As one of the “Little Three”, why Wesleyan’s ranking has gradually declined in US News ranking, while Williams and Amherst are consistently ranked first and second. Although I know it’s not appropriate to evaluate a college/university solely based on its usnews, I believe it indeed impacts many high school seniors when they make their decisions. Does that mean Wesleyan’s student quality will also decline gradually?
In addition to limited endowment, I’m wondering could anyone provide other explanations for Wesleyan’s ranking?
Well. only in the rarified echo chamber of USNews watchers would nearly a billion dollars for a college of 3,000 students (undergraduate AND graduate) be considered “limited”. To put this into perspective, that works out to enough money to pay for a full-ride, four-year scholarship for nearly every single person seeking a degree at Wesleyan while Amherst and Williams have enough sitting in hedge funds to endow two completely new colleges. This is essentially the decision Wesleyan made the last time it came into a virtual windfall of money in the early 1960s. It expanded enough - when it became co-ed in 1969 - to enroll the equivalent to an entire women’s college over the space of about ten years. That by itself would have eventually halved its endowment per student ratio in time for the very first USNews polls which incorporated that metric for years.
Wesleyan is one of those rare colleges whose USNews ranking seems somewhat decoupled from its brand which only seems to get stronger as the years go by. It has received between 4 and 5 thousand more applications than Amherst and Williams for the last two admissions cycles.
@circuitrider It’s true that nearly a billion dollars for 3000 student is not limited generally speaking. However, when comparing with other prestigious LACs with less students than Wesleyan, I think Wesleyan’s per capita endowment is the least and this indeed has some impact. From an international student perspective, Amherst and Williams is need-blind and able to provide a great deal of financial aid for international students. Wesleyan is need-based and if an international student asks for financial aid when applying, this will make him/her less likely to be admitted (Wesleyan only has Freeman Asian Scholar).
It’s also true that Wesleyan’s applicants every year is much more than Amherst and Williams. However, popularity doesn’t mean everything. First, Wesleyan’s each class has 700 student, more than Amherst’s and William’s. Second, it is reasonable that Wesleyan will receive more applicants since Wesleyan is test-optional and doesn’t require additional essays which makes it easier to apply. Third, Wesleyan’s yield rate is lower than Amherst and Williams and it seems to indicate that Wesleyan is indeed a popular school but people have better options when they have many offers.
The amount of financial aid that can be offered by a particular school is certainly consequential and I would not minimize that. It is one reason I would not recommend that anyone who needs financial aid apply ED to a college because it could be worth comparing awards when RD time rolls around. I have seen many instances when Wesleyan’s award was bigger than Amherst’s for the same applicant. It should also be noted that of the Little Three, only Amherst is need-blind for internationals.
Everything else is window dressing, something that congressional lawmakers recognized recently when they opted to relieve 31 educational institutions of 1.4% of their capital gains for this year and every tax year going forward. This was quite unprecedented and the majority of the colleges were LACs.
Sorry - CORRECTION - Only 12 of the 31 targeted colleges were LACs:
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/12/18/large-endowments-would-be-taxed-under-final-gop-tax-plan
The reality is that the USNWR ranking is a puzzle that Wesleyan’s leadership needs to solve. Other recognized ranking sources (Forbes, Kiplingers) routinely place Wesleyan in or near the top 10 LACs. The current USNWR ranking places Wesleyan below several LACs that most neutral observers would clearly find to be in the same peer group as Wesleyan. There can be endless debate about the merit of any of these so-called “best” rankings, but we live in a world where these things have influence. If endowment is a “negative” factor, then Wesleyan should capture the momentum of its recent successful fundraising campaign and devote even more effort to alumni fundraising. There are certainly enough successful alums out there who could be tapped.
To be clear, I’m all in favor of raising money. 
“Although I know it’s not appropriate to evaluate a college/university solely based on its usnews”
When is it appropriate at all to use magazine editors’ criteria when choosing a college?
Wesleyan provides very little needs based financial aid to international students. The latest common data set shows just 20 out of 300 international students at Wesleyan receive financial aid. I find it interesting that Wesleyan is the only LAC that asks international students to demonstrate at the time they submit their application that they have the ability to pay for 4 Years of tuition and room and board which is more than $300000.
I think of Wes as a top-10ish LAC. Certainly they have a top-10 academic rep among LACs. If I do the “small peer group” exercise, I’d have them with schools like Haverford, Carleton, Vassar, CMC. Maybe that group expands a bit to include Bowdoin, Wellesley, and Midd. It all depends where you try to draw the lines among schools that are so similar in quality. It can get silly.
Anyway, Wes isn’t the only school whose ranking fails to match its rep. If Reed is really #82 (or whatever laughable rank they are this year…), my name is Larry (it isn’t). Wes’s ranking might be off about 10-14 spots, but Reed’s is off by probably at least 60. Of course, they don’t participate, but still…
I understand the angst on a personal level: my undergrad alma mater, UW-Madison, is in the 40s in the USNews undergrad ranking, despite being in the teens and 20s in some world rankings. Now, different rankings measure different variables, but still, the disconnect can be frustrating at least on the surface. Our academic rep is stronger than our overall USNews rank, certainly. That’s the case for some other prestigious flagships too.
The difference between a #10 LAC and a #20 LAC is simply splitting hairs. It’s amazing that people obsess over this stuff.
While I understand the Wes is test optional, their score band as per the CDS are lower than many schools that have been cited as peers here such as Vassar, Haverford, Carleton, CMC, Middlebury, Wellesley, Bowdoin and even Hamilton - often by a not-insignificant margin. Bowdoin is also test optional and does not suffer the same.
In addition much of the USNWR ranking formulas are peer evaluations. Wesleyan is a polarizing school (as is Reed). As in most popularity contests I think the results skew a bit towards vanilla and that hurts them.
In addition, since there are so many ties in the USNWR there tend to be large jumps between clumps of schools that imply more distance than they should. 12 and 21 are only 1 tier away from each other.
The Little Three is as meaningless today as Ivy League (which is simply an athletic conference).
All of the top-20 LAC’s have been consistently ranked as such since USNWR began in 1983. I am almost certain there isn’t one included today that wasn’t top-25 then - some have fallen out, but I don’t think any moved up.
If a school moves up or down from #12 to #18 or #12 to #21 as some did this year that is a meaningless ~1-point difference in the rating system - that’s why there are so many ties.
If you sort by SAT/ACT scores per the CDS, the list would change some as the military academies and a women’s college would fall out, but no other schools would do so.
@4junior wrote:
Fair enough. But, let’s examine the other side of the ledger: how many students from poor backgrounds (using Pell Grants as a proxy) do Wesleyan and its peers recruit and enroll successfully? Mind you, we’re talking about a college whose endowment the OP posits as inadequate:
Wesleyan - 22%
Haverford - 22%
Middlebury - 17%
Carleton - 16%
Hamilton - 15%
Bowdoin - 14%
CMC - 13%
(source: College Navigator)
@circuitrider, impressive - nothing inadequate about $800+mm endowments across the board!
Not certain what year the College Navigator data is from, but Hamilton Pell Grants totaled 18% for the Class of 2020.
Given Pell Grants only total $5775, looking at the total aid provided, including college endowed
need based scholarships, will probably provide a clearer picture - have no idea how to get that other than from each school’s self-reported data.
Was at a Wes info session recently. Got the sense that while they are looking for smart, high scoring, calculus taking kids, they also don’t want simply good test takers. They are looking for some creative spark, so would take a kid with a slightly lower score that outshines a higher scoring kid who may come across to them as bland. There are schools who chase scores for reporting purposes. That’s not Wes.
@wisteria100, agree and that is one of the aspects that likely separates highly selective LAC’s from universities.
@wisteria100 I totally agree. Wes is the most matriculated to LAC at D’s school and it is popular with creative thinkers not test drones. As per Naviance their green dots are all over the place; they clearly are open to taking more of a risk on someone they find promising than many other schools.
@circuitrider The original question was about the USNWR scores, which are take test scores into account. I wasn’t making a value judgement I only meant to point out a possible reason why the rank is not higher.
@Chembiodad Pell grants are only awarded to those who have significant financial need. The government pays for them, not the school. Its one thing to give 150 families FA of $10k, its quite another to give the full ride that a Pell Grant family often warrants. Tables showing how many families get need are often misleading as to the amount of need met. Hence it is often used as a marker of commitment to a socioeconomically diverse class. This article is interesting:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2017/10/23/pell-grant-shares-at-top-ranked-colleges-a-sortable-chart/?utm_term=.42a736496b51
@4junior, agree and that’s why schools that can’t provide endowed need based aid are the greatest participants in the Federal Pell Grant program - typically state schools. Doesn’t diminish the value of the Pell Grant as its provided to those at the lowest end of the socioeconomic spectrum, but if it still results in a large student loan it isn’t doing its job.
@Chembiodad I’m sorry - perhaps I don’t understand. If you qualify for a Pell grant at a full needs met school it is my understanding that you get the Pell grant from the government and then the college is left to choose to finance the rest based on their determination of need. If you are at a non- endowed school I guess all you get is the Pell and loans, but I am under the impression that is not the case at most top LAC’s. I have to say the application process is seriously complicated though, so I could be wrong.