Anonymous wrote:Chicago and W&M have a similar problem - kids don’t want rigorous academics without a big dose of fun. W&M is hampered by the VA rule that requires 2/3 of students cone from VA. W&M is more like a LAC and most of those schools have 2000 kids, not 6500. Trying to squeeze so many admits out of VA plays to the strengths of NOVA, which is wealthy and educated. Then, W&M gets hit for insufficient Pell and first-gen, who if they’re going to go to college want STEM, which W&M partly has, but not engineering.
WUSTL is a a great school, but also a rich kid’s school. Not a lot of poors there.
Anonymous wrote:Rice needs to drop. [/quote
Oh not this one. If anything, it needs to RISE!
Anonymous wrote:Chicago and WashU dropped significantly in the recent USNWR rankings. Will this hurt their perception locally as great midwestern alternatives to Ivy League schools?
Chicago (12th) had been in the top 10 every year since 2007 and hadn't been lower than a tie for 6th in over a decade. However, they were regularly outside the top 10 in the 90s and early 2000s, when many current parents were going to college.
WashU (24th) had been in the top 20 every year since 1991 and was top 15 the last two years and in most years since 2005.
Both have been ranked lower in other publications too. Forbes, for example, ranked them 28th and 40th, though to be fair that was in a combined ranking with the top LACs as well.
I've read on DCUM about the Big 3 connection to Chicago. Will that willingness to apply ED2 to one of these schools continue? Parents on this board use "T10" regularly when talking about prestige.
In the midwest, Northwestern moved above Chicago and Notre Dame moved above WashU (both also occurred in the Forbes ranking too). Is there a reshuffling again in the top midwestern schools? Northwestern was commonly the highest ranked school in the midwest in the late 90s and early 2000s. It is a little funny that the rankings are coming full circle back to when we were looking at colleges ourselves.
Anonymous wrote:Chicago is fine, but the change for WashU is really dramatic
Anonymous wrote:Chicago is fine, but the change for WashU is really dramatic
Anonymous wrote:Rice needs to drop.