Sweat Equity
Tier 1
TCU falls to #98 (frm #89), SMU falls to #89 (frm #72).
(New formula.)
(New formula.)
2024 edition of Best Colleges is National Universities
- Thread starter Sweat Equity
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Eight
Member
obviously smu is getting a bump for being part of a serious academic conference unlike the big 12
FrogAbroad
Full Member
Not enough bump to overcome the fallout from the GA game...
froginaustin
Active Member
Sangria Wine
Active Member
Frankly, college is mostly a scam if we are all being serious. Unless you’re a nurse, attorney, doctor, accountant, etc the whole experience is about learning to be an adult, networking, and multitasking without any actual adult supervision. The important stuff you learn on the job later for 90% of the graduating class of most colleges and most degree paths. Behind the military industrial complex and pharmaceuticals, higher education is probably the next highest level boondoggle in America…
You really shouldn’t need to go to “college” to be a nurse, attorney, doctor or an accountant. You should have to go somewhere where they specifically teach you to be those things.
Sangria Wine
Active Member
I wholeheartedly agree.
Virginia Frog
Active Member
I heard on the radio that the new USN&WR rankings are now ruled by "outcomes" of a student's attendance at the school for 4 years and their post-school employment. It doesn't seem to be as clearly academically based as most believe and likely has a little woke-driven component.
In our case, there are several schools ahead of us that are clearly NOT "National Universities." I'm sure they have criteria/definitions but colleges like Tufts, Rochester, William & Mary, Brandeis, Rensselaer Polytechnic, Santa Clara, Colorado Mines (the hilliest college in America), Pepperdine, Stevens Tech in NJ, Rutgers@Newark, Illinois@Chicago, Worcester Polytechnic, NJ Institute of Technology, Gonzaga - yea good b-ball but it's tiny, I've been there -, Ill Institute of Technology -never, ever heard of THAT one-, AND GAG ME WITH A SPOON PLEASE- Rutgers@Camden are really NOT National players by any fair standard. (While all of them are very solid schools to send your kid, their choices show a disfunction in this whole effort.)
All these U of California schools and SUNY's (effectively directionals) just suck the oxygen out of the rankings, IMO.
USouthFlorida got a BIG bump due to their surprising admittance to the AAU.
TCU is still in the Top 100 so we have a few bragging rights. This whole thing is quite discouraging and I'm sure Boschini & his folks are pee-ed off as well.
I think USN&WR will lose a lot of credibility with this "new" effort in University rankings.
This Ain't Chopped Liver
Active Member
I seem to remember TCU in the 70’s a few years ago, maybe 72, 73 or 76?
Baylor and SMU’s ranking dropped more this year, to 93 and 89, so TCU at 98 has nearly closed that gap.
“Between the lines: Rankings were adjusted to add some new factors, including measures of success for first-generation college students, per U.S. News.
Some elements considered in past years, like class size and faculty education levels, were eliminated.
Vanderbilt decried the removal of factors like “faculty with the highest degrees attainable in their fields” and “the percentage of entering students who are in the top 10% of their high-school class.” The university said it was evaluating its next steps.””
Baylor and SMU’s ranking dropped more this year, to 93 and 89, so TCU at 98 has nearly closed that gap.
“Between the lines: Rankings were adjusted to add some new factors, including measures of success for first-generation college students, per U.S. News.
Some elements considered in past years, like class size and faculty education levels, were eliminated.
Vanderbilt decried the removal of factors like “faculty with the highest degrees attainable in their fields” and “the percentage of entering students who are in the top 10% of their high-school class.” The university said it was evaluating its next steps.””
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This Ain't Chopped Liver
Active Member
Vanderbilt University takes issue with ranking on Top 20 universities list
Vanderbilt is stronger than at any time in its history: Our students and faculty are our most qualified ever. Our finances are remarkably sound, our fundraising
U.S News’ change in methodology has led to dramatic movement in the rankings overall, disadvantaging many private research universities while privileging large public institutions. To look at just a few examples, The University of Chicago fell from sixth to 12th. Dartmouth moved down six places. Berkeley and UCLA rose to tie for 15th after placing 20th last year, and UNC advanced seven places to 22nd. Some schools have seen quite dramatic declines: Wake Forest slid 18 places, Tulane 29. Washington University in St. Louis dropped out of the top 20, and NYU lost 10 places, moving to 35 from 25.
Specifically, U.S. News has made significant methodological changes that reduce the emphasis on metrics that measure faculty and student quality—and that increase the emphasis on social mobility, which is measured using incomplete and misleading data.
Measuring social mobility is an important consideration, to be sure, and Vanderbilt is profoundly committed to offering access to qualified students from all backgrounds. But it is deeply misleading for U.S. News to commingle this policy concern with measures of educational quality.
Among the new methodology’s many flaws, the following are most glaring:
Some of the rankings’ key measures of academic quality, where Vanderbilt has historically done well—such as faculty with the highest degrees attainable in their fields and the percentage of entering students who are in the top 10 percent of their high-school class—were eliminated, while others, including faculty resources, were assigned less weight. Previously, U.S. News eliminated student selectivity as a factor.
Criteria related to social mobility have been given more weight, such as the percentage of Pell students. Students from all backgrounds succeed at Vanderbilt at a higher rate than at many other institutions, but because Vanderbilt’s overall percentage of Pell and first-generation students is lower than at many state institutions, U.S. News’ metric for Vanderbilt is lower, affecting our ranking.
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Dogfrog
Active Member
With a New Formula, U.S. News Rankings Boost Some State Universities
Responding to critics, the publication made its biggest changes to its method in four decades. But it’s unclear whether that is enough to quiet the naysayers.
Apparently they have increased the influence of graduation of Pell grant students and removed the importance of class size.
This Ain't Chopped Liver
Active Member
TCU Ranks in U.S. News & World Report Top 100 for 14th Consecutive Year
The university was further recognized in the top 100 for its business, engineering and nursing programs and also cracked the top list for Best Value Schools.
TCU is #313 in Top Performers on Social Mobility. Baylor and SMU are #360 and #364. Since social mobility now has more weight, I assume TCU, SMU and Baylor have all lost ground due to their weaker ranking here.
Best Colleges for Veterans: TCU #165, SMU #58, Baylor #61.
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HToady
Full Member
The biggest complaint I hear from TCU students today, is that TCU is "over enrolled" Frustrations are rampant that students cannot get the classes they need toward their degree plans. Sounds like money before matter. Probably why they dropped.
An-Cap Frog
Member
Probably not enough 5 star recruits or maybe it's the work they are doing on their stadium that caused them to drop.
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