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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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?

17 of the privates in the T50 fell in rank.

[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.

Can anyone think of a precedent? Ideally with ballpark similar starting points and drops in ranking. Also, ideally not due to not sending data to USNWR.

I see strong opinions going both ways, so would be interesting to have some empirical evidence. I guess we're about to see, unless perhaps schools start adjusting admissions or whatever to improve.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Can anyone think of a precedent? Ideally with ballpark similar starting points and drops in ranking. Also, ideally not due to not sending data to USNWR.

I see strong opinions going both ways, so would be interesting to have some empirical evidence. I guess we're about to see, unless perhaps schools start adjusting admissions or whatever to improve.

The only school that I can remember plummeting like this is Oberlin and they seem to still be getting the kind of students that they've always gotten

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

Now it's more like T60 T70
Bunch of mediocre public schools that nobody outside of the states care sneaked in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Can anyone think of a precedent? Ideally with ballpark similar starting points and drops in ranking. Also, ideally not due to not sending data to USNWR.

I see strong opinions going both ways, so would be interesting to have some empirical evidence. I guess we're about to see, unless perhaps schools start adjusting admissions or whatever to improve.

The only school that I can remember plummeting like this is Oberlin and they seem to still be getting the kind of students that they've always gotten

Data is here: https://www.aronfrishberg.com/projects/usnews.html . I only looked at couple that has dropped quite a bit in the past: UNC and Emory. I don't believe it affected them too much.

[Anonymous]

Tulane was insanely overrated. Top students simply do not go there. They massively gamed the system by taking people ED1 and ED2. On our tour, they said don't bother applying regular decision.

Totally inflated yield, marketing and scare tactics.

When was the last time you heard of elite employers or graduate schools seeking Tulane grads.

Excellent marketing though. They did a great job pumping up a party school for 80K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think these rankings are crazy - I think these schools were overhyped. But I think it will affect their number of early decision applications, and their overall yield. We know people in Virginia who applied full pay early decision to Washington University. But now, why would you? You can go to just as good of a school for the fraction of the cost. Same thing with schools that take a huge percentage of the their class ED. Tulane is ranked the same as Indiana and relies heavily on ED. I just don’t see them having that demand. And then when aid packages come out, status conscious, upper middle class parents won’t be willing to shell out a lot more for the same ranking.

And I find it fascinating Wake Forest released a statement - they must be nervous about the upcoming early decision round. WSJ rankings didn’t cause any statements. These are respected.

Tulane did as well

So did Vanderbilt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Nice strawman. Not Rutgers or Merced, but BC, BU, even Lehigh or Santa Clara instead of ED'ing Tulane? Absolutely.

If Tulane were content being a strong safety school, this wouldn't be such a big deal, but Tulane has been trying for years to claw its way into the legit-first-choice tier (largely with strategic use of ED smoke and mirrors), and this ranking is devastating to that effort.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Can anyone think of a precedent? Ideally with ballpark similar starting points and drops in ranking. Also, ideally not due to not sending data to USNWR.

I see strong opinions going both ways, so would be interesting to have some empirical evidence. I guess we're about to see, unless perhaps schools start adjusting admissions or whatever to improve.

The only school that I can remember plummeting like this is Oberlin and they seem to still be getting the kind of students that they've always gotten

Data is here: https://www.aronfrishberg.com/projects/usnews.html . I only looked at couple that has dropped quite a bit in the past: UNC and Emory. I don't believe it affected them too much.

Thinking about it, if a drop doesn't affect popularity that much, would you expect a rise to do so? Schools surely seem to believe it matters, issuing statements immediately when there's a drop and working hard to get favorable metrics (and from the little I've seen prep companies think it matters as well, and really think that's unfortunate as it distorts the process).

Maybe birth year cohorts are so large right now and have been trending up, paired with more internationals, such that it doesn't matter too much. The squeeze may come later as cohorts become smaller.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Nice strawman. Not Rutgers or Merced, but BC, BU, even Lehigh or Santa Clara instead of ED'ing Tulane? Absolutely.

If Tulane were content being a strong safety school, this wouldn't be such a big deal, but Tulane has been trying for years to claw its way into the legit-first-choice tier (largely with strategic use of ED smoke and mirrors), and this ranking is devastating to that effort.

yep, but kids currently EDing Tulane at the top privates are sub 3.5. The kids EDing Boston College are 3.7+. Lehigh is similar to BC. These kids with higher stats aren't going away or magically going to turn their ED into Rice or Hopkins. If the Tulane crowd bumps up their ED choice to higher schools then they're only going to hurt themselves.

[Anonymous]

Berkeley was in the Y10 for a while and moved out when factors like class size were added. Seems not to have affected the school at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Nice strawman. Not Rutgers or Merced, but BC, BU, even Lehigh or Santa Clara instead of ED'ing Tulane? Absolutely.

If Tulane were content being a strong safety school, this wouldn't be such a big deal, but Tulane has been trying for years to claw its way into the legit-first-choice tier (largely with strategic use of ED smoke and mirrors), and this ranking is devastating to that effort.

We get you don’t like Tulane but I don’t see it. The kids who want southern, fun and urban with good academics who can’t get into the more selective options are still going to be applying to UMiami and Tulane. Lehigh isn’t a substitute, it’s in middle of no where PA.

The kids who want Boston are still checking out Tufts and NE in addition to BC and BU.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Can anyone think of a precedent? Ideally with ballpark similar starting points and drops in ranking. Also, ideally not due to not sending data to USNWR.

I see strong opinions going both ways, so would be interesting to have some empirical evidence. I guess we're about to see, unless perhaps schools start adjusting admissions or whatever to improve.

The only school that I can remember plummeting like this is Oberlin and they seem to still be getting the kind of students that they've always gotten

Data is here: https://www.aronfrishberg.com/projects/usnews.html . I only looked at couple that has dropped quite a bit in the past: UNC and Emory. I don't believe it affected them too much.

Thinking about it, if a drop doesn't affect popularity that much, would you expect a rise to do so? Schools surely seem to believe it matters, issuing statements immediately when there's a drop and working hard to get favorable metrics (and from the little I've seen prep companies think it matters as well, and really think that's unfortunate as it distorts the process).

Maybe birth year cohorts are so large right now and have been trending up, paired with more internationals, such that it doesn't matter too much. The squeeze may come later as cohorts become smaller.

I expect we will continue to see movement in the rankings as schools admit kids based on the new criteria (great time to be pell eligible or first Gen) and US News continues tweaking.

[Anonymous]

Yes.

Wake is not really that popular in the first place anyways.

Quick Google says its acceptance rate was 25% in 2021 when it had only 5000+ students(probably little lower now)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Berkeley was in the Y10 for a while and moved out when factors like class size were added. Seems not to have affected the school at all.

Yeah and Michigan was in the top 10 when the rankings started out. This was really US News’ doing - propping up privates and then pulling them down. They were never much better to begin with.