2018 US News Ranking, TCU #78

[LeagueCityFrog]

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/tcu-3636

Time for TCU to break out of this regular spot. We have been creeping around #78 for a while despite the large continuous investment in the school. Scored a 55 of 100 on their system. Let's try to get that number over 60 in 2019. The person at TCU who informs this ranking system needs to try harder. I have a hard time believing that all these schools that have been ahead of us over the last 5 years have had the same level of investment into the school and the same upward trajectory of the high school students who have been applying for these becoming rare freshman class spots. It would be nice if we got into the 60s before the Medical School opens.

 

[Frog-in-law1995]

Are the number of applications a problem?

 

[LeagueCityFrog]

Complete 2018 rankings list.

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities

 

[Kyle101011]

I think we are a very strong undergrad school but need to improve in graduate enrollment and research.

 

[rifram09]

78 is up from 82 last year. Think the year before we were at 72. But 72 was a big jump from where we were pre-2008ish. In truth, we have seen a big jump from 10 years ago, but we’ve been stagnant over the last 5

We need a bigger endowment to offer more academic scholarship. Long-term, we need a MUCH bigger endowment to make TCU more affordable. More affordable means more applications, which in terms means more selectivity. More selectivity equates to higher rankings.

Med School and more grad offerings will also help. I hope the med school will bump us up another 5-10 rankings. After that, I think the only increase will come if we can dramatically increase the endowment.

 

[froginaustin]

Going up in the rankings means pushing past other schools. That's tougher to do the higher a school gets, says Captain Obvious.
That being said, I hope TCU can do things such as increase endowment, to keep tuition costs down relatively speaking.

 

[TCUdirtbag]

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/tcu-3636

Time for TCU to break out of this regular spot. We have been creeping around #78 for a while despite the large continuous investment in the school. Scored a 55 of 100 on their system. Let's try to get that number over 60 in 2019. The person at TCU who informs this ranking system needs to try harder. I have a hard time believing that all these schools that have been ahead of us over the last 5 years have had the same level of investment into the school and the same upward trajectory of the high school students who have been applying for these becoming rare freshman class spots. It would be nice if we got into the 60s before the Medical School opens.

This is so insane.

First of all, the school just broke 100 a few years ago. You don’t leap up 10 every year. Higher ed is absurdly competitive and you have to fight tooth and nail just to hold steady.

This post needs to be dialed way back. Go get some perspective. TCU is doing a phenomenal job and taking steps to hold and steadily improve.

Your expectations are unreasonable and perspective uninformed on this one.

 

[LeagueCityFrog]

Why is SMU 17 spots ahead of TCU? Does a law school alone do that? Wouldn't a medical school trump a law school. Answer, yes. Being in Dallas get them a couple more spots up the ranking? Maybe. Do they have a more robust graduate research programs outside of law school? No clue. Shouldn't their current football status alone drop them out of the top 100?

TCU needs to do a better job with the people who do this annual US News ranking release. It's become powerful as the years have gone on. Maybe have a US News and World Report Football Weekend until they get the magic that is TCU. I was offended in their report that said TCU is a premier football school, and excluding baseball.

 

[Kyle101011]

Why is SMU 17 spots ahead of TCU? Does a law school alone do that? Wouldn't a medical school trump a law school. Answer, yes. Being in Dallas get them a couple more spots up the ranking? Maybe. Do they have a more robust graduate research programs outside of law school? No clue. Shouldn't their current football status alone drop them out of the top 100?

I think for SMU it all comes back to graduate school. They have 5 times more people enrolled in their graduate school than ours.
If these were just undergrad rankings we would be way higher on this list.

 

[LeagueCityFrog]

This is so insane.

First of all, the school just broke 100 a few years ago. You don’t leap up 10 every year. Higher ed is absurdly competitive and you have to fight tooth and nail just to hold steady.

This post needs to be dialed way back. Go get some perspective. TCU is doing a phenomenal job and taking steps to hold and steadily improve.

Your expectations are unreasonable and perspective uninformed on this one.

You are not the grand authority on everything on this website even though your posts sometimes acts like you are. Unless your last name is Boschini then back off. We dropped 10 spots in a year this decade, why can't we jump 10 spots. Be more positive and less negative, Nancy.

 

[TCUdirtbag]

#14 Rice
#56 Texas
#61 SMU
#69 A&M
#75 Baylor
#78 TCU
#97 Oklahoma
#115 Iowa State
#115 Kansas
#145 Kansas State
#145 UT-Dallas
#151 Oklahoma State
#176 Texas Tech
#187 West Virginia
#192 Houston
#202 Dallas Baptist

IMO, we are poised to pass Baylor and get into the 60s tier with SMU and A&M with the addition of the Med school and continuing trajectory. It will not happen overnight.

 

[TCUdirtbag]

You are not the grand authority on everything on this website even though your posts sometimes acts like you are. Unless your last name is Boschini then back off. We dropped 10 spots in a year this decade, why can't we jump 10 spots. Be more positive and less negative, Nancy.

Sorry, but your op is way off base. Period.

And here, when you cherry pick a year where we dropped off 10 spots you neglect to mention the many ties that occur that exacerbate a slight drop in metrics.

Look at the trend: we jolted up a few years back but are otherwise on a steady climb. Instead of criticizing the administration and pulling “what our rankings should be” numbers out of your ass get some perspective on what all is involved first. And look at trends, not single years. Just as with any set of stats and metrics the trends tell much more than single data points. Our admin is doing a fantastic job.

Side note: Don’t expect the Med school to immediately jolt us upward. It’s going to be a small school. Much smaller than Baylor and SMU and Texas’ law schools. Texas is also adding a Med school too, so we can track the changes at both. Ours will also be patient care centric and not a huge research institution, so you won’t see a huge boom in research dollars that you get at the major research Med schools.

 

[LeagueCityFrog]

I think for SMU it all comes back to graduate school. They have 5 times more people enrolled in their graduate school than ours.
If these were just undergrad rankings we would be way higher on this list.

If SMU has 5 times more graduate research currently then I get it. Hopefully with our medical school and hopefully a concurrently expanding engineering program, TCU should meet and beat that amount of grad research with hopefully even higher of research with a high end science focus vs liberal arts. If TCU peaked somewhere in the 50s on this US News list, I think we are good. TCU should continue to be the ultimate undergraduate experience in America with selective high quality graduate degrees like MBA, natural sciences, math, engineering, and all the new frog MDs that are on the horizon. Very exciting for what is going for TCU and Fort Worth.

 

[Pure Purple]

One bit of irony, in the U.S. News' evaluations, is that provided by 'High School Counselors' who have consistently


given a 'cesspool' like Baylor a higher ranking than TCU.

 

[angelo's frog]

I don't see where grad programs are considered at all in the "undergraduate" ranking methodology.

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-us-news-calculated-the-rankings

For example, here is Baylor's overall score and the ranking indicators:

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/baylor-university-6967/rankings

And, here is TCU's:

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/tcu-3636/rankings

Note no indicators for grad school numbers or strength.

In any event, what you really need to look at is the score, not the rank because there are many ties and the scores are all given in whole numbers. For example, there are 2 schools (Iowa and Miami, OH) tied with us at #78 and with a raw score of 55. That is very good company. Baylor is at #75 tied with 2 other schools (Colorado School of Mines and UMass) with a score of 56. So, Baylor is really one spot ahead of us, not three.

Then it starts to get even more crowded. There are 6 schools tied at #69 with a score of 57 including A&M, 1 each at #s 68 and 67 and then 6 more at #61 with a score of 60 including SMU, then 5 at #56 with a score of 61 including UT.

Consequently, if you discount the ties in the rankings and just look at the actual scores, TCU is 1 point behind Baylor (score 56), 2 points behind A&M (score 57), 5 points behind SMU (score 60) and 6 points behind UT (score 61).

Once you get to the area of the rankings where TCU is now, it is very competitive. Iowa, Miami (OH), Syracuse, Minnesota, Pitt, Rutgers, Maryland, Syracuse, Va Tech, A&M, Clemson and Va Tech are the competition to move up and those guys aren't sitting around on their butts waiting for some tiny little school from Texas to pass them. A realistic short term (5 year) goal for TCU should be to finally pass Baylor and get even with or pass A&M.

By the way, just to illustrate how far TCU is from the elite schools, Rice's score is an 86 -- that's 31 points higher than TCU. Rice is #14 -- tied with Brown, Cornell and Vandy and one spot above Notre Dame.

 

[Paint It Purple]

I skimmed the list 1-80. Is it interesting that every California State System institution comes in top 40ish? I understand the obvious ones, UC Berkeley, etc. But, is the CA university system really that superior? Personally, I call BS.

 

[Ron Swanson]

I skimmed the list 1-80. Is it interesting that every California State System institution comes in top 40ish? I understand the obvious ones, UC Berkeley, etc. But, is the CA university system really that superior? Personally, I call BS.

Yes it is very good

And in fact, it being that good is a big reason TCU’s applications have gone up. Wealthy Californians whose kids didn’t quite get into the state schools apply to TCU. That’s why California is the #2 source of students at TCU behind state of Texas

 

[Pharm Frog]

#78 is good. In fact, it is very good. Not sure why anyone would complain about being #78 or #72 or #65 or #81. There probably aren't five students in this hemisphere that would say, "I'm gonna make School X my dream school because it's #75 and relegate #87 School Y as a Plan B school. When you are residing in that level of quality, the order is largely a difference without distinction. You are in the community and that's what counts. And I'm really not sure it would be wise at all to use USN&WR rankings as an outcome or even input of strategic decision-making. Far better to be true to your own mission and vision and let those chips fall where they may as you consistently work toward increasing effectiveness.

 

[Paint It Purple]

Yes it is very good

And in fact, it being that good is a big reason TCU’s applications have gone up. Wealthy Californians whose kids didn’t quite get into the state schools apply to TCU. That’s why California is the #2 source of students at TCU behind state of Texas

So if the reasoning follows, wealthy Texans whose kids can’t cut the UT/A&M system, apply to TCU? Not really arguing. I just submit that the heavily stacked liberal academia which is packed into a place like CA skews these sort of ratings. They came from the Ivy League, so it follows that where they end up (eg. CA U System) must therefore be Ivy L West.

 

[gohornedfrogs]

I don't see where grad programs are considered at all in the "undergraduate" ranking methodology.

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-us-news-calculated-the-rankings

For example, here is Baylor's overall score and the ranking indicators:

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/baylor-university-6967/rankings

And, here is TCU's:

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/tcu-3636/rankings

Note no indicators for grad school numbers or strength.

In any event, what you really need to look at is the score, not the rank because there are many ties and the scores are all given in whole numbers. For example, there are 2 schools (Iowa and Miami, OH) tied with us at #78 and with a raw score of 55. That is very good company. Baylor is at #75 tied with 2 other schools (Colorado School of Mines and UMass) with a score of 56. So, Baylor is really one spot ahead of us, not three.

Then it starts to get even more crowded. There are 6 schools tied at #69 with a score of 57 including A&M, 1 each at #s 68 and 67 and then 6 more at #61 with a score of 60 including SMU, then 5 at #56 with a score of 61 including UT.

Consequently, if you discount the ties in the rankings and just look at the actual scores, TCU is 1 point behind Baylor (score 56), 2 points behind A&M (score 57), 5 points behind SMU (score 60) and 6 points behind UT (score 61).

Once you get to the area of the rankings where TCU is now, it is very competitive. Iowa, Miami (OH), Syracuse, Minnesota, Pitt, Rutgers, Maryland, Syracuse, Va Tech, A&M, Clemson and Va Tech are the competition to move up and those guys aren't sitting around on their butts waiting for some tiny little school from Texas to pass them. A realistic short term (5 year) goal for TCU should be to finally pass Baylor and get even with or pass A&M.

By the way, just to illustrate how far TCU is from the elite schools, Rice's score is an 86 -- that's 31 points higher than TCU. Rice is #14 -- tied with Brown, Cornell and Vandy and one spot above Notre Dame.

Great post. I tried explaining this to a Baylor grad years ago and they couldn’t grasp it.

I was fully expecting him to say 61-58 when I was done.