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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][b]With all the focus on UVA on DCUM, it ends up four insignificant places in front of the University Florida in this rating.  Since USNWR added the Pell grant metrics, it really has brought a bunch of schools, particularly the UCs, up the ranking[/b]s.[/quote]

[b]You're looking at the wrong ranking.[/b]  All college counselors know that public and private universities cannot be compared - they have different missions to their states, hence, agricultural offerings at VA Tech, etc. andin-state v. OOS issues. The correct USN&WR rating for UVA is the "Top Public Schools" where UVA comes in no. 4 after UCLA, Berkeley and Michigan. For 27 years UVA was no. 2 and sometimes no. 1 public, always above Michigan.  When USN&WR started incorporating Pell Grant recipients as a criterion to be looked at, UVA dropped to No. 4 because Michigan has more Pell Grant recipients. But if you know anything about Pell Grants, you know that UVA and the other schools have no ability to affect their Pell Grant numbers since that is a function of the state's populace.  https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/top-public.  If a school is in a wealthier state per capita, their Pell Grant recipient numbers will necessarily be lower.[/quote]

T[b]hey were looking at the right ranking.  Florida is 30 and UVA 26th.  If you want to look at the public schools only, then yes, UVA is only 2 spots ahead of Florida.  [b]Schools can do things that affect Pell grant applications.  They can recruit more in less affluent school districts.  They can accept more people from less affluent areas (which might lower overall admitted stats). [/b] UVA already gives significant admission advantages to certain minorities (blacks and Hispanics).  They can avoid doing ED (which has wealthier applicants).[/quote]
[/b]
Translation: Recruit dumb kids from crappy schools with fake GPAs and make SAT/ACT optional.

Outcome: The college is WORSE not better, all for a totally pointless ranking racket.[/quote]

You do realize that kids have no choice in most places over whether they go to a “crap” (translation: poor people) high school, right? [/quote]

No, you don't understand the difference between public and private universities, which is why the "top public schools" USN&WR (where UVA used to be 1 or 2 until the pell grant issue was introduced) is more accurate.  You say why doesn't UVA "recruit moroein less affluent school districts". They do!  But the applicants scores and GPA are so low that some counties in Virginia send zero or one student per year.  They still must be in the top 10% of their class (or close) and have great test scores and GPAs.  90 percent of the UVA entering class is in the top 10% of the high school.  UVA does visit those schools but it is up to the public schools to funnel the students to the best possible university in the state for their needs.  There is no point wasting money on an application to UVA is no one from that high school has gotten in in ten years.  HOWEVER, it is also the high school counselor's role to say "hey UVA, here is a possible pell grant applicant for you" but what counselor knows the family's exact income?  That is the problem for UVA admissions.  Whether they admit ED, EA, or RD, they don't know if an accept student will have such a low family income and low EFC to qualify for the federal program.  UVA has nothing to do with the Pell Grant program (read Pell grant in wiki if you don't believe me).  Also, UVA, being public, has a TINY admissions office.  The two directors do their best to hit as many schools in Virginia as they can but they are state employees in a small office.  Look at what Harvard does - it hires 100s of readers, it buys lists of 100,000 students every year, it sends out representatives or hirees to 151 cities where they rent space to talk to students who want to come.  They cull around high schools to try and find a needy kid but they too rely on college counselors and the Questbridge program to bring to their attention possible pell grant students.  But again, that takes money that UVA doesn't have for recruitment.  That's why the public universities should not be listed with the other schools (as, IMHO, the military academies ) because they have different missions and different recruiting abilities.  [b]UVA's mission is to educate the leaders of tomorrow for Virginia[/b] with 33% OOS and students from 81 countries to add in diversity and culture.

UVA also offers the Blue Ridge Scholar program for Appalachian kids who are poor and need help getting in.

UVA participates with Questbridge (low income, inner city kids)

UVA also focus on the first generation kids, which it can tell from the application.  11% of this year's class will be first-generation students.

UVA also offers the Echols program to help out (modest money) some students with great records.

And of course the Jefferson scholarship but that is managed by an outside group.

But as to Pell Grant, it simply comes down to the fact that at the ED, EA and RD stage, the admissions office cannot tell who might be a Pell Grant recipient and who is not.  California's wealth per capita has dropped greatly so UCLA and Berkeley naturally have more student applicants who turn out to get pell grant status.  Virginia is a wealthier state.  Michigan, too, gets a lot of pell grant recipients from Detroit.  But the schools cannot control this.

The pell grant determination is made only after the student files the FAFSA.  I don't know of any students who have had their families file the FAFSA the summer before application.  If the student's family income is $50,000 a year or less may qualify, but most Pell grant money goes to students with a total family income below $20,000. The total amount of Pell money available to colleges is determined by government funding.  Also, those figures can change per Congress per year.  So you see you are asking UVA - with minimal staffing resources - to read a crystal ball and figure out if the applicant before them has family members making less than $20K a year.  And I imagine you can see how personal this is and how difficult it would be to make that guess.  [b]Which is why USN&WR shouldn't have included in its criteria for ranking a school, especially a public one[/b].[/quote]

How haughty.  Last time I checked, not a single state senator in Virginia was a UVA undergrad graduate.  Not producing too many leaders there, particularly if you take away the law school.  State universities in many cases have a lower percentage of low income students than good private schools.  It is the opposite of what people think.  The more expensive state universities become largely upper middle class.  The University of Richmond (which people refer to as a country club) has a higher percentage of students in the lowest 20% than UVA.[/quote]

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