The owner of my company is a Babson grad. He’s had a “decent” outcome. 
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Of course, there are public LACs…
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No problem. If you are curious about any others I’m happy to look them up (can list here or if you would prefer you can PM me). Unfortunately, I can’t gift the list or I’d do that.
I suspect you would find what the feeder lists show - that the most selective undergrads would fill these lists.
It makes sense - because those highest achieving for regular college will be the ones to fill our medical and law schools.
But it doesn’t mean that the schools did a better job preparing them. It just means, the same really smart kids applied to both. It’s why the lists - for example for Harvard Law and MBA - are so expansive - in 2022, Harvard Law had 174 represented. This year, 147. If you’re super smart and test well, you have a chance regardless of the name on the diploma. It’s just that a lot less great test takers and brilliant academic minds attend a Chicago/Northwestern vs. a UIC or a Columbia vs. a CUNY.
Don’t think this would tell a story of quality - but it could - as rankings are all subjective - since the criteria is whatever the publication wants it to be.
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A good friend of mines daughter graduated there like 2 years ago. She got a great job from a high profile Chicago company… Had great opportunities and great internships… Yeh, they do OK… Lol
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A reminder that political discussion is only allowed in the politics forum and that any post that does not comply with ToS is subject to deletion without comment
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USNWR has new “methodology” coming out in a week.
Hopefully USNWR sets “reputation” to 0% weight and then the article can die once and for all. selectivity and “reputation” (how college presidents think about each other) should not be in rankings for parents who only vaguely follow this stuff since it has minimal impact on actual classroom teaching.
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The rub is that A) participation in the peer survey is low (last year 34.1% of 4,838 of those surveyed responded) and B) of those who do respond, it tends not to be Presidents…I have directly heard of these surveys being passed down the food chain, and being completed by relatively low level academic advisors, admission officers and the like. Ridiculous.
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the series with interviews of Malcolm Gladwell with a Reed statistics professor and students who figured out the algorithm for USNWR rankings is an interesting listen
Surprising that Lafayette did not make top 400. Their grads’ salaries are pretty good, with engineering as a popular major. Maybe financial aid is not as good as some of the other LACs? And diversity?
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pretty interesting that USNWR never considered net price/how long it takes to pay of college debt in their rankings. Wonder if they will include that this time? Given the talk about student debt seems they will likely include that…
This is TCNJ’s stats
My guess is that very low cost coupled with generous financial aid in a student population (almost uniformly) successfully obtaining immediate employment after graduation in technical fields were the factors why WSJ ranks TCNJ so high.
That is basically its unstated mission statement.
“Thanks to the efforts of our dedicated faculty and staff, NJIT continues to be recognized as a top university, as well as for our excellent return on investment that facilitates upward socio-economic mobility, by ranking agencies including U.S. News and World Report, The Princeton Review, Forbes, and Payscale.”
Acceptance rate 69%
Average SAT score 1300
Ethnic distribution: 33% White, 9.1% Black, 21.8% Hispanic, 23.6% Asian
Full-time enrollment 7,305 Part-time enrollment 1,878
Graduation rate: 4 years 38.5%, 5 years 58.9%, 6 years 73.7%
Tuition: $14,448
Gross tuition collected $213,080,000
Student Aid
Federal
Pell Grants $17,992,000
College Work Study $471,000
SEOG $535,000
CARES ACT- HEERF Student Aid $584,000
State
Tuition Aid Grants $25,044,000
Education Opportunity Fund $731,000
Urban Scholars $16,000
NJ Stars $88,000
Institutional Programs
Grants/Scholarships $36,808,000
$82,269,000 total grants and scholarships (38.6% of gross tuition)
#1 ROI for public 4 year institutions
Average annual salary graduating class of 2021 $67,852 bachelors
Ten years after enrollment, NJIT students earn an annual [median salary of $80,043
Class of 2021: 84.8% employed full-time or employment offer, 5.7% seeking employment, 4.5% graduate school full time, 3.3% part time employment, 1.8% co-op internship.
most common majors:
43% engineering
25% computer and information sciences and support services
12% engineering/engineering-related technologies/technicians
6% biological and biomedical sciences
5% business, management, marketing, and related support services.
4% architecture and related services
1% mathematics and statistics
1% visual and performing arts
1% communication technologies
1% legal professions and studies
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Yeah, ideally we would do a value-added version of these lists.
Like, take academic qualifications on entry, maybe some other demographic stuff, and build a model of future admissions to things like top law schools, med schools, PhD programs, and so on.
Then see if a college is placing better or worse than you would expect given that model as applied to its students.
Oh, and control for self-selection too . . . .
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Not sure diversity is a huge driver - BYU has a diversity score of 33 but still made the top 20. Top rated Princeton had a lower diversity score than several schools ranked below it. The financial aid piece (which can drive average sticker price) does seem to be important, though.
Yeah, at only 10%, it is likely only going to play a small role in sorting among colleges already close in the big factors.
Which is fine, as long as you understand what the WSJ was prioritizing.
While I don’t find any ranking scheme to be all that important, I do think it is nice to see some less familiar names among the highly rated - simply because maybe it will give students a few new ideas of colleges that could serve them well. The top schools at USNWR are the same year in and year out. Many people know them already. Why not introduce some schools that fewer people know of as a possible good bet.
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If COA, school debt, and job placement are important metrics, the service academies (considered public LACs by USNWR) would be at the top of the list.
ETA: Per comments below, I was being a bit facetious. The SAs are a whole 'nother animal.
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Would the military commitment post-grad skew the job placement statistic against the academies?
“U.S. service academies aren’t included in the ranking, as government data used in compiling our scores isn’t collected and publicly reported for them.”
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Interesting criteria. One thing missing is any attempt to measure the quality of instruction, faculty quality, etc. That’s kind of important, imo.
Outcomes are largely major- and location-driven.
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