What happened to W&M, Brandeis, Tulane, Pepperdine and others..from historically T50 to outside looking in?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UC Merced=UMichigan, Purdue, Wisconsin, UVA, William and Mary, VA Tech

According to US News.

With a 1080 SAT, 90% acceptance rate, and 9% yield.

So this comment - why should this have anything to do with the quality of the college? Are you saying if Caltech and MIT had a high acceptance rate with the existing facilities it should drop out of the top 100?

You rather have professors that are not accomplished if the school is selective?

I don’t know if PP thinks that, but there are definitely people here who think that.

[Anonymous]

Mambojambo2024 wrote:As a mom that has not really been paying attention to current rankings until very recently …..what happened to schools that used to constantly be ranked in the t35-t50 now completely out of the t50 the last 2 years?

Avg rank from 2015-2023….even if you went back 25 years, it wouldn’t deviate much from the avg below….until now.

William & Mary = 35
Brandeis = 37
Tulane = 42
Pepperdine = 49

The rankings suck now and are not related to student smarts or faculty quality. William and Mary is a T30ish school by all metrics that matter. No i do not have a kid there, but the quality of peers and education up there with other schools around 30

Tulane /Brandeis are close but not quite WM level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:US News regards UC Merced - with its 90 percent acceptance rate and average SAT score of 1080 - as a top 50 school.

US News has no credibility anymore. They threw away their legitimacy two years ago when they abandoned things like class size, qualifications of professors, number of years to graduate, and all the other useful metrics in favor of social justice metrics that most people don't find useful when comparing colleges. So I wouldn't take any US News ranking seriously anymore. Niche and Forbes seem to be a little more useful these days.

One hundred percent! Merced with a 1080 has average students. Average is s NOT top 50. Merced should not even be top 200. Quality of students matters. SAT is not perfect but is highly correlated to ability to grasp concepts and perform on college level metrics. Admin at schools with less capable students commonly tell new faculty to slow down the pace and difficulty of reading or problem sets to meet the average student. Admin is never happy if more than half the students get Cs. Any professor who has taught at a top 30 where the average student has a 1400 SAT vs a school where the average is 1100 knows it is a huge difference in what is possible to cover in a semester, depth and breadth. A 1500 average is different than a 1400, but not as significantly of course. I have been a post doc and assistant and now full professor at a variety of institutions: it is not at all the same when the student levels are that different !

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:US News regards UC Merced - with its 90 percent acceptance rate and average SAT score of 1080 - as a top 50 school.

US News has no credibility anymore. They threw away their legitimacy two years ago when they abandoned things like class size, qualifications of professors, number of years to graduate, and all the other useful metrics in favor of social justice metrics that most people don't find useful when comparing colleges. So I wouldn't take any US News ranking seriously anymore. Niche and Forbes seem to be a little more useful these days.

One hundred percent! Merced with a 1080 has average students. Average is s NOT top 50. Merced should not even be top 200. Quality of students matters. SAT is not perfect but is highly correlated to ability to grasp concepts and perform on college level metrics. Admin at schools with less capable students commonly tell new faculty to slow down the pace and difficulty of reading or problem sets to meet the average student. Admin is never happy if more than half the students get Cs. Any professor who has taught at a top 30 where the average student has a 1400 SAT vs a school where the average is 1100 knows it is a huge difference in what is possible to cover in a semester, depth and breadth. A 1500 average is different than a 1400, but not as significantly of course. I have been a post doc and assistant and now full professor at a variety of institutions: it is not at all the same when the student levels are that different !

Other than UCLA, Berkeley, Davis, and maybe Irvine, no one cares about the UCs in the DC area.

[Anonymous]

Mambojambo2024 wrote:As a mom that has not really been paying attention to current rankings until very recently …..what happened to schools that used to constantly be ranked in the t35-t50 now completely out of the t50 the last 2 years?

Avg rank from 2015-2023….even if you went back 25 years, it wouldn’t deviate much from the avg below….until now.

William & Mary = 35
Brandeis = 37
Tulane = 42
Pepperdine = 49

USNews started using percentage of low income and first gen kids as positive factors in its ratings two years ago which hurt smaller private schools that aren’t as diverse as public universities or schools with huge endowments. With DEI going out of fashion, expect another rejiggering soon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:US News changed it’s rankings formula in a way that adversely affected these schools.

+1

USNWR no longer considers class sizes. Doesn't make sense at all. Because most educators would consider classes of 25-40 students a much better educational experience than 300+ (as they and parents should)

Ditch the rankings and go by what you know matters.

I am not aware if any college educators believe a college class size of 25-40 makes much of a difference than a class size of say 100...or even more.

How students behave in the class and the quality of the instructor matter far more than the class size. That is why every report on HS class size will always say that a HS class of 50 well-behaved kids with a great instructor is far better than a class of 15 kids where even 2-3 kids are disruptive and the teacher is average.

Unlike HS, I am not aware of any colleges that will indicate there are discipline problems...I also believe that you have excellent and bad instructors at every college.

[Anonymous]

Everyone needs to stop blaming USNews for the rankings slide.

It stands to reason that if it was only a USNews problem, that these schools would rank highly in Forbes or WSJ or other rankings.

However, at least with Wake and Tulane, the USNews Rankings are the highest rankings...BY FAR.

Actually, Forbes ranks W&M 55 and USNews ranks it #54 (WSJ is at 178). Seems about right.

Pepperdine is #83 USNews and #125 Forbes and #145 WSJ.

Brandeis is #63 USNews, #105 Forbes and #335 WSJ

Wake is #46 USNews, #469 Forbes and #137 WSJ

Tulane is #63 USNews, #147 Forbes and #451 WSJ

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone needs to stop blaming USNews for the rankings slide.

It stands to reason that if it was only a USNews problem, that these schools would rank highly in Forbes or WSJ or other rankings.

However, at least with Wake and Tulane, the USNews Rankings are the highest rankings...BY FAR.

Actually, Forbes ranks W&M 55 and USNews ranks it #54 (WSJ is at 178). Seems about right.

Pepperdine is #83 USNews and #125 Forbes and #145 WSJ.

Brandeis is #63 USNews, #105 Forbes and #335 WSJ

Wake is #46 USNews, #469 Forbes and #137 WSJ

Tulane is #63 USNews, #147 Forbes and #451 WSJ

US News changed their methodology with the express purpose of becoming more like Forbes and WSJ. Wake, W&M, Tulane, Brandeis were all t40-30+ for many, many years. Only after the movement to value DEI did these schools start to be ranked among schools that had always ranked much lower. It is because of methodology changes and methodology changes alone that the (made up) rankings of these schools have changed.

[Anonymous]

The same Wall Street Journal that says Babson College is better than CalTech and MIT?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone needs to stop blaming USNews for the rankings slide.

It stands to reason that if it was only a USNews problem, that these schools would rank highly in Forbes or WSJ or other rankings.

However, at least with Wake and Tulane, the USNews Rankings are the highest rankings...BY FAR.

Actually, Forbes ranks W&M 55 and USNews ranks it #54 (WSJ is at 178). Seems about right.

Pepperdine is #83 USNews and #125 Forbes and #145 WSJ.

Brandeis is #63 USNews, #105 Forbes and #335 WSJ

Wake is #46 USNews, #469 Forbes and #137 WSJ

Tulane is #63 USNews, #147 Forbes and #451 WSJ

US News changed their methodology with the express purpose of becoming more like Forbes and WSJ. Wake, W&M, Tulane, Brandeis were all t40-30+ for many, many years. Only after the movement to value DEI did these schools start to be ranked among schools that had always ranked much lower. It is because of methodology changes and methodology changes alone that the (made up) rankings of these schools have changed.

Produce any reputable 3rd party ranking then...if you think all rankings suck, then stop taking issue with USNews' new methodology.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone needs to stop blaming USNews for the rankings slide.

It stands to reason that if it was only a USNews problem, that these schools would rank highly in Forbes or WSJ or other rankings.

However, at least with Wake and Tulane, the USNews Rankings are the highest rankings...BY FAR.

Actually, Forbes ranks W&M 55 and USNews ranks it #54 (WSJ is at 178). Seems about right.

Pepperdine is #83 USNews and #125 Forbes and #145 WSJ.

Brandeis is #63 USNews, #105 Forbes and #335 WSJ

Wake is #46 USNews, #469 Forbes and #137 WSJ

Tulane is #63 USNews, #147 Forbes and #451 WSJ

Financial publications aren't a good indicator of academic quality. Unsurprisingly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone needs to stop blaming USNews for the rankings slide.

It stands to reason that if it was only a USNews problem, that these schools would rank highly in Forbes or WSJ or other rankings.

However, at least with Wake and Tulane, the USNews Rankings are the highest rankings...BY FAR.

Actually, Forbes ranks W&M 55 and USNews ranks it #54 (WSJ is at 178). Seems about right.

Pepperdine is #83 USNews and #125 Forbes and #145 WSJ.

Brandeis is #63 USNews, #105 Forbes and #335 WSJ

Wake is #46 USNews, #469 Forbes and #137 WSJ

Tulane is #63 USNews, #147 Forbes and #451 WSJ

US News changed their methodology with the express purpose of becoming more like Forbes and WSJ. Wake, W&M, Tulane, Brandeis were all t40-30+ for many, many years. Only after the movement to value DEI did these schools start to be ranked among schools that had always ranked much lower. It is because of methodology changes and methodology changes alone that the (made up) rankings of these schools have changed.

Produce any reputable 3rd party ranking then...if you think all rankings suck, then stop taking issue with USNews' new methodology.

None of them are because they've all switched to social mobility. Nobody wants to be the one that says that isn't important.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone needs to stop blaming USNews for the rankings slide.

It stands to reason that if it was only a USNews problem, that these schools would rank highly in Forbes or WSJ or other rankings.

However, at least with Wake and Tulane, the USNews Rankings are the highest rankings...BY FAR.

Actually, Forbes ranks W&M 55 and USNews ranks it #54 (WSJ is at 178). Seems about right.

Pepperdine is #83 USNews and #125 Forbes and #145 WSJ.

Brandeis is #63 USNews, #105 Forbes and #335 WSJ

Wake is #46 USNews, #469 Forbes and #137 WSJ

Tulane is #63 USNews, #147 Forbes and #451 WSJ

US News changed their methodology with the express purpose of becoming more like Forbes and WSJ. Wake, W&M, Tulane, Brandeis were all t40-30+ for many, many years. Only after the movement to value DEI did these schools start to be ranked among schools that had always ranked much lower. It is because of methodology changes and methodology changes alone that the (made up) rankings of these schools have changed.

Produce any reputable 3rd party ranking then...if you think all rankings suck, then stop taking issue with USNews' new methodology.

None of them are because they've all switched to social mobility. Nobody wants to be the one that says that isn't important.

THIS. Lol.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone needs to stop blaming USNews for the rankings slide.

It stands to reason that if it was only a USNews problem, that these schools would rank highly in Forbes or WSJ or other rankings.

However, at least with Wake and Tulane, the USNews Rankings are the highest rankings...BY FAR.

Actually, Forbes ranks W&M 55 and USNews ranks it #54 (WSJ is at 178). Seems about right.

Pepperdine is #83 USNews and #125 Forbes and #145 WSJ.

Brandeis is #63 USNews, #105 Forbes and #335 WSJ

Wake is #46 USNews, #469 Forbes and #137 WSJ

Tulane is #63 USNews, #147 Forbes and #451 WSJ

US News changed their methodology with the express purpose of becoming more like Forbes and WSJ. Wake, W&M, Tulane, Brandeis were all t40-30+ for many, many years. Only after the movement to value DEI did these schools start to be ranked among schools that had always ranked much lower. It is because of methodology changes and methodology changes alone that the (made up) rankings of these schools have changed.

Produce any reputable 3rd party ranking then...if you think all rankings suck, then stop taking issue with USNews' new methodology.

None of them are because they've all switched to social mobility. Nobody wants to be the one that says that isn't important.

Considering at least Tulane and Wake are chasing the new USNews rankings...something tells me if they move back to where they were prior, folks like you will start touting them again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone needs to stop blaming USNews for the rankings slide.

It stands to reason that if it was only a USNews problem, that these schools would rank highly in Forbes or WSJ or other rankings.

However, at least with Wake and Tulane, the USNews Rankings are the highest rankings...BY FAR.

Actually, Forbes ranks W&M 55 and USNews ranks it #54 (WSJ is at 178). Seems about right.

Pepperdine is #83 USNews and #125 Forbes and #145 WSJ.

Brandeis is #63 USNews, #105 Forbes and #335 WSJ

Wake is #46 USNews, #469 Forbes and #137 WSJ

Tulane is #63 USNews, #147 Forbes and #451 WSJ

Financial publications aren't a good indicator of academic quality. Unsurprisingly.

Right? The point isn't that it USNEW, the point is that it a magazine, just like the others. And that this is a giant country with thousands of colleges and millions of students so ranking is pointless. There are great professors and students everywhere.