Why are schools like RPI and WPI ranked low (even for engineering)??

College Search & Selection
21

<p>Wearymachine, I’m also an RPI grad and I’m with you. US News uses GRE scores as a factor in the grad rankings but doesn’t use SAT scores in the undergrad rankings. Let’s face it, students learn from each other. I found it very useful to have super smart students around me during problem sets / study groups who were able to break down a concept I was have trouble with. I did the same for other people when the chance came up. So I think RPI is getting hosed to some degree. </p>

<p>Despite the rankings I think RPI is in great shape. The incoming class of 2014 should have mean SAT of 1375 or so based on test scores of the admitted students. If you combine this data with all the new facilitiies built over the past decade, I think we are quite competitive with the nation’s great engineering schools.</p>

22

<p>totally agree with rico2 and like when i wear my RPI stuff around…the people who know RPI usually think i’m like a genius or something…like people even compare us to MIT…just don’t get why both us and WPI (WPI esp) get slaughtered on rankings…</p>

<p>and to schoom…yeah i’m referring to US News rankings…</p>

23

<p>“we’re at 1360…MIT is 1460…it’s not even ALL that different.”</p>

<p>Make sure you’re looking at the SATs of ENROLLED students, not of ACCEPTED students.</p>

24

<p>@ Schmaltz…that is of enrolled students…it’s the freshman profile…i’m getting it from collegeboard.com</p>

<p>RPI:</p>

<p>Reading: 610 - 700
Math: 660 - 750</p>

<p>MIT:</p>

<p>Reading: 650 - 760
Math: 720 - 800</p>

<p>decent overlap i’d say…</p>

25

<p>

No argument from me…that would be a valid assessment. However, the NAE raw numbers correlate quite strongly with the USNWR undergrad engineering program rankings.</p>

<p>USNews Undergrad Engineering Program Rank, NAE Members, School, Score:
1, 114, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA 4.9
2, 92, Stanford University Stanford, CA 4.7
2, 77, University of California–Berkeley Berkeley, CA 4.7
4, 31, California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CA 4.6
5, 26, Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, GA 4.5
5, 29, University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign Champaign, IL 4.5
7, 25, Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 4.3
7, 22, University of Michigan–Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI 4.3
9, 25, Cornell University Ithaca, NY 4.2
9, 18, Purdue University–West Lafayette West Lafayette, IN 4.2
9, 48, University of Texas–Austin Austin, TX 4.2 </p>

<p>UT-Austin is underranked if this is the criteria they’re looking at…</p>

26

<p>

</p>

<p>Actually, the US News undergrad rankings do take SAT scores into account.</p>

27

<p>^ Not for the engineering and business program rankings.</p>

28

<p>@ UCBChemEGrad…i’m talkin more about engineering rankings…</p>

<p>i’ve noticed that pure tech schools tend to get shafted with overall ratings for some reason…RPI has students that have academic potential (now i’m basing this off SAT and class rankings) that are more in line with schools in the 20s for US News Rankings…WPI prob 30s…yet RPI is in the 40s and WPI is wayy in the 60s for some weird reason…</p>

<p>engineering rankings though…feel like student caliber should have more to do with it…idk that’s just me though…say a kid wants to go to a pure tech school…after MIT, Caltech, and Harvey Mudd…the next reputable one would be RPI or Rose-Hulman, at which point the engineering rankings are kinda low-ish (except for Rose-Hulman bc they’re in their own little category of undergrad only schools), even though the student caliber is still pretty high…and then after that it’s WPI where the rankings are pretty much dead…</p>

29

<p>Rankings are mostly BS, don’t pay attention to them.</p>

30

<p>Hey guys</p>

<p>I’m a graduate from WPI in Biomedical/Electrical Engineering. There are a lot of reasons that WPI is ranked lower than other schools that I know of… and in my opinion a lot of them are stupid reasons. Unfortunately, the school is aware of these reasons and is trying to change things in order to change their rankings.</p>

<p>1) They don’t have enough women. When I entered the school had 20% women. For some reason this actually effects how a school is ranked overall… because rankings aren’t focused purely on academics but the lifestyle of the school as a whole. Since I entered I’ve been seeing more and more girls accepted the school… and to be honest I think the standards for admittance are going down in order to try to change the school’s demographics.</p>

<p>2) WPI is purely a technical school, thus it does not have programs (e.g. nursing or business) that help schools get ranked higher.</p>

<p>3) Probably most importantly, the top US News Ranking rates schools that are research powerhouses highest. These schools are schools in which their graduate/professional schools are much more known than their undergraduates, because they spit out more publications and have a lot of funding for their research. WPI is mainly an undergraduate focused school, where the undergraduates do a lot of research (look up MQP/IQP publications, just google WPI MQP) but it is not published as thesis work or other research would be. Unfortunately for WPI, because they are ranked in the same category as national research schools, they are continually compared to schools that have a large graduate population whereas WPI’s is much smaller (~1500).</p>

31

<p>^the US News engineering rankings are based solely on engineering, not on other programs, and I’m pretty sure that the number of women is not a factor…</p>

32

<p>Over 25 years ago I retired from WPI Admissions. Back then, admissions officers with analytical backgrounds (e.g., engineering) knew that SAT and ACT scores were not very good at forcasting first year success in college, even engineering colleges.</p>

<p>We knew that the PROBABILITY of a freshman managing first year calculus were very weak if the math SAT was under 580. We also knew that high school rank in class was a far better prediction of college grades than SAT scores. We also knew that these two numbers together only explained about 50% of the variance observed in freshman grades.</p>

<p>Guess what! Only 30% was explained by second year and no significant prediction by third year!</p>

<p>A simple study of WPI graduate sucess done about 40 years ago plotted rank in class upon college graduation (an old style, classroom only environment) against US patents, patents applied for and professional awards (a proxy for professional sucess in a science/engineering world). Using 30 years of data, there was no significant correlation between these two variables across the entire rank-in-class distribution.</p>

<p>Do you know why real world projects are now required by undergraduate enginering students in the US?</p>

<p>The key here is to understand that roughly half of the variance observed in freshman grades were not explained by these neatly quantifyable numbers we all like to toss around (it does sell magazines). What are the contributing factors that we were not measuring in these two numbers?</p>

<p>How about enthusiasm, drive, immagination… How about being in the right environment for you at the right time! Learning requires a lot of swet AND the right spark of electric insight from another student or teacher AND/OR just that quiet time where where ideas smolder into a spark.</p>

<p>SATs don’t measure these qualities. Working FOR grades alone do not capture all these qualities.</p>

<p>All too often, people like to quantify as it seems to reduce the complxities of the human mind to a neat, quick summation. Life becomes so easy! It is all precisely measured. Even the admissions people like it as their impossible job was just made easier.</p>

<p>We know from modern physics that prediction is not an easy task… that is why we keep asking questions after true geniuses (not the SAT variety) have spent lifetimes trying.</p>

<p>Which college is better FOR YOU?</p>

<p>It is the one that can “light your fire!” Jump into the pool of the unpredictable, you may be smarter than you think…BUT swim hard!</p>

33

<p>RPI has spent a fair amount of time and effort under President Jackson in making the campus more attractive to undergrads - the athletic village, EMPAC, etc. They are fairly generous on Fin Aid, including merit aid, and they have made strides in becoming more gender balanced. They have introduced new, innovative, programs, and pioneered (or so we were told) innovative undergrad teaching methods. </p>

<p>Given that, its not surprising that they have gotten results in growing numbers of applicants, lower acceptance rates, higher SAT scores of admitted students, etc. </p>

<p>Its also not surprising that that does not translate directly into improved results on engineering research, grants, and hence engineering dept rankings. </p>

<p>I do not know at what point they will decide they have made enough progress in becoming more selective in admissions, and will focus more on engineering research (other than nanotech which seems to be a current focus). </p>

<p>I do expect that RPI overall will move up the USNWR nat univ rankings because A. Their acceptance rate is lower than in the last go round and B. USNWR is lowering the Peer Assesment portion, and introducing HS GC assesment, and yield, both areas where they do better against the schools close to them in USNWR rank than for peer assesment. </p>

<p>I do not know how the engineering rankings are evolving.</p>