Reply to Wake, Bucknell, and U Richmond

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Bucknell is stagnant and located in the middle of nowhere. Not at all popular in our town. Very few apply to Richmond as their biggest problem is expensive vs 2 better publics in UVA and W&M. Wake got crushed by US News recently and their appeal also took a hit. Not a lot of families in our full pay suburb rushing to pay over $95k for a school outside the top 50. Not much interest in any of them.

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Not a huge Wake fan but the fact that it "got crushed by US News" is not a bad thing. It weeds out all of the low class, low information, low pedigree strivers who know nothing and make all decisions based on US News. These are not people whose children I want my child to go to college with as their kids are brainless lemmings who will achieve nothing. Good riddance.[/quote]

If you were half as smart as you think you are, your kids wouldn’t need to go to college at all. [/quote]

The previous poster's tone is a little strong, sure, but it's hard to argue with the sentiment of the post. Rankings don't add much practical value these days to an informed buyer. US News is particularly screwy now that the "magazine" changed its ranking methodology to benefit public schools at the expense of measuring quality of teaching and the academic experience. Wake is an excellent example of this: it dropped from solidly T30 to I think 51 overnight. The school is the same excellent school it was before.

But now there are posts like "Not a lot of families in our full pay suburb rushing to pay over $95k for a school outside the top 50." People are free to make their own decisions based on whatever they value. But the rankings first approach strikes many people as lazy, uninformed, and harmful.

I agree with the poster. If people don't want to apply to a school based on rankings, great. All the better such folks stay away.

The fewer schools that kiss the US News ring, the better.[/quote]

In its current form, the U.S. News rankings aren’t worth much—the Pell grant eligible and first gen data they use is nearly a decade old (due to the way grad rates are reported in cds) and based on six year graduation rates. The reputation ratings are a huge part as well, and US News discloses that the response rate for those surveys are horrible.

Class size and the degree held by the person teaching actually were among the useful data they included.  I’d take it further and include factors like  ease of changing major, access to advisors, availability and cost of upper classmen housing, and percentage of kids who graduate on time — in four as opposed to six years.[/quote]

^^Absolutely this. The rankings are ridiculously flawed. This is what Jeff Selingo’s Dream Schools book is all about. Also not picking which of these 3-4 very good schools is “better” is a waste of time. All are very good with different strengths. Do the research, visit the schools and choose for fit rather than rank. UR has been an absolutely phenomenal experience for our kid. [/quote]

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