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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand the take away being that these schools are now worse than they were before (or better, depending on the school) rather than that rankings are deeply flawed and arbitrary.

The people I know who attended these sorts of schools are the people who care about rankings.

I went to Wash. U. and loved Wash. U.

I think the different rating strategies are fine. Different people want different things. Great.

The problem is with parents who somehow got the idea that Wash. U. was more prestigious than Berkeley because a magazine said so. Sorry, but no. Flatter, yes. More traditional looking, sure. Comfier, probably. But… more prestigious? No.

[Anonymous]

They certainly should. Both of these schools provide no better academics than the average large state school (think Virginia Tech). They just happened to be ranked high because the rankings favored wealthy privates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wake wasn't really relatively popular compared to lower ranked schools like BU, BC, Tufts, Northeastern.

I'm not sure why it was ranked so high in the first place, but it has appeal to some kids.

I don't think they will suddenly switch to large public.

I agree that they will likely not seek out large publics unless they get into a Top 20. The difference is for those that fall out of the top 50. Students will likely not be inclined to apply ED. Won’t impact Tufts but it will impact Miami and Tulane. Lehigh will attract some of these students.

Wake was more popular last year at our private than any of these schools other than BC. I don’t see that changing. I expect all of these schools will be just fine.

We are not talking about you or your specific school whatever that is.
Northeastern was the most popular according to Bethesda data.

Wake was ranked higher at like 28 29 but still was way less popular than the lower ranked schools I mentioned, and it had much higher acceptance rate.
However I agree that it'll do fine regardless of the ranking drop and most of the target audience won't suddenly change to the large publics ranked higher.

[Anonymous]

Yes. For those schools that have fallen and particularly those that have fallen out of the top 50, less students will ED and choose a different school. Not a large public but a different private. Lehigh is going to get some of those applicants from Miami, Tulane and Villanova.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I love wake forest.
Tulane otoh, rich kid party school that gamed the ratings. Back where it should be

I agree Tulane is where it should be. And it probably will be hurt by this. Tulane is full of rich mediocre students who want to party but also want to say they go to a highly ranked school with name recognition. The not so smart person I know who is a freshman this year loves to talk about how she got into a school with a 10% acceptance rate. Of course we all know that is BS and the overall acceptance rate is only that low because they take 80% of the class ED, during which the acceptance rate is probably over 50%.

[Anonymous]

Yes. They will drop. As much as we bash the rankings. Kids (and parents) are driven by them.

You watch. Application will fall and acceptance rates will rise.

[Anonymous]

I was there before it was even a national university.

It also cost 1/4 of what it does now.

It attracts high achieving students no matter where it sits.

And yes, there is a lot to be said for smaller class sizes. I had 2 classes my whole 4 years that were larger and held in a lecture hall.

There are definitely diversity problems there, something that didn’t occur to me in the 90s.

I have a great group of friends that I keep in touch with. Just saw a sorority sister a month ago that was sending her second child off to Wake.

I think the actual middle class has been squeezed out of places like this for quite a while. They aren’t known for tons of merit. So either your parents have a ton of dough or you are getting a lot of financial aid (lower income)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes. They will drop. As much as we bash the rankings. Kids (and parents) are driven by them.

You watch. Application will fall and acceptance rates will rise.

Do you think they will drop this year? Or next?

[Anonymous]

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.

don’t forget fast-rising Michigan State!!!!

[Anonymous]

They could drop in applications because on the spectrum of all parents/students, there is some percentage that actually care about these rankings even though they do not matter in reality. So those people may apply elsewhere.

That being said, Wake especially is still a very good school just like it was yesterday and last year. It is lower for the three things it does or has whether you prefer them or not:

1. Small classes
2. Highly educated professors who actually teach the classes
3. A large portion of the student body is at least middle to upper middle class with a lower percentage of students in the lower deciles financially speaking only

So in the rankings, Wake loses in all three. It is like a teacher telling you the best you can perform on a test is a 70.

I could quibble with #3 but a lot of the top schools are full of UMC and wealthy types. The first two should not cause a school to drop, that seems an odd way of creating the rankings.

[Anonymous]

I don’t care much about rankings but plenty of people do so those that dropped significantly, it’s gotta hurt. Maybe it will make it easier to get into now for the rest of us.

[Anonymous]

Yes they will. Parents ( and HS students) react to the USNWR rankings. Tulane will become less popular and Wake Forest will drop to regional school status. Duke and UNC Chapel Hill are it in NC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
And now, I don’t have a vested interest in Tulane or Wake. I just think college prices are too high because colleges “compete” using USNWR, rather than by controlling cost, emphasizing educational quality, student body quality and outcomes. Or whatever it is you value.

I appreciate your perspective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes they will. Parents ( and HS students) react to the USNWR rankings. Tulane will become less popular and Wake Forest will drop to regional school status. Duke and UNC Chapel Hill are it in NC.

Except for a large portion of the Wake student body is from NY, NJ, Mass and Connecticut.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes they will. Parents ( and HS students) react to the USNWR rankings. Tulane will become less popular and Wake Forest will drop to regional school status. Duke and UNC Chapel Hill are it in NC.

As long as Duke and UNC(oos) have acceptance rates below 10 percent, Wake will be just fine.

Who knows what the ranking will be next year.