities have several units. In this discussion, if one expected a very simple correlation between it and undergraduate academics (I for one, except at extreme endowments like HYS and that ilk…think the relationship is very complicated), one would have to isolate the endowment of units serving undergraduates and this can get tricky and I don’t know if most schools make that information easily accessible. I went to Emory, and ECAS would definitely be on the low (if not almost lowest) end for CAS endowments among elite privates it considers peers even if its overall endowment is larger than some. In fact, many units outside of healthcare affiliated programs have comparatively small endowments versus a lot of peer institutions. Considering this, it is quite surprising what units such as the Oxford College, ECAS, and even the business school pull off (GBS’s endowment is considerably lower than most peers).
Either way, I think some would be surprised to find that undergraduate entities at several schools known for strong academics have learned how to stretch a dollar, especially during the recession. BTW, I really doubt somewhere like Brandeis is on the way “down”…I don’t know how USNWR will treat it and wish I cared, but I don’t. Brandeis is super strong academically, I don’t know why that would change because of their endowment woes and change in financial aid policy. Say, their selectivity stagnated or even decreased slightly. I seriously doubt, level of instruction or any curriculum reform and changes they were considering would change due to this as it would continue to have an extremely strong student body. Most places had with great academics had them far before they had the incoming stats they did today. The only way I see deterioration occurring is if there are really big increases in enrollment. This can affect things like course delivery, section sizes, and how intimate academics are which seems to be valued, especially among those considering private schools.
@bclintonk : I think I am still amazed at how folks on here just stick to their classical guns on what makes schools “academically good”. It is like they are desperate to hold on to all of the criteria that USNWR measures. There are other things to look into such as: “productivity” (national awards and scholarships versus relative selectivity), curriculum structures (I always look for the honors and special tracks, especially at more selective/elite schools because their existence or lackthereof reflects a) how schools choose to use their resources and b) what their students are demanding academically. As I see things like score ranges converge at the extremely high levels at these top research privates for example, it is clear that some schools among them are more successfully meeting the demands of those at the upper fringes of talent recruited. This upper fringe of talented can’t really just be quantified by incoming stats. On the other hand, at some schools, clearly the same level of training is not in as much demand), and course materials when available. But no one wants to bother, and some folks actually get uncomfortable when you start looking beyond the rankings, wealth, and metrics that USNWR values to quantify quality (they are really just kind of quantifying prestige and popularity at this point).
I remember when I first started looking into this and pointing it out, and this one Duke poster was clearly extremely uncomfortable and started saying things like: “What is the point of this?” knowing damned well that I was simply trying to point out that some place’s prestige or current changes in prestige may have more to do with marketing than academic enhancements or changes. Another dumb comment happened once I posted course materials: “How could those courses be more rigorous than ours, our student body is superior!”. It wasn’t…I went to collegeboard and showed that they were identical, and of course they never posted again lol and highlighted that even if it was, an instructor can do what they want and that different schools and departments may have different teaching cultures (which often reflects academic culture. Instructors usually won’t inconvenience themselves by pitching a course beyond what students demand or beyond what they have been demonstrated to tolerate without endless complaints) that, as I just said, existed far before selectivity arms races. Most instructors who have been at such institutions before all of this are not just changing their methods because the scores are going up or down. To assert this so is ridiculous.
I don’t think people like a deeper investigation, because there is a lot of blind “fandom” on here (that I just don’t have. If I think a school is weaker in some area than folks assume, including my own alma mater, I will try to explain why. If they do things well, I’ll explain that too) for some of these “elite” places and they don’t like any weaknesses exposed and many don’t want to be compared to other schools that they claim they are better than beyond these traditional metrics perhaps because they won’t look as great to certain chunks of their applicant pool. Their seems to be some push to claim: “No our school is nearly perfect for everyone”. I’ve seem some on here act as if it was their duty to help the yield of the school or something, even going as far as saying things like: “Yeah, it is nice you got into that school which is actually likely better than us for your interests and at other things…but you’ll have more fun and be less stressed here”. I’m just kind of like: “Damn, maybe just let them go to the other school if they value academic quality more, college is not necessarily supposed to be all social and academic roses with Animal House right in the background. Not everyone desires that”. Nobody wants nuance.
It would be interesting to take this discussion beyond the numbers and point to, say, specific college curriculum innovations as a sign that a college is “on the way up”. Or (to stay on-topic) do the opposite. What has happened to UChicago’s Common Core (or Western Civ) requirements in the past 20 years? Has overcrowding at Berkeley compromised CS program quality? How many colleges have dropped thesis requirements lately? Is Kenyon’s English department (or foreign language instruction at Middlebury) as good as it ever was?
One challenge with that kind of discussion is in making the leap from observations to normative judgements. I doubt we all share the same opinions about whether dropping a Shakespeare requirement is necessarily a bad sign. I do think most of us can agree that a declining endowment in an up market is a bad thing (even while acknowledging that some excellent colleges manage to make a little money go a long way, or that a short term drop in the EPS doesn’t necessarily have a big, immediate impact on academics).
Social scientific analysis often involves correlations that are less than perfect. There may well be cases where academic quality seems to be strong despite declines in endowments, average SAT scores, and application numbers. In those cases, maybe the exception proves the rule, or we’re missing some other metric that better reflects academic quality … or maybe metrics don’t matter at all. If academic quality can’t be measured, how do we talk about it in a forum like this? If it can be measured, but so far we aren’t looking at the right numbers, which ones matter more?
There will be issues with virtually any metric we name. Do we want to confine the discussion to ad hoc personal observations and opinions about this or that college? To me, metrics are like free speech. Just as the best remedy for bad speech is more speech, the best remedy for bad (or limited) metrics is more metrics. Measure again and again, then step back to see if the different measurements support or contradict each other.