Local implications for Chicago and WashU falling in 2024 college rankings

[Anonymous]

I remain amazed how many people on DCUM care about the idiotic "rankings". Especially with respect to well-known schools like Chicago and W&M.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Chicago and WashU dropped significantly in the recent USNWR rankings. Will this hurt their perception locally as great midwestern alternatives to Ivy League schools?
Chicago (12th) had been in the top 10 every year since 2007 and hadn't been lower than a tie for 6th in over a decade. However, they were regularly outside the top 10 in the 90s and early 2000s, when many current parents were going to college.
WashU (24th) had been in the top 20 every year since 1991 and was top 15 the last two years and in most years since 2005.
Both have been ranked lower in other publications too. Forbes, for example, ranked them 28th and 40th, though to be fair that was in a combined ranking with the top LACs as well.
I've read on DCUM about the Big 3 connection to Chicago. Will that willingness to apply ED2 to one of these schools continue? Parents on this board use "T10" regularly when talking about prestige.
In the midwest, Northwestern moved above Chicago and Notre Dame moved above WashU (both also occurred in the Forbes ranking too). Is there a reshuffling again in the top midwestern schools? Northwestern was commonly the highest ranked school in the midwest in the late 90s and early 2000s. It is a little funny that the rankings are coming full circle back to when we were looking at colleges ourselves.

I don't understand how you or anyone can make such a statement? Now that Brown is ranked in the top 10 (for like the first time ever), are you suggesting that it wasn't a prestigious school in 2022 or any year before then? Is Dartmouth not prestigious now since it 18? I don't know if this statement is made by an adult or someone not lacking a certain level of maturity. There are probably 20 schools that can be considered "Top 10" and by this, I mean schools with pretty strong reputations that have been built over decades and in the case of some, hundreds of years. No magazine article will change this... People put way too much stock in these rankings and it is concerning...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd argue that people whose understanding of the rankings is superficial enough that it affects whether or not they would apply to Chicago aren't actually smart enough to go there. Chicago as an academic institution is an absolute powerhouse, and I wouldn't blink an eye at any student who would choose it over HYP.

That said, one of the problems with college rankings is that they attempt to quantify an experience that cannot be completely quantified by applying a one-size-fits-all metric to schools that can't all be measured by that standard. Take, for example, the alumni giving rate that U.S. News used to include as part of its formula. It is a good measure of comparison with respect to the wealthiest private colleges and universities: it has never been any surprise that top-ranked liberal arts colleges and the Ivies with comparatively few graduate programs have high giving rates year after year while Harvard, which caters to its grad programs, never has a giving rate above 35% for its Harvard College alums. But this factor is fairly meaningless when used as an indication of alum satisfaction amongst graduates of public colleges and universities for the simple reason that these schools are perceived as being taxpayer-funded and for this reason do not inspire the kinds of donations that private schools do.

Or consider rankings based upon ROI. Traditionally, Chicago has attracted intensely academic students who then earn PhDs and go into academia. Consequently, because academics as a group make way less money than engineers or hedge fund employees, Chicago's ROI has been lower than those of peer schools whose alums disproportionately work on Wall St. Similarly, women's colleges have lower ROIs than those of coed peer schools. But the reason for this disparity has nothing to do with the quality of education at the schools themselves. Anyone with half a brain (which unfortunately is not most people, including many of those on this board) would know that several factors, including the fact that it's 2023 and women still do a disproportionate amount of hand-on parenting, affect whether women go into the highest-paid and most time-consuming professions. But the alums of women's colleges who do go into these professions have a very high success rate: most of the highest ranking women on Wall St. are Wellesley alums.

And yet, paradoxically, one of the benefits of college rankings is that they can introduce students and their families to great schools they might not have otherwise considered. A student from, say, NJ who is familiar only with schools on the East Coast might well become int'd in applying to Pomona after seeing that students there are competitive with those at, say, Williams.

You are the one who's clueless. Your perception of U Chicago is outdated at best. The "intellectual powerhouse" where most students go onto PhDs was 30 years (maybe when you went to college). Today, it's more common that U Chicago students gun for investment banking on Wall St. The school caters to B+ students from elite private schools (if you ED). U Chicago is accepting 10-15+ kids every year from these tiny private schools. This image of U Chicago being for "quirky intellectual" kids is so outdated. Out of the 7 kids I know that went there, not a single one fit that mold. In fact, I would say 6 out of the 7 were partiers (still solid academic students but definitely not serious intellectuals).

Yes, there are now more "mainstream" students at Chicago than there were 30 years ago. But it's still amongst the most intellectually-minded schools in the U.S. Notably, Chicago was the only R1 category top 10 PhD producer by institutional yield in *both* S & E (science & engineering) and non-S & E fields between 2010-2020 (see https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf22321).

Also, Chicago still has the Core which is arguably more rigorous than the gen. ed requirements at just about any other school. So partiers or not (and btw, MIT, which has frats, certainly has its share, so being a partier and being an intellectual aren't mutually exclusive), the kids you know at Chicago must be somewhat academically-minded.

[Anonymous]

Chicago will be fine. It's always been known as an intellectual school for smart students. Stick to that and get those quirky kids. No one will care about a ranking. It's the University of Chicago. If they continue to do their own thing and stay true to their history, Chicago will be just fine.

WashU is in trouble though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Chicago will be fine. It's always been known as an intellectual school for smart students. Stick to that and get those quirky kids. No one will care about a ranking. It's the University of Chicago. If they continue to do their own thing and stay true to their history, Chicago will be just fine.

WashU is in trouble though.

How is it in trouble? Because it went from 15 to 24 on this one particular ranking this year and still ranks similarly with other great schools? What an ignorant remark.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I remain amazed how many people on DCUM care about the idiotic "rankings". Especially with respect to well-known schools like Chicago and W&M.

W&M is only well known in VA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rice needs to drop.

Your comment is completely irrelevant, but Rice is underrated if anything.

No its not, only good at STEM not much else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Chicago will be fine. It's always been known as an intellectual school for smart students. Stick to that and get those quirky kids. No one will care about a ranking. It's the University of Chicago. If they continue to do their own thing and stay true to their history, Chicago will be just fine.

WashU is in trouble though.

It might drop more as, I think Emory will pass it due to their increase in graduation rate and then the competition from Carnegie Mellon and USC, who will adjust to the new methodology. Some on this board only consider WashU better because it's wealthier and "whiter" than those other 3 schools, but US news has something to say about that

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Chicago and W&M have a similar problem - kids don’t want rigorous academics without a big dose of fun. W&M is hampered by the VA rule that requires 2/3 of students cone from VA. W&M is more like a LAC and most of those schools have 2000 kids, not 6500. Trying to squeeze so many admits out of VA plays to the strengths of NOVA, which is wealthy and educated. Then, W&M gets hit for insufficient Pell and first-gen, who if they’re going to go to college want STEM, which W&M partly has, but not engineering.

WUSTL is a a great school, but also a rich kid’s school. Not a lot of poors there.

It is not just the kids who feel this way-after a miserable DMV private high school experience, I as a parent want this for my kids. Northwestern much more appealing than UChicago for many reasons, including the BIG 10 fun, way better and safer location, and the fact that the kids aren’t all about the miserable grind while still maintaining extremely high academic standards. You can have your cake and eat it too.

[Anonymous]

I can’t believe actual grown ups base their decision making on USNWR ratings. Sad and dumb.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe actual grown ups base their decision making on USNWR ratings. Sad and dumb.

It's a reference, but a market dominant one for now.

People begin to see more flaws in it with the new methodology.
Most people don't care how much poor kids the school has.
I personally like schools with majority of rightfully qualified middle class kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe actual grown ups base their decision making on USNWR ratings. Sad and dumb.

It's a reference, but a market dominant one for now.

People begin to see more flaws in it with the new methodology.
Most people don't care how much poor kids the school has.
I personally like schools with majority of rightfully qualified middle class kids.

None of the top 20 schools have a majority middle class kids. More than 50% at all the top schools are full pay (e.g. UMC to wealthy) and about 20% pay almost nothing. Very, very few "middle class".

[Anonymous]

WUSTL's biggest problem is St. Louis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Chicago and W&M have a similar problem - kids don’t want rigorous academics without a big dose of fun. W&M is hampered by the VA rule that requires 2/3 of students cone from VA. W&M is more like a LAC and most of those schools have 2000 kids, not 6500. Trying to squeeze so many admits out of VA plays to the strengths of NOVA, which is wealthy and educated. Then, W&M gets hit for insufficient Pell and first-gen, who if they’re going to go to college want STEM, which W&M partly has, but not engineering.

WUSTL is a a great school, but also a rich kid’s school. Not a lot of poors there.

From the plans it would look like they are planning to start offering some engineering in a few years, though, no? https://www.wm.edu/offices/facilities/departments-directors/fpdc/construction/currentprojects/isc4.php

I don't think it will ever become a big sports rah-rah school though and it is hard to imagine all FGLI are attracted to rah-rah by default.

WM - and some other schools - don’t really fit on the national university list and it seems like WM should really be ranked with the liberal arts schools. They don’t really have many graduate programs, it’s basically an undergrad institution. That’s one of the many things about these rankings that are silly. You aren’t comparing apples to apples.

The new rankings have Tufts and a Rutgers tied. No question you can get a good education at Rutgers and the value for the money may make sense but I think it’s clear that the caliber of student at Tufts is a lot higher across the board. All else being equal I think Tufts is a better school. Now, in the real world, all else isn’t equal and I can certainly understand someone not wanting to pay for Tufts vs Rutgers but I think the new methodology has deviated from assessing the schools based on the overall quality of the education.

+1 I really think this is going to hurt the USNWR--people always complained about its lack of credibility, but the new methodology coming at a time when test optional is also shaking things up, just is a bridge too far. I think it's going to be like GreatSchools rankings where a larger majority of people think they are crap.

+1. US News is trying to get the tail to wag the dog. Not how it works. They've been slowly making changes for years, but such a large change in a single year will be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Yes. They really dropped the ball last year. All the things that people do care about - class size, professor's qualifications, years to graduate etc - were all dropped from their algorithm. Now it's all about Pell Grant and first generation students, which fine, but that isn't why people look at the US News list.

I suspect they were looking for a week long Twitter hit - and they got that. And they destroyed their credibility for the clicks.

I don't think anyone should be taking US News seriously as some kind of impartial measurement of academic quality.

Huge opening for another media organization

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rice needs to drop.

Oh you are so wrong.