New US News rankings are out
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Anonymous
That’s all true, but William and Mary still has to play the rankings game. Or it will be looking for a new president in three years. |
Anonymous
Me too! What a great 4 years I had there. Walked out with minimal debt and straight into a job in my field. And lifelong friends. I thought the experience was a great mix: competitive without being crushingly stressful, Greek but not too Greek, every major imaginable, beautiful campus. A ton of things to do and lots of school spirit. Go Gators! |
Anonymous
| W&M fell probably due to the increased importance of PELL recipient numbers in the methodology. The California publics likely rose for that same reason. |
Anonymous
This is exactly what happened. William and Mary has maybe a third of the percentage of pell grant recipients compared to the UC schools, and this dragged their total number down slightly. The difference between being #30 versus #38 is just a couple of overall points on the US News scale. |
Anonymous
| It is not number of Pell grants. It is the graduation rate for Pell grant recipients. Which seems fair. |
Anonymous
Actually, it's both. Look it up. |
Anonymous
|
US News 2019 methodology and weighting. https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-us-news-calculated-the-rankings
U.S. News changed the weights of multiple indicators and dropped one indicator compared with the 2018 edition. The indicators, their weights in the ranking formula and an explanation of each are below. Outcomes (35 percent, up from 30 percent in 2018) More than one-third of a school's rank comes from its success at retaining and graduating students within 150 percent of normal time (six years). It receives the highest weight in our rankings because degree completion is necessary to receive the full benefits of undergraduate study from employers and graduate schools. We approach outcomes from angles of social mobility (5 percent), graduation and retention (22 percent), and graduation rate performance (8 percent). Social mobility: New this year, we factored a school's success at promoting social mobility by graduating students who received federal Pell Grants (those typically coming from households whose family incomes are less than $50,000 annually, though most Pell Grant money goes to students with a total family income below $20,000). See below the two measures that factor into social mobility. Pell Grant graduation rates are weighted at 2.5 percent. This new ranking indicator measures the success of Pell Grant students on an absolute basis. To calculate this indicator, we use a school's six-year graduation rate among new fall 2011 entrants receiving Pell Grants. This assesses each school’s performance graduating students from low-income backgrounds. A higher Pell Grant graduation rate scores better than a lower one. Pell Grant graduation rates compared with all other students are weighted at 2.5 percent. This additional new ranking factor compares each school's six-year graduation rate among Pell recipients who were new fall 2011 entrants graduating in 2017 with the six-year graduation rate among non-Pell recipients at the same school by dividing the former into the latter. The minority of schools whose Pell graduation rates are equal to or greater than non-Pell graduation rates score the highest. Altogether, this metric assesses each school’s performance at supporting students from underserved backgrounds relative to all of its other students. The lower a school's Pell graduation rate relative to its non-Pell graduation rate, the lower it scores on this indicator. Scores for the new social mobility indicators were then adjusted by the proportion of the entering class that was awarded Pell Grants because achieving a higher low-income student graduation rate is more challenging with a larger proportion of low-income students. As a result of adding indicators for social mobility into the 2019 Best Colleges rankings, when combined with the graduation rate performance, U.S. News takes economic diversity into account in indicators that comprise 13 percent of the rankings. Our other outcome measures include: Graduation and retention rates: The higher the proportion of first-year students who return to campus for sophomore year and eventually graduate, the better a school is apt to be at offering the classes and services that students need to succeed. This has two components: The average six-year graduation rate is 17.6 percent, down from 18 percent in 2018. The average first-year retention rate is 4.4 percent, down from 4.5 percent in 2018. The graduation rate indicates the average proportion of a graduating class earning a degree in six years or less; we considered first-year student classes that started from fall 2008 through fall 2011. First-year retention indicates the average proportion of first-year students who entered the school in the fall 2013 through fall 2016 and returned the following fall. Graduation is given four times more weight than retention. We weighted it at 22 percent total, down from 22.5 percent in 2018. Graduation rate performance: We compared each college's actual six-year graduation rate to what we predicted for its fall 2011 entering class. The predicted rates were modeled from admissions data, proportion of undergraduates awarded Pell Grants, school financial resources, and national universities' math and science, or STEM, orientations. We weighted it at 8 percent, up from 7.5 percent in 2018. The graduation and retention rate numerical ranking published on usnews.com for the 2019 Best Colleges is based on a school's total score in the following four ranking indicators: average six-year graduation rates, average first-year retention rates, Pell Grant graduation rates and Pell Grant graduation rates compared all other students. Previously, the graduation and retention rate numerical ranking published on usnews.com was based on a school's total score in these two ranking indicators: average six-year graduation and average first-year retention rates. Faculty Resources (20 percent) Research shows the greater access students have to quality instructors, the more engaged they will be in class and the more they will learn and likely graduate. U.S. News uses five factors from the 2017-2018 academic year to assess a school's commitment to instruction: class size, faculty salary, faculty with the highest degree in their fields, student-faculty ratio and proportion of faculty who are full time. Class size is the most highly weighted faculty resource measure, at 8 percent. Schools score better the greater their proportions of smaller classes. Schools receive the most credit in this index for the proportion of their fall 2017 term undergraduate classes with fewer than 20 students. Classes with 20 to 29 students score second highest, 30 to 39 students third highest and 40 to 49 students fourth highest. Classes that have 50 or more students receive no credit. Faculty salary is weighted at 7 percent and is the average faculty pay, plus benefits, during the 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 academic years, adjusted for regional differences in the cost of living using indexes from the consulting firm Runzheimer International. U.S. News also factors the proportion of full-time faculty with the highest degree in their fields (3 percent), student-faculty ratio (1 percent) and the proportion of faculty who are full time (1 percent). Expert Opinion (20 percent, down from 22.5 percent in 2018) We survey top academics – presidents, provosts and deans of admissions – asking them to rate the academic quality of peer institutions with which they are familiar on a scale of 1 (marginal) to 5 (distinguished). To get another set of important opinions, U.S. News also surveyed nearly 24,400 counselors at public, private and parochial high schools from all 50 states and Washington, D.C, via emails provided to U.S. News by MDR, a division of Dun & Bradstreet. Academic reputation matters because it factors things that cannot easily be captured elsewhere. For example, an institution known for having innovative approaches to teaching may perform especially well on this indicator, whereas a school struggling to keep its accreditation will likely perform poorly. The peer assessment survey averages results from spring 2017 and 2018. It is weighted at 15 percent for National Universities and National Liberal Arts Colleges; 20 percent for Regional Universities and Colleges (down from 22.5 percent in 2018). Of the 4,589 academics who were sent questionnaires, 35.5 percent responded. This response rate is down from the 40.4 percent response rate in spring 2017 and the 39 percent response rate to the surveys conducted in spring 2016. The high school counselor assessment survey averages results from spring 2016, 2017 and 2018. It is weighted at 5 percent (down from 7.5 percent in 2018) and only applies toward National Universities and National Liberal Arts Colleges. For the high school counselor survey, approximately half of the high school counselors (12,200) were asked to rate the schools in the National Universities ranking category and the other half were asked to rate schools in the National Liberal Arts category. Financial Resources (10 percent) Generous per-student spending indicates that a college can offer a wide variety of programs and services. U.S. News measures financial resources by using the average spending per student on instruction, research, student services and related educational expenditures in the 2016 and 2017 fiscal years. Spending on sports, dorms and hospitals does not count. Student Excellence (10 percent, down from 12.5 percent in 2018) A school's academic atmosphere is influenced by the selectivity of its admissions. Simply put, students who achieved strong grades and test scores during high school have the highest probability of succeeding at challenging college-level coursework; enabling instructors to design classes that have great rigor. New for 2019, acceptance rate (1.25 percent in last year's ranking) has been completely removed from the ranking calculations to make room for the new social mobility indicators. Also, we reduced the weight of the two remaining student excellence factors assessing the fall 2017 entering class – standardized tests and high school class standing. [b]Standardized tests: U.S. News factors admissions test scores for all enrollees who took the mathematics and evidence-based reading and writing portions of the SAT and the composite ACT. The SAT scores used in this year's rankings and published on usnews.com are for the new SAT test administered starting March 2016. We weighted standardized tests at 7.75 percent, down from 8.125 percent in 2018. Schools sometimes fail to report SAT and ACT scores for students in these categories: athletes, international students, minority students, legacies, those admitted by special arrangement and those who started in summer 2017. For any school that did not report all scores or that declined to say whether all scores were reported, U.S. News reduced its combined SAT/ACT percentile distribution value used in the ranking model by 15 percent. This practice is not new; since the 1997 rankings, U.S. News has discounted under these circumstances because the effect of leaving students out could be that lower scores are omitted. U.S. News also footnotes schools that declined to tell U.S. News whether all students with SAT and ACT test scores were represented. If the combined percentage of the fall 2017 entering class submitting test scores is less than 75 percent of all new entrants, its combined SAT/ACT percentile distribution value used in the rankings was discounted by 15 percent. U.S. News has also applied this policy in previous editions of the rankings. High school class standing: U.S. News incorporates the proportion of enrolled first-year students at National Universities and National Liberal Arts Colleges who graduated in the top 10 percent of their high school classes. For Regional Universities and Regional Colleges, we used the proportion of those who graduated in the top quarter of their high school classes. We weighted this at 2.25 percent, down from 3.125 percent in 2018. Alumni Giving (5 percent) This is the average percentage of living alumni with bachelor's degrees who gave to their school during 2015-2016 and 2016-2017. Giving measures student satisfaction and post-graduate engagement. |
Anonymous
There is an informative infographic in this article from the University of California that explains why those schools moved up in general (and why UCLA ranked ahead of Berkeley). UC schools have both a high percentage of Pell Grant recipients and a very good graduation rate. They have 42% Pell Grant recipients across the system. In contrast, UVA is at about 13% and W&M at 12% Pell Grant recipients. Both UVA and W&M appear to have relatively high Pell Grant graduation rates according to the SCHEV site. In the case of UVA, this probably contributed to staying behind UCLA and Berkeley and in the case of W&M, falling behind UC Santa Barbara, UC Irvine, and tying with UC Davis. https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/uc-leads-way-enrollment-and-six-year-graduation-pell-grant-recipients |
Anonymous
| I guess we should congratulate the state of California for sufficiently impoverishing their citizens so that the rate of Pell recipients in the state university is so high. |
Anonymous
+1 |
Anonymous
Good one. |
Anonymous
As posted above, it not both. It is the graduation rate of Pell grant recipients in both an absolute value, and relative to non recipients. |
Anonymous
does umd enroll more jewish and asian students than uva as a % of the class? if so, there is your answer. |
Anonymous
| Poor Terp Boy - #63 when UVA is #25 is not easy to accept. |
Anonymous
You might have overlooked this key line: Scores for the new social mobility indicators were then adjusted by the proportion of the entering class that was awarded Pell Grants because achieving a higher low-income student graduation rate is more challenging with a larger proportion of low-income students. |