Reply to What’s wrong with William & Mary?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]But no where have I said that W&M have unhappy alumni. I simply refuted the statement that because W&M is on the top of the list on alumni giving for public universities, that ergo they must have happy alumni. I pointed to factors such as W&M's size and wealth student population that leads it to have a high giving rate over other publics.
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You refuted nothing.  It is evidence of likely alumni satisfaction.  If you had to bet your life on whether the school at the top of the alumni giving percentage list has higher alumni satisfaction or the school at the top of the alumni giving percentage list has higher alumni satisfaction, which would you pick?  If you are being honest, I think you would pick the school at the top.  Why?  Because it is evidence of likely alumni satisfaction, and the vast majority of people would see it that way as well.

This is what USNWR says about it:  Alumni giving rate average: The nonweighted mean percentage of undergraduate alumni of record who donated money to the college or university. [b]The percentage of alumni giving serves as a proxy for how satisfied students are with the school. 
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You can also find research that shows there is a correlation between satisfaction and giving rate.  For instance, Ruffalo Noel Levitz, the firm that does graduate surveys for universities.[/quote]
No, I refuted exactly what I said I refuted.
No, I would not bet my life on whether a school at the top of alumni giving also has most satisfied alumni. Too noisy an indicator.
However, if I had to bet out of a set of universities which universities had the highest percentage of alumni giving, I would choose the one that was the smallest in size and also had the wealthiest students.
What USNWR says does not matter. They are only giving justification for why they use alumni giving in their ranking. In reality, it only serves to keep the Ivies at the top; as the editor said once, "the ranking is true because Harvard is #1 in the ranking". You would need a legitimate study proving that alumni giving is heavily correlated with college satisfaction to prove what you are claiming, not what some random guy at USNWR says

[quote=Anonymous]Two thoughts:

1) A poster keeps suggesting that alumni giving is related to wealth of parents. Alumni giving is from the alum, not the parents. Unless the thought it that the parents are giving the $$ to the alum to donate? Not sure about that conclusion.

2) The complaints about the area surrounding W&M are odd, to me. I didn’t have money to go out anywhere when I was in college, and neither does my kid (at W&M). He is in college. I would expect most of his activities, dining and social, would be on campus, as they are, because he has no money to do anything off campus- no matter what school he attended.[/quote]

1) Children of wealthy parents go on to be wealthy themselves due to connections, going business/medical/law/graduate school that non-wealthy students may not be able to afford, et. al. Furthermore you are more likely to give to the school if you did not have to struggle to pay for it. Furthermore you are more likely to give to the school if you did not have to take out loans to pay for it. That's why schools with a wealthy student population will have more alumni giving. Also it is partially true that some parents will give to the school in their children's name while/after the student attends the school.

2) The complaints about the surrounding area is specifically that the surrounding area is very expensive, with prices inflated by tourists and wealthy retirees. Therefore the students can't afford them. Most college towns are cheap places to live. Most activities of students are definitely not on campus unless you expect students to be cooped up in their dorms for four years - this is why college towns exist and have a constant buzz and excitement around them - they are lively. Now perhaps at W&M certainly many students do end up spending a lot of their time cooped up in their dorms. That's partly because of the terrible and expensive college town. College is not meant to be a boarding school. The terrible college town contributes heavily to the negatives of W&M despite providing a good education.[/quote]

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