Anonymous wrote:I know this is trivial, but I was so disappointed in W&M’s library. This is one of the oldest colleges in the U.S., I was expecting something very different. Their library looks like any public library in a Midwest suburb.

That was the unfortunateness of it being built in the 60s. The old library was Tucker Hall, which has more of that old historic library feel, but the building was wayyy too small to serve the college as it started to grow around the mid century so the English department moved there.

WM has a highly ranked library. It's just not old and stately. It was built as part of the "new camps" and it fits architecturally with that.

Anonymous wrote:I know this is trivial, but I was so disappointed in W&M’s library. This is one of the oldest colleges in the U.S., I was expecting something very different. Their library looks like any public library in a Midwest suburb.

I haven't been to their library, but isn't supposed to be one of the best? I thought it was one of the things that W&M is proud of. But again, I have not seen it for myself.

I never post here but will chime in on behalf of WM. Have four W&M friends who are top docs now. Two former chief residents at leading research hospitals. They credit their WM experience.

I know this is trivial, but I was so disappointed in W&M’s library. This is one of the oldest colleges in the U.S., I was expecting something very different. Their library looks like any public library in a Midwest suburb.

W&M is a unique for a public school, but it doesn't align well with current USNWR ranking criteria. As previously posted, among public schools in USNWR top 100, W&M is #1 in undergraduate teaching, #1 in student to faculty ratio, #1 in alumni giving rate (USNWR). It is also #1 among top 100 publics in study abroad (Open Doors), #1 percentage of graduates getting PhDs (Washington Monthly) (and second for STEM PhDs after Berkeley) , and #1 for percentage of graduates getting Fulbright scholarships over the past 10 years.

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Anonymous wrote:Maybe, just maybe, there is a difference between some college ranked 150 and one ranked 50, but there is no significant difference between these two.

I am still blown away that William & Mary is not ranked higher.

When you look at the new configuration of ranking factors it explains a lot. The school didn’t drop in quality. Unless you value the number of Pell grant attendees above all else…

I'm curious why Pell Grant recipients should factor so much in the rankings. I'm not against Pell Grants, but it doesn't really speak to the quality of education that a school is offerring.

You’ll have to ask USNWR. Though I think the answer is that DEI is trendy right now. And USNWR seems to believe they need to reconfigure and reweigh factors every few years in order to keep the buzz about their rankings going.

USNWR have conflated what should probably be multiple lists. There can be valid lists for "most prestigious" or "most selective", "best learning environment", "most diverse" and "highest economic mobility". Merging them all these together muddies the water for a user that values one or more of these perspectives over the others.

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Anonymous wrote:Maybe, just maybe, there is a difference between some college ranked 150 and one ranked 50, but there is no significant difference between these two.

I am still blown away that William & Mary is not ranked higher.

When you look at the new configuration of ranking factors it explains a lot. The school didn’t drop in quality. Unless you value the number of Pell grant attendees above all else…

I'm curious why Pell Grant recipients should factor so much in the rankings. I'm not against Pell Grants, but it doesn't really speak to the quality of education that a school is offerring.

You’ll have to ask USNWR. Though I think the answer is that DEI is trendy right now. And USNWR seems to believe they need to reconfigure and reweigh factors every few years in order to keep the buzz about their rankings going.

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Anonymous wrote:Maybe, just maybe, there is a difference between some college ranked 150 and one ranked 50, but there is no significant difference between these two.

I am still blown away that William & Mary is not ranked higher.

You shouldn’t be. WM excels in small classes, undergrad teaching, alumni and student satisfaction, study abroad and internships. When USNWR redid their formula this year, they eliminated these as factors for consideration in ranking (or gave them much less weight), and replaced them with DEI criteria. WM meets full need for Pell Grant students, but just doesn’t have that many Pell Grant kids. Students are primarily white and Asian and have a range of religions, ethnic backgrounds and political viewpoints— But WM does not have large Black or Hispanic populations. So basically, they aren’t the “right type” of diverse. Etc. And they got hammered for that by USNWR. Tulane, Wake Forest, U Rochester, and even Vanderbilt got penalized for the same reasons.

WM also is unique among public national Us in that they are small and don’t have many grad programs. They don’t qualify as a SLAC, but the National U rankings are designed to evaluate much larger schools. So WM doesn’t fit well in either category. They are ranked much lower that UVA and yet have almost identical student selectivity (difference in GPA is something like .02) and WM and UVA go back and forth over which one has higher SATs and ACTs. I believe WM is 1 point higher on the ACT at the 75% and 1 point lower at the 25%. WM out ranks UVA in many of the areas above (happiest students, class size, undergrad teaching)— but USNWR isn’t looking at that.

You need to do your own research and ask yourself— what do I value for my kid. Stop letting USNWR make these decisions for you. In 5-7 years, they will redo the formula again (because keeping top schools in the same order doesn’t sell their “product”) and WM might end up as a T25– depending on what they decide to emphasize next.

A better place to look is USNWR sub scores in various areas, rankings of individual departments, and Princeton Review in specific areas that matter to you.

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Anonymous wrote:Maybe, just maybe, there is a difference between some college ranked 150 and one ranked 50, but there is no significant difference between these two.

I am still blown away that William & Mary is not ranked higher.

When you look at the new configuration of ranking factors it explains a lot. The school didn’t drop in quality. Unless you value the number of Pell grant attendees above all else…

USNWRS now doesn't factor many of W&M's strong points. In the overall ranking, it does not include its own ranking of undergraduate teaching teaching quality, where W&M ranks 6th. It also doesn't factor, like it used to, student to faculty ratios and alumni giving rate. W&M ranked tops among publics in both of those categories.

For resources, USNWR uses data from the Federal IPEDS database. This data is OK for looking at overall resources a university has (per student), but not for discerning how much of those resources are actually committed to undergraduate programs (vs. research and graduate). W&M does not have a medical school or engineering school, which often factor in schools with higher overall resources. Although W&M ranks low for resources, but there appears to be a disconnect with measures of undergraduate experience, where, as mentioned, W&M ranks high for teaching quality, student faculty ration, alumni giving rates, etc. The USNWR rankings are more or less stacked against W&M (and similar schools) at present.

This is a helpful summary. I feel like I should bookmark this response and just copy and paste every time someone cites the USNWR ranking of W&M as gospel.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe, just maybe, there is a difference between some college ranked 150 and one ranked 50, but there is no significant difference between these two.

I am still blown away that William & Mary is not ranked higher.

When you look at the new configuration of ranking factors it explains a lot. The school didn’t drop in quality. Unless you value the number of Pell grant attendees above all else…

USNWRS now doesn't factor many of W&M's strong points. In the overall ranking, it does not include its own ranking of undergraduate teaching teaching quality, where W&M ranks 6th. It also doesn't factor, like it used to, student to faculty ratios and alumni giving rate. W&M ranked tops among publics in both of those categories.

For resources, USNWR uses data from the Federal IPEDS database. This data is OK for looking at overall resources a university has (per student), but not for discerning how much of those resources are actually committed to undergraduate programs (vs. research and graduate). W&M does not have a medical school or engineering school, which often factor in schools with higher overall resources. Although W&M ranks low for resources, but there appears to be a disconnect with measures of undergraduate experience, where, as mentioned, W&M ranks high for teaching quality, student faculty ration, alumni giving rates, etc. The USNWR rankings are more or less stacked against W&M (and similar schools) at present.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe, just maybe, there is a difference between some college ranked 150 and one ranked 50, but there is no significant difference between these two.

I am still blown away that William & Mary is not ranked higher.

When you look at the new configuration of ranking factors it explains a lot. The school didn’t drop in quality. Unless you value the number of Pell grant attendees above all else…

I'm curious why Pell Grant recipients should factor so much in the rankings. I'm not against Pell Grants, but it doesn't really speak to the quality of education that a school is offerring.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe, just maybe, there is a difference between some college ranked 150 and one ranked 50, but there is no significant difference between these two.

I am still blown away that William & Mary is not ranked higher.

When you look at the new configuration of ranking factors it explains a lot. The school didn’t drop in quality. Unless you value the number of Pell grant attendees above all else…

I'd like to think it's gonna slide back up with the school's goal to raise the Pell Grant population