VT ahead of WM in USNews

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

Terrible. US News is awful. Marketing ploy used by schools.

[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?

Do you have any actual links to back up your claims? Any at all?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My Tech kid has all classes under 100 kids, and some lower. She did get out of most basic classes with her AP scores, so maybe that is why. Honestly, non of her STEM friends went to W&M, even though they got in. They went to Tech, UVA, and CNU- or out of state like Perdue and tech universities in the NorthEast. It came off as a school in flux (with construction and needed updates) with a strength in humanities. The people we know going there are all humanities majors. It makes sense that if STEM is the goal- then W&M won’t fare well in rankings.

Having 100 person advanced classes doesn't seem great.

Just one class is 100- and that may be the regular (non advanced) classes. The rest are much lower. One has 25 or 30 and I am not sure about the others, but she is very happy the numbers.

+1
I also have a DC at VT and none of his classes are above 50 or so students - most are less. He is not a STEM major and most of his friends aren’t, either. There are so many interesting majors available at VT. He’s been extremely happy there.

[Anonymous]

Eliminating considerations of class size, professor terminal degrees, and graduate rate is insanity. As a parent, I care a lot about those things.

[Anonymous]

Well-deserved! Congratulations, VT! 👏 👏 👏

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

It didn't. UVA moved up from 25 to 24. Here. https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities

No, UVA is at 26.

It moved up to 24. read right here. https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities

Or down to 27. They are tied with three other schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well-deserved! Congratulations, VT! 👏 👏 👏

+1
I imagine VT will only continue to rise. It’s now the #20 public school in the US.

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/top-public

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Terrible. US News is awful. Marketing ploy used by schools.

And yet, if your favored school had moved up, you’d be touting USNWR. The sour grapes are so predictable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Terrible. US News is awful. Marketing ploy used by schools.

And yet, if your favored school had moved up, you’d be touting USNWR. The sour grapes are so predictable.

I have a kid in a school that rose and a kid in a school that feel. Getting rid of class size, academic quality of the incoming classes, classes taught by professors vs TAs, terminal degrees, etc. makes the rankings worthless IMO. I don’t care how many kids have Pell grants. 30%, 3%— as long as they are qualified, it does not matter to me. Sitting in small classes, actively discussing and debating, having classes small enough that in depth writing assignments who good feedback is possible— these things matter to me.

[Anonymous]

I haven’t been to VT in a long time. Has it changed so much in those years? It was in a rural town and most of what students did for fun was drink and watch sports? My husband transferred out because there was nothing there if that wasn’t your scene. W&M also not exactly in a bustling location but definitely has less of a Greek influence. Unless Tech has changed entirely over those years (and hey maybe it has) these just don’t seem like schools the same kind of student would choose.

[Anonymous]

These two schools honestly both seem great and we are lucky to have them in VA but they are quite different. I think the new methodology is unhelpful but I also think ranking in general as more than a very, very rough guide is silly.

One reason my kid isn’t looking at Tech is that DC doesn’t know what they want to major in yet, it’s narrowed down a little bit but there are a few possibilities and at Tech the possible programs would be in would be in different schools. We had concluded that needing to apply to a school/program at Tech made it not the right choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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. [/quote

Curious. How long was your kid at VA Tech before transferring? Looking to do the same? Not transfer from VA Tech, but from a large state school to a smaller school... Did William & Mary look at high school grades, SAT scores or just college grades?

[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.

They didn't stay strong STEM. They said more students majoring in in-demand fields in STEM. VT has nearly a third of students in engineering. W&M does not have engineering.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Do you have any actual links to back up your claims? Any at all?

DP. The WSJ recently had a series of articles on this. Among publics, W&M graduate salaries ranked in the top 20 in five areas: Finance, Technology, Management Consulting, Marketing and Law. VT was in the top 20 in Management consulting only. In Management Consulting, W&M was #9 and VT #17.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/top-colleges-high-paying-finance-jobs-e6742bb8?mod=ig_collegepay
https://www.wsj.com/articles/top-colleges-high-paying-jobs-tech-58b1588c?mod=ig_collegepay
https://www.wsj.com/articles/top-colleges-high-paying-jobs-management-consulting-589f15c9?mod=ig_collegepay
https://www.wsj.com/articles/stanford-berkeley-top-colleges-for-high-paying-jobs-in-law-457cc225?mod=ig_collegepay
https://www.wsj.com/articles/top-colleges-high-paying-jobs-marketing-b0570aa3?mod=ig_collegepay

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The things that ranked W&M higher traditionally, class size, terminal degrees of professors, alum giving etc were eliminated. Certainly does NOT mean VT is a better school to me. It doesn't help that W&M is very expensive for a state school and has a higher rate of student debt.

W&M average debt is $18,500 vs. $21,500 for VT according to College Scorecard.

This is because net cost is lower for low to lower middle income families. https://tamingthehighcostofcollege.com/net-price-of-virginia-colleges-by-income/