VT ahead of WM in USNews

[Anonymous]

Does this strike anyone else as off? VT is a fine institution that has certainly made great strides.

But, WM has a lower acceptance rate, more professors with PHD’s from top schools, smaller classes, higher proportion of students doing undergraduate research, and the most obvious indicator, WM students often head to Ivys and high tier consulting and govt jobs directly after college, while VT grads USUALLY head a bit lower. These are not close, btw, this is all by a decently significant margin.

Again, I don’t want to fall into the trap of giving too much credence to rankings, but what is the reason for this? Does this mean VT has truly overtaken WM in terms of prestige and job opportunities?

[Anonymous]

no, there are more rich students who attend W&M.

[Anonymous]

It’s because the focus of the rankings has changed to how schools help lower income and first gen students rather than things like class sizes and undergrad education. That has been VT’s focus for the the last few years.

From the NYT article :


“The company discarded five factors that often favored wealthy colleges and together made up 18 percent of a school’s score, including undergraduate class sizes, alumni giving rates and high school class standing.

This year’s formula, which relied more on data sources beyond submissions by schools, also gave less weight to overall graduation rates and financial resources per student, which examines how much, on average, a university spends per student on costs like instruction and research.”

[Anonymous]

Not surprising. Places like W&M and Wake Forest that offer quality undergraduate educations will continue to drop as criteria shift to the new agenda. Won’t be long before the UC system schools are all ranked in the top 25.

USNWR has jumped the shark. No longer relevant in any way other than to the die hards on this forum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s because the focus of the rankings has changed to how schools help lower income and first gen students rather than things like class sizes and undergrad education. That has been VT’s focus for the the last few years.

From the NYT article :


“The company discarded five factors that often favored wealthy colleges and together made up 18 percent of a school’s score, including undergraduate class sizes, alumni giving rates and high school class standing.

This year’s formula, which relied more on data sources beyond submissions by schools, also gave less weight to overall graduation rates and financial resources per student, which examines how much, on average, a university spends per student on costs like instruction and research.”

Ignoring undergrad class size when ranking undergrad institutions seems questionable at best

[Anonymous]

I read a story on WTOP where they quoted the USNW people as saying they are favoring schools with strong STEM over general liberal arts education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I read a story on WTOP where they quoted the USNW people as saying they are favoring schools with strong STEM over general liberal arts education.

Maybe the above rationale explains why UVA is getting kicked out of top 25 this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I read a story on WTOP where they quoted the USNW people as saying they are favoring schools with strong STEM over general liberal arts education.

Half the stuff they use isn't even relevant to most kids. It's a garbage ranking, but people eat it up every year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read a story on WTOP where they quoted the USNW people as saying they are favoring schools with strong STEM over general liberal arts education.

Maybe the above rationale explains why UVA is getting kicked out of top 25 this year.

Weakness in STEM has been pulling UVA down for decades.

[Anonymous]

Nothing has changed about these schools, only the USNWR model.

Your personal ranking of them will depend on what you personally value. FWIW, one of my kids ranked VT above W&N while the other ranked W&M above VT. Both were correct based on their preferences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s because the focus of the rankings has changed to how schools help lower income and first gen students rather than things like class sizes and undergrad education. That has been VT’s focus for the the last few years.

From the NYT article :


“The company discarded five factors that often favored wealthy colleges and together made up 18 percent of a school’s score, including undergraduate class sizes, alumni giving rates and high school class standing.

This year’s formula, which relied more on data sources beyond submissions by schools, also gave less weight to overall graduation rates and financial resources per student, which examines how much, on average, a university spends per student on costs like instruction and research.”

Ignoring undergrad class size when ranking undergrad institutions seems questionable at best

The class size was so flawed. Gave top scores to class size under 20, but most college profs will tell you a room of 12 kids sometimes doesn't have enough voices for real discussion. 20 is fine. Also, it really skews my subject. There are not a lot of STEM classes with tiny numbers. So some schools tried to through labs in there, which is so different. It made no sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does this strike anyone else as off? VT is a fine institution that has certainly made great strides.

But, WM has a lower acceptance rate, more professors with PHD’s from top schools, smaller classes, higher proportion of students doing undergraduate research, and the most obvious indicator, WM students often head to Ivys and high tier consulting and govt jobs directly after college, while VT grads USUALLY head a bit lower. These are not close, btw, this is all by a decently significant margin.

Again, I don’t want to fall into the trap of giving too much credence to rankings, but what is the reason for this? Does this mean VT has truly overtaken WM in terms of prestige and job opportunities?

U A News changed 17 of the 19 criteria, and no longer considers class size and what degrees held by faculty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read a story on WTOP where they quoted the USNW people as saying they are favoring schools with strong STEM over general liberal arts education.

Maybe the above rationale explains why UVA is getting kicked out of top 25 this year.

Not enough poor students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I read a story on WTOP where they quoted the USNW people as saying they are favoring schools with strong STEM over general liberal arts education.

Eric Brooks, the principal data analyst for U.S. News’ education rankings, told WTOP that the new methodology tends to favor public schools that are less expensive, enrolling Pell students and students who are first in their households to attend college. It also rewards schools focused on degrees that are in greater demand in the job market, including math and science degrees.

https://wtop.com/education/2023/09/where-dc-region-schools-landed-in-2023s-us-news-best-college-rankings/

[Anonymous]

parent of a kid who just transferred from Va Tech to W&M here. Va Tech is a great school but most of our kid's classes were enormous and would continue to be into their sophomore year. 500 students in a class but the real issue were labs - which in our kid's freshman year were run by TAs. This year, our kid would have had a lab with 60 students.
Happier so far at W&M but no school is perfect.
Rankings help narrow down choices but for anyone looking at any school, just understand what your student needs to thrive.