<p>in the USN&WR 2014 rankings.</p>
<p>And Wesleyan.... No. 17.</p>
<p>No longer the Little Three, now the Little Twenty. Ouch!</p>
<p>National</a> Liberal Arts College Rankings | Top Liberal Arts Colleges | US News Best Colleges</p>
<p>***??</p>
<p>Well, there’s not much to be surprised by here. Everyone knows the USNews rankings are a proxy for wealth and spending per student. Wesleyan is still the highest ranking LAC for research (according to the Washington Monthly), still within the top three co-ed LACs when it comes to the percentage of its students receiving Pell Grants (especially gratifying given Wesleyan’s decision to become need-sensitive last year), and probably the only small NESCAC college with not just one, but<em>two</em> internationally recognized academic programs, Ethnomusicology and Film.</p>
<p>Personally, I think it’s great that places like Davidson and Claremont McKenna are some well-deserved recognition; USNews is good at that sort of thing.</p>
<p><em>getting</em> some. ;)</p>
<p>Pretty sure the Little Three of today is Williams, Amherst and Swarthmore. ;)</p>
<p>^^Perhaps. But, if had to bet on which college, Swarthmore or Wesleyan, had the better chance of winning an actual Little Three championship in the next four years, I’d have to choose Wesleyan . ;)</p>
<p>Haha, that’s true, although Swat isn’t even part of NESCAC lol.</p>
<p>All of these rankings are pretty meaningless! Wesleyan is a great, great school. So is Williams. So is your state university if you decide you are going to read everything in sight, ask questions and demand to be educated. The ranking of a particular school doesn’t make you any more or less educated.</p>
<p>Wesleyan dropped to #17 last year, after it’s admin rate rose to 24% (US News uses two year old data in their rankings, for some reason).</p>
<p>It’s US News admin rate then dropped to 21%, as I recall, this year, so I expected Wes to climb back up a few notches. Must be the accompanying drop in grad rate that kept Wes at #17.</p>
<p>Last year, Wes had almost 11,000 applications, about a 19% admin rate. Recently, Wes has continued to see admin rates fall while rates at other similar schools (Vassar, Amherst, etc.) have stayed stayed constant or risen slightly.</p>
<p>I imagine more students may regard Wes as a good choice going forward, as the odds of admission at places like Pomona and Claremont, etc. (around 13%) come to be seen as insurmountable. A narrowing gap in admit rates would tend to push Wes up in the rankings.</p>
<p>As President Roth’s capital campaign starts to increase the Wesleyan endowment a bit, this may help also.</p>
<p>If the grad rate at Wes can get back to 94% from the current 92%, and these other factors kick in, with a more competitive endowment per student, Wes could be back near (or in) the top 10 in a couple of years.</p>
<p>The grad rate, I think, is key. Fingers crossed.</p>
<p>you know. all of those numbers are NUTTY and don’t tell you how many books the kids are reading and what kind of questions the kids are asking. My experience visiting Wes was that there were a good number of kids with a lot of energy committed to intellectual exploration. Try to give that a number. I went to Willams I’m number one , I’m number one. Really? Really? My one advice is to find a location you like, a mentor you can connect with, and start reading and thinking. Then YOU will be number one and not just your school.</p>
<p>Acceptance rate accounts for only 1.25% of the score, so it’s practically a non-factor, especially when Wesleyan is already more selective than the schools immediately above it, even with the 2014 rankings. </p>
<p>Retention/6 year grad rate accounts for 22.5% of the score, a huge component, but Wesleyan tied Hamilton and Vassar for 6 year grad rate (91%) and tied Middlebury, Wellesley, and Haverford (beating Hamilton, Grinnell, Claremont McKenna) with 96% retention, so it’s not behind those school because of that metric, either. So reputation is also a wash.</p>
<p>Where Wesleyan is behind its peers is money and money-to-size ratio. Faculty resources account for 20% of the score and here is where Wes gets slammed. Because it’s a larger LAC, it has a decent chunk of larger-than-50 classes (5% vs. 2% at peers). While I don’t have access to the full data set, I seem to remember Wes being slightly below the NESCAC average for faculty salaries, which would also hurt. Student faculty ratio is competitive with immediate peers, however. The % of students in the top 10% of their class is significantly lower at Wes (being in the mid 60’s % vs. 80’s% at peers), despite Wes having about equal SAT/ACT averages to the Middleburys and Bowdoins of the world. Alumni giving is competitive as well. Financial resources accounts for 10% of the score and Wesleyan is below all of the schools ranked above it in endowment per student.</p>
<p>TL;DR
IMO, reasons Wes is ranked below peers by US News:
Larger % of bigger-than-50-students classes, despite competitive % of less-than-20
Lower % of students in top 10% of class, despite having similar SAT/ACT scores to peers
Spending/student lower than peers due to lower endowment/student than peers</p>
<p>Wes holds its own with graduation and retention rates, as well as student-faculty ratio. This is with Hamilton, Vassar, Haverford, as well as Midd and Bowdoin in mind. It’s sour grapes, but in the 1980’s, Wesleyan’s endowment was equal to that of Williams and Amherst. Poor money management indeed. The ship has been righted, but can Wes catch up? If Wes had the endowment per student of Bowdoin, Wes would probably be back to its peak, around #6. However, one has to keep in mind that we’re parsing extremely fine detail here. The US News rankings correlate almost perfectly with endowment/student.</p>
<p>^^I think it’s a mistake to get too wrapped up in the sausage-making of running a modern educational institution; you can’t take the USNews methodologies as a literal recipe to be followed by each and every college in the country. Big classes? When you have that kind of spread between large and small classes at a place of Wesleyan’s stature, my first thought is those must be very popular teachers. Wesleyan should be thanking their lucky stars that they have them, not worrying how they affect their ranking in a magazine poll.</p>
<p>Another misleading example is faculty compensation. It’s enormously complicated. Do the USNews numbers include sabbatical leaves? Teaching loads? Availability of jobs for one’s spouse? Proximity to great research centres? I don’t think they do and quite frankly, there is a premium to be paid in order to get any adult under the age of 30 to settle in an isolated village in northern New England.</p>
<p>And just to get off the subject, it is inconceivable to me that a top national research university could attract more than twice the outside funding of its nearest rival, and finish less than in the top five of its category. But, because Wesleyan is an LAC and not a huge research university, it is being underrated.</p>
<p>Atidrep is right: the numbers are NUTTY.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not exactly. If rankings did in fact correlate almost perfectly to endowment/student, Wes would be #28, not #17.
Denison has an e/s rank of #20 but a US News ranking of #50.
Smith e/s rank is #8, US News # 20
Bryn Mawr e/s rank # 9, US News #30
Haverford e/s rank #16, US news #9
Bates e/s rank #33, US News # 22
Davidson e/s rank #20, US News #9…etc.</p>
<p>[Reach</a> High Scholars - College Endowments](<a href=“http://www.reachhighscholars.org/college_endowments.html]Reach”>College Endowments)</p>
<p>Why do I think it is always the boys who are measuring and comparing statistics? It’s such a male concern! But rank means very little. Check out Malcolm Gladwell’s brilliant reconstruction of the idiocy of it all in the New Yorker a few years back. Brilliant.</p>
<p>Yes, of course it is well known that men/boys rank #1 in ranking concerns. This is something we are very proud of.</p>
<p>Agree that the US News rankings should not mean much, but obviously they do to a lot of people and schools. Smartalic34 is correct, where Wes gets hurt is on resources. I have no doubt that a student today can get an education at Wes every bit as good as he or she could get at Williams, Amherst or Swat. The issue for Wes is what happens to that equation over time when Wes has 1/5 the per student endowment of those schools. Wes’s per student endowment is at the bottom of the top 25 LACs. Hard to sustain the quality if that does not change, President Roth has said as much.</p>
<p>Here is another ranking–by acceptance rate–which might help:</p>
<p>[SAT</a> Scores for Liberal Arts Colleges](<a href=“http://satscores.us/sat_scores_liberalarts.asp]SAT”>http://satscores.us/sat_scores_liberalarts.asp)</p>
<p>Acceptance rates should never be the primary criterion unless you are a status seeker but the do tell something. Acceptance rates at LACs are usually lower for females than for males.</p>
<p>^^It’s interesting how those stats have changed in five years:</p>
<p>1) Claremont McKenna - 12%
2) Pomona - 13%
3) Amherst - 14%
4) Swarthmore - 14%
5) Pitzer - 15%
6) Bowdoin - 15%
7) Williams - 17%
8) Middlebury - 19%
9) Wesleyan - 20%
10) Barnard - 20%
11) Carleton - 21%
12) Vassar - 23%
13) Davidson - 26%
13) Colby - 26%
14) Colgate - 26%
15) Hamilton - 27%
16) Wellesley - 28%
17) Bucknell - 29%
18) U. of Richmond
19) Trinity - 31%
20) Holy Cross - 32%
21) Macalester - 34%
22) Kenyon - 38%
23) Dickinson - 44%</p>
<p>With ties:</p>
<p>1) Claremont McKenna - 12%
2) Pomona - 13%
3) Amherst - 14%
3) Swarthmore - 14%
5) Pitzer - 15%
5) Bowdoin - 15%
7) Williams - 17%
8) Middlebury - 19%
9) Wesleyan - 20%
9) Barnard - 20%
11) Carleton - 21%
12) Vassar - 23%
12) Haverford -23%
13) Davidson - 26%
13) Colby - 26%
13) Colgate - 26%
15) Hamilton - 27%
16) Wellesley - 28%
17) Bucknell - 29%
18) U. of Richmond - 30%
19) Trinity - 31%
20) Holy Cross - 32%
21) Macalester - 34%
22) Kenyon - 38%
23) Dickinson - 44%</p>