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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here. Money matters but not the most important consideration. I was under the impression that UMD is on upward trajectory whilst W&M is moving opposite direction. I have been wondering about that. [/quote]

W&M alum here. I was shocked at the lower ranking it has now so went down the rabbit hole on looking at why it was dropping. Big reasons are parts that to me don’t feel like defects impacting my kids: ratings no longer value smaller class sizes but I think my kid would do well in smaller classes; ratings value higher Pell Grant attendee numbers but my kid isn’t eligible for that so it’s irrelevant for me and I don’t see a “barbell” student body make up as desirable. In short, it doesn’t sound like W&M has changed the fundamentals of its education. Rather it sounds like USNWR changed what it prioritized in ways that seem to advantage top end private schools and very large public flagships. [/quote]

[b]Stop blaming the rankings[/b] when your school drops and others don’t or even go up.  The true top schools didn’t go anywhere in the rankings, however, schools that for years gamed the rankings to try to go up saw a large drop.

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DP: W&M never gamed any rankings. PP is correct--the features that make W&M a great school--small class sizes and a focus on undergraduate teaching despite being classed as a research university--are just not prioritized in the new USNWR--but many people find them more valuable than what the rankings currently prioritize.  The Pell grant focus is misguided IMO--it is leading top institutions to prioritize giving aid to poor kids and then relying on full-pay UMC+ students to make up the difference--leading to a "barbell" economic distribution where MC/lower end of UMC families are not attending top schools due to finances but poor and wealthier UMC/rich people are.  It also privileges schools in LCOLA where there are more Pell grant recipients since it's a federal standard. The data clearly shows this.

W&M --despite being expensive for a public school--does offer the most comprehensive need-based financial aid among VA publics which makes it affordable for high stats students who are not low-income enough to receive Pell grants, but middle class.

I think USNWR should either stay out of the social engineering aspects of college in their rankings OR do a more continuous measure of parental income to see who the schools are really serving rather than a Pell grant cut-off point.   A well-educated middle class is essential to a functioning society and is generally the group that values higher education the most and the ranking system is driving admissions and college-level financial aid policies that leave the middle class less likely to attend top schools.[/quote]

Of course you think it is correct, because you are crying over the ranking the methodology.  Personally, I think any school in the Top 100 is a good school, so not sure why somebody decided to start crying over W&M's 53 ranking.

However, you are now in a long line of Tulane, Wash U, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, etc. who are crying over their particular school dropping when their peer schools did not, and maybe even went up in the rankings.  It would be one thing if every school dropped uniformly, but the fact is they did not.

BTW, W&M is ranked 212 by the WSJ rankings...so you should be thankful it is 53 by USNews.[/quote]

But they did drop uniformly.  All the schools that moved up significantly were large publics and the decliners were all privates , particularly small privates (William and Mary treated like a small private because it shares characteristics with them here).  The schools that fell the most had scored particularly high on the small classes and classes taught by professors categories.  [/quote]

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