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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here’s the text:
Dear Vanderbilt families,
Vanderbilt is stronger than at any time in its history: Our students and faculty are our most qualified ever. Our finances are remarkably sound, our fundraising is reaching new highs and our research enterprise is thriving. As a result, our graduates are thriving as well.  

In the U.S. News & World Report college rankings released today, Vanderbilt again placed among the top 20 national universities, tying with Dartmouth for 18th. Last year, we tied with Brown for 13th.

The change in our ranking is entirely due to changes in U.S. News’ methodology. Indeed, on the rankings criteria that stayed the same as in previous years, we maintained or improved our performance. 

U.S News’ change in methodology has led to dramatic movement in the rankings overall, disadvantaging many private research universities while privileging large public institutions. To look at just a few examples, The University of Chicago dropped from sixth to 12th. Dartmouth moved down six places. Berkeley and UCLA are now tied for 15th after placing 20th last year, and UNC advanced seven places to 22nd. Some schools have seen quite dramatic declines: Wake Forest dropped 18 places, Tulane slid 29. Washington University in St. Louis dropped out of the top 20, and NYU lost 10 places, moving to 35 from 25.

Specifically, U.S. News has made significant methodological changes that reduce the emphasis on metrics that measure faculty and student quality—and that increase the emphasis on social mobility, which they measure using incomplete and misleading data.

Measuring social mobility is an important consideration, to be sure. Vanderbilt is profoundly committed to offering access to qualified students from all backgrounds. But it is deeply misleading for U.S. News to commingle this policy concern with measures of education quality.

Among the new methodology’s many flaws, the following are most glaring:

Some of the rankings’ key measures of academic quality, where Vanderbilt has historically done well—such as faculty with the highest degrees attainable in their fields and the percentage of entering students who are in the top 10 percent of their high-school class—were eliminated, while others, including faculty resources, were assigned less weight. Previously, U.S. News eliminated student selectivity as a factor.
Criteria related to social mobility have been given more weight, such as the percentage of Pell students. Students from all backgrounds succeed at Vanderbilt at a higher rate than at many other institutions, but because Vanderbilt’s overall percentage of Pell and first-generation students is lower than at many state institutions, U.S. News’ metric for Vanderbilt is lower, affecting our ranking.
Data about earnings, indebtedness and first-generation students are being sourced for the first time from the U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard. The scorecard only captures about one-third of Vanderbilt undergraduates—those who receive Pell grants or federal loans. In other words, U.S. News is not factoring in the two-thirds of our graduates who did not rely on federal funds when determining the value of a Vanderbilt education, resulting in a highly non-representative sample. To put it differently, the U.S. News ranking puts no value on the career outcomes of any of our students not receiving federal aid. That is particularly ironic, considering that the main reason so few of our students rely on federally subsidized aid is because of the generous aid we provide through Opportunity Vanderbilt and other programs—a total of $366 million in 2022–23.
U.S. News is no longer including financial information about academic expenditures from Vanderbilt University Medical Center when calculating our score for expenditures per student, despite our sharing faculty, facilities and funds with VUMC and overseeing much of that at our cost. Because Vanderbilt and VUMC are separate legal entities, we report our finances separately to the federal government. We have challenged this decision with U.S. News in recent months, since VUMC makes such a significant contribution to our educational environment—and many of our peers factor in the expenditures of their medical centers—to no avail.
As a research university, we are particularly distressed by the lack of rigor and competence that has increasingly characterized U.S. News’ annual lists. This year’s changes come after several years of questionable decisions by U.S. News & World Report. Columbia University withdrew from participation in the rankings earlier this year in protest, as have several professional schools, including our own Law School. There was similar turmoil in the rankings of schools of medicine; some, such as Harvard Medical School, have withdrawn from participating in the rankings. At Vanderbilt, we are considering our next steps in light of this year’s developments.

Going forward, we will share more of the data and metrics we believe are the most pertinent to academic excellence and outstanding outcomes for our graduates. In the near term, we are offering a webinar on Friday, Sept. 29, at noon CT, in which Vanderbilt’s Data and Strategic Analytics team will share their analysis of this year’s U.S. News rankings and answer your questions. Register here.

As always, we are interested in hearing from you on this matter or on any other related to your family's experience at Vanderbilt. Thank you for entrusting us with your student's education, and for being an integral part of our university community.

Sincerely,
Daniel Diermeier
Chancellor

C. Cybele Raver
Provost

Slow clap

[Anonymous]

That Vanderbilt response is really embarrassing. The bottom line is their ranking is exactly where it should be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That Vanderbilt response is really embarrassing. The bottom line is their ranking is exactly where it should be.

Yeah. It is a wonderful school and I would be thrilled if my kids got in. No need to be defensive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here’s the letter from Vanderbilt:
http://view.comms.vu.edu/?qs=ffde8b61400da34d1c6d4041de053bd1199e3e56308fe95b91f16c156d7184d115202fd1fada9f200c8be7e7476b059dfd6b2af5397cb3c830e7ab4fff9742383078f59133128165ba141edb0d8b5534

It lays out why the new rankings unfairly penalize smaller research universities, and why the methodology is so flawed. I’m not a Vandy alum, but I think this letter makes a lot of sense.

I think the letter is laughable. Who are we kidding? A school like Vanderbilt lamenting “privileged” big public schools?? Get real. UCLA and Berkeley ARE better.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That Vanderbilt response is really embarrassing. The bottom line is their ranking is exactly where it sho

The problem once more is why for example did Brown move up and Vanderbilt move down? Why did Tulane and Wake Forest drop so significantly vs. other private schools like Vanderbilt, Georgetown, etc. which barely moved at all...and again, other privates moved up?

It would be one thing if all privates dropped and all publics rose...but that is not what happened. Certainly, there are things specific to these schools that caused such dramatic fluctuations.

To answer the OP's original question...I absolutely think Tulane is going to be hit by all the rankings dropping Tulane. The only reason so many folks outside of the South even spent one minute considering Tulane was because of its meteoric rise in the rankings by playing the system.

[Anonymous]

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

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:First, the schools aren’t that similar. Tulane, like NE, has been actively gaming the ratings in recent years and has move up a bit as a result. They are doing outreach the right places and New Orleans is a big draw for some students. I don’t see that changing.

Before this year, Wake has been firmly ensconced in the 25 to 30 range in the rankings for close to 3 decades. I’m not saying this because the ranking is significant but to point out they were not gaming anything. At 5500 students, it’s smaller than most national universities. Class sizes really are small, even introductory lectures. The terminal degree of faculty factor that has been eliminated is an area they did very well. More than 98 percent of the class is employed or in grad school within six months of graduation. And they are very competitive in the ACC in numerous sports. My student loves it.

LOL Northeastern was way more popular when it was ranked 47 while Wake Forest was ranked 28, and attracted smart students.
They didn't choose the school merely for the ranking. Maybe Wake Forest students did and now it may go down.'

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

[Anonymous]

I’m glad about this because I’m tired of rank chasers making it harder for my dcs at schools like this who just want a respectable school but no interest in T50.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

[Anonymous]

I admitedly don’t have my head in the new rankings nor changes in the methodology. But I read Vanderbilt’s statement with interest. If what they say is correct as to why their rank dropped, why wouldn’t the same have occurred to countless other smaller private colleges like Johns Hopkins and Emory? All the privates didn’t drop in rank, correct?

[Anonymous]

The Vanderbilt response is embarrassing, they’re so defensive. Saying that public universities are more privileged…ridiculous. Their ranking is not even that bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That Vanderbilt response is really embarrassing. The bottom line is their ranking is exactly where it sho

The problem once more is why for example did Brown move up and Vanderbilt move down? Why did Tulane and Wake Forest drop so significantly vs. other private schools like Vanderbilt, Georgetown, etc. which barely moved at all...and again, other privates moved up?

It would be one thing if all privates dropped and all publics rose...but that is not what happened. Certainly, there are things specific to these schools that caused such dramatic fluctuations.

To answer the OP's original question...I absolutely think Tulane is going to be hit by all the rankings dropping Tulane. The only reason so many folks outside of the South even spent one minute considering Tulane was because of its meteoric rise in the rankings by playing the system.

You are kinda wrong. 18 of the previous T50 schools had a lower rank this year than last. 17 of those were private schools.

We haven’t been discussing Tufts, but it fell to the 40s as well. Case Western also moved back.