Will schools like Wake and Tulane fall in popularity as they fell in rankings?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes.

Wake is not really that popular in the first place anyways.

Quick Google says its acceptance rate was 25% in 2021 when it had only 5000+ students(probably little lower now)

Acceptance rate was around 20 percent in 2022 and below 20 percent this past year,

NE’s true acceptance rate looks to be around 25 percent. That’s based on the Bethesda Magazine data that looks at acceptances to all campuses/programs, not just the Boston start that NE publishes.

So Boston campus start was still extremely popular when it was only ranked in the mid to upper 40s.
Wake as a small/mid private T30 school was not popular. Looks like it's at the right place now.

Pretty sure any school in the T100 could become as popular as NE if they also offered an application with no supplemental essays and handed out large merit awards. Most schools don’t chose this route.

In any case, Wake had. been in the US News T30 for close to 30 years, it wasn’t gaming the rankings like Tulane and NE. It’s reputation is well established with employers and grad schools.

Speaking of reputation, here are some employer reputation references for Northeastern

STEM area:
https://www.collegetransitions.com/dataverse/top-feeders-engineering
https://www.collegetransitions.com/dataverse/top-feeders-tech

One area Wake is relatively good is its business school. One of my kids was considering putting it at the bottom of about 14-16 college list for business major.
Even for that, Wake is not better than Northeastern.
https://poetsandquantsforundergrads.com/rankings/poetsquants-best-undergraduate-business-schools-of-2023/4/

Wake has been really over-ranked, and looks like justice is served.

All Wake has to is invest in their sport program. If they can get their football or basketball program in the top 15 for 10-12 years, name recognition goes up, kids will send in an application because of the name recognition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of these posters insisting that the huge drop that Wake, Wash U and Tulane had in the rankings isn’t going to turn off applicants are kidding themselves. It was their high rankings that led to so many applications in recent years in the first place. Get real.

I disagree. What led to the increase in applications is that it became so difficult to get into the Ivies, Dukes and Vandys of the world, and that isn’t changing anytime soon. Many students want midsize schools (5000 to 10000) and there isn’t that many of them. And nearly all of them outside the T15 fell in the rankings.

But they didn’t fall to 73.

[Anonymous]

Wake Forest is one of a small number of mid-size universities similar to W&M that have strong undergraduate teaching programs with small class sizes and excellent faculty. These schools will continue to thrive because the demand for those types of schools exceeds the number of seats available.

They will get fewer applications because some parents chase the schools rankings, so while overall acceptance rates may rise, the overall quality of students accepted and attending will not change.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:It's brutal for Tulane, which relies so heavily on ED. Who's going to ED to #73?

Kids who are full pay and good but not great students. Tulane has always been a respectable school for kids coming out of private school who couldn't get into Ivy league schools, top Slacs, or even desirable flagships. It will still be that

Don't kid yourself. Those are *exactly* the kinds of kids/families who care about these nonsense rankings. Both the size of Tulane's ED pool and its quality will decline noticeably this year.

They are exactly the kinds of families who won’t be sending their kids to a state school. You really believe people will now be sending their kids to Rutgers and Merced because IS News decided to promote public schools this year?

Nice strawman. Not Rutgers or Merced, but BC, BU, even Lehigh or Santa Clara instead of ED'ing Tulane? Absolutely.

If Tulane were content being a strong safety school, this wouldn't be such a big deal, but Tulane has been trying for years to claw its way into the legit-first-choice tier (largely with strategic use of ED smoke and mirrors), and this ranking is devastating to that effort.

yep, but kids currently EDing Tulane at the top privates are sub 3.5. The kids EDing Boston College are 3.7+. Lehigh is similar to BC. These kids with higher stats aren't going away or magically going to turn their ED into Rice or Hopkins. If the Tulane crowd bumps up their ED choice to higher schools then they're only going to hurt themselves.

The kids ED'ing to Tulane aren't a monolith. There absolutely are kids who would have ED'd to Tulane last year but will ED to BC or BU this year because of the USNWR rankings. There absolutely are kids who would prefer Vandy but would have taken a much-closer-to-sure-thing ED at Tulane last year but will take the shot with Vandy this year because they just can't stomach ED'ing to #73. There absolutely are kids who would have ED'd to Tulane last year but this year will sit out the ED1 round and instead will EA to UGA and the like this year--and ED2 to Tulane only if they don't get an offer they like better in the EA round. And kids who will ED1 to Vandy/similar and EA to UGA/similar. Etc. It'll add up to a smaller, weaker ED pool for Tulane.

It isn’t as if Tulane was T10 last year, it was somewhere in the mid 40s. I just don’t think the new ranking is going to change the perception. You can’t imagine anyone applying to Tulane to begin with, and clearly hate the school with a passion, so aren’t well positioned to see why others might chose it. And I have no dog in this fight, no one on my family attends or has attended Tulane.

Different poster here, and also one with zero connection to Tulane. I really think you’re wrong. You act as if no one cares about the rankings. Of course they do. A lot. There are, what, six new and active threads on the US news rankings since yesterday?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of these posters insisting that the huge drop that Wake, Wash U and Tulane had in the rankings isn’t going to turn off applicants are kidding themselves. It was their high rankings that led to so many applications in recent years in the first place. Get real.

Can anyone think of a precedent? Ideally with ballpark similar starting points and drops in ranking. Also, ideally not due to not sending data to USNWR.

I see strong opinions going both ways, so would be interesting to have some empirical evidence. I guess we're about to see, unless perhaps schools start adjusting admissions or whatever to improve.

The only school that I can remember plummeting like this is Oberlin and they seem to still be getting the kind of students that they've always gotten

They plummeted again this year.

Oberlin without question isn’t getting the same students it’s
gotten a decade ago. Certainly not the same as a decade ago.

[Anonymous]

I know lots of families / kids that would never have spent the time researching Tulane (or visiting) had it not been a top 40 school. The vast majority need something to narrow the list from the start.

It may take some time...but it it keeps getting ranked in the 70s or higher, it just won't show up on the lists of schools to visit or invest more research, unless you have a kid that wants to live/work in New Orleans and/or that general area of the country.

[Anonymous]

With the top tier of colleges getting ridiculously difficult to get into, the view of most merely very smart (no national awards, publications, etc) seems to have rapidly shifted from “I have to get into an Ivy-level school” to “I have to get in a very respectable school.” For the latter criterion, both Wake & Tulane seem sufficiently entrenched that they will qualify whether they are ranked in the 30s or 70s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:With the top tier of colleges getting ridiculously difficult to get into, the view of most merely very smart (no national awards, publications, etc) seems to have rapidly shifted from “I have to get into an Ivy-level school” to “I have to get in a very respectable school.” For the latter criterion, both Wake & Tulane seem sufficiently entrenched that they will qualify whether they are ranked in the 30s or 70s.

Also true of Tufts, Case Western and NE, all of which moved down yesterday.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know lots of families / kids that would never have spent the time researching Tulane (or visiting) had it not been a top 40 school. The vast majority need something to narrow the list from the start.

It may take some time...but it it keeps getting ranked in the 70s or higher, it just won't show up on the lists of schools to visit or invest more research, unless you have a kid that wants to live/work in New Orleans and/or that general area of the country.

But it wasn’t a T40 school last year either. I just don’t think there is much practical difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With the top tier of colleges getting ridiculously difficult to get into, the view of most merely very smart (no national awards, publications, etc) seems to have rapidly shifted from “I have to get into an Ivy-level school” to “I have to get in a very respectable school.” For the latter criterion, both Wake & Tulane seem sufficiently entrenched that they will qualify whether they are ranked in the 30s or 70s.

Also true of Tufts, Case Western and NE, all of which moved down yesterday.

URochester as well

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With the top tier of colleges getting ridiculously difficult to get into, the view of most merely very smart (no national awards, publications, etc) seems to have rapidly shifted from “I have to get into an Ivy-level school” to “I have to get in a very respectable school.” For the latter criterion, both Wake & Tulane seem sufficiently entrenched that they will qualify whether they are ranked in the 30s or 70s.

Also true of Tufts, Case Western and NE, all of which moved down yesterday.

URochester as well

and NYU

Schools like NYU, Tufts, NE are probably not going to be effected

[Anonymous]

If students are applying to a school based solely or mainly on USNWR ranking this year, than they can't think for themselves and probably don't belong in any of these great schools. Better off getting a job at McDonalds where they don't need to think for themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:funny that some of you all think that the drop in ranking means that the quality of education is an issue. You cant tell me that all those public schools that have climbed up offer better education than these. It's a known fact that Diversity is an issue at some of the privates like Wake Forest and few are on Pell Grants.

They might offer a better education. You have nothing to back up which has a better quality of education. Plus diversity is very important to a lot of people. Who wants to go to a college that’s 99% White?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:funny that some of you all think that the drop in ranking means that the quality of education is an issue. You cant tell me that all those public schools that have climbed up offer better education than these. It's a known fact that Diversity is an issue at some of the privates like Wake Forest and few are on Pell Grants.

They might offer a better education. You have nothing to back up which has a better quality of education. Plus diversity is very important to a lot of people. Who wants to go to a college that’s 99% White?

Please tell us which of these schools is 99 percent white.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So people think that instead of Wake Forest and Tufts, high achieving upper income kids are going to be applying to Davis, Merced and Rutgers? I don’t see it.

No, more like Florida State, Minnesota, etc.

Not necessarily the wealthy kids but plenty of upper middle class kids will think twice.

We fit in this demographic. We have HHI $450K. Healthy college savings. But spending $90K for a university ranked 50 or 75 seems much less appealing than spending it on a school ranked in the 20s.
Why not spend $25K for Florida and leave the rest for graduate, medical or law school?

A lot of girls are still getting their M.R.S. Degrees?
Because the dating/Mating pool of wake/Tulane alums is different than uf/fsu/mn alums

You are misreading the social product provided by schools

Dcum had threads on this almost a decade ago and it’s what separates dcum college forum from other college forums

It is/was a lot more all encompassing about schools and non-academic factors and less pc (well in the past)