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Post by sader1970 on Jul 23, 2024 12:13:39 GMT -5
I used to get this annual magazine for years and finally stopped . . . . perhaps as Holy Cross started sinking down the leaderboard.  Anyway, cleaning house, I found the 2004 national liberal arts college rankings. Even then, we had sunk beneath the top 25. Here's where some notable schools were then: 1 Williams
2 Amherst/Swarthmore
7 Bowdoin/Davidson
9 Wesleyan
11 Middlebury
12 Vassar
16 Colgate
26 Bucknell
31 Holy Cross/Lafayette
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Jul 23, 2024 15:44:01 GMT -5
I used to get this annual magazine for years and finally stopped . . . . perhaps as Holy Cross started sinking down the leaderboard. Anyway, cleaning house, I found the 2004 national liberal arts college rankings. Even then, we had sunk beneath the top 25. Here's where some notable schools were then: 1 Williams
2 Amherst/Swarthmore
7 Bowdoin/Davidson
9 Wesleyan
11 Middlebury
12 Vassar
16 Colgate
26 Bucknell
31 Holy Cross/Lafayette
One reason for dropping was USNWR began including the three academies in the national liberal arts category. |
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Post by sader1970 on Jul 23, 2024 17:01:44 GMT -5
Bet that didn’t affect Williams or Amherst or . . . . . .
I’ll let you dig your old copies out but from my old memory, we were dropping before the academies got included.
Again, pretty sure we were 21-23 at one point. There aren’t 10 academies or 8 or even 5. A partial excuse at best.
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Post by mm67 on Jul 23, 2024 17:40:48 GMT -5
Could be an error but I remember HC was 18 in the first rankings. The school dropped into the low/mid 20s in subsequent rankings. I was disappointed and expected HC to be placed in the top 10. In the earlier Barrons system which placed schools into broad categories without the horse race of numerical rankings HC was Most Selective along with Georgetown & ND. USNWR, a dying publication found a way to monetize college ratings by turning to numerical rankings. And , currently USNWR exerts major control over higher education. School policy decisions are commonly based on taking those steps which improve their rankings often with little to no improvement in academics. Basically, it's a public relations sham.
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Post by sader1970 on Jul 23, 2024 19:38:44 GMT -5
Yep!😊
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Post by hc1996 on Jul 31, 2024 12:55:10 GMT -5
I'd bet that the same legacy thought processes that led to dropping athletic scholarships also led the adminstration to sit on its laurels and not adapt/evolve when these rankings gained momentum. Looking back now, there are many articles on colleges detailing how they positioned themselves better for USNWR rankings, ie. Northeastern.
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Post by KY Crusader 75 on Jul 31, 2024 14:16:00 GMT -5
Are “acceptance rate” and “% yield” part of the USNWR calculation? If so, shouldn’t the recent dramatic improvements in those measures elevate HC in the rankings?
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Post by hc1996 on Jul 31, 2024 14:26:01 GMT -5
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Post by HC92 on Aug 1, 2024 21:00:20 GMT -5
Are “acceptance rate” and “% yield” part of the USNWR calculation? If so, shouldn’t the recent dramatic improvements in those measures elevate HC in the rankings? Does anyone know what impact Questbridge participation has had on our applications? |
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Post by DFW HOYA on Aug 2, 2024 12:53:20 GMT -5
Could be an error but I remember HC was 18 in the first rankings. The school dropped into the low/mid 20s in subsequent rankings. I was disappointed and expected HC to be placed in the top 10. In the earlier Barrons system which placed schools into broad categories without the horse race of numerical rankings HC was Most Selective along with Georgetown & ND. USNWR, a dying publication found a way to monetize college ratings by turning to numerical rankings. And , currently USNWR exerts major control over higher education. School policy decisions are commonly based on taking those steps which improve their rankings often with little to no improvement in academics. Basically, it's a public relations sham. The Barron's system was largely one dimensional: acceptance rate + SAT defined "competiveness", but certain schools have engineered admissions rates so as to make that unreliable (e.g., Northeastern). USN&WR added in factors such as graduation rates, institutional resources, student debt, and the like, but 20% of its metric relies on a very subjective factor which is likely being used to keep Holy Cross and others out of the top tier, namely, the peer assessment. Reads the publication: "Each year, top academics – presidents, provosts and deans of admissions – rate the academic quality of peer institutions with which they are familiar on a scale of 1 (marginal) to 5 (distinguished). We take a two-year weighted average of the ratings. Those who don't know enough about a school to evaluate it fairly are asked to mark "don't know." U.S. News collected the most recent data by administering peer assessment surveys to schools in spring and summer 2023. Of the 4,734 academics who were sent questionnaires on the overall rankings in 2023, 30.8% responded compared with 34.1% in 2022. The peer assessment response rate for the National Universities category was 44% and the National Liberal Arts category was 28.6%."In other words, just a quarter of the liberal arts sample sent back their thoughts, but those numbers still carry weight. www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-us-news-calculated-the-rankings |
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Post by sader1970 on Aug 2, 2024 13:25:50 GMT -5
Hoya, that was my point in a different thread but I used the term "reputation" (among peers) rather than "peer assessment." Distinction without a difference. But, yeah, that was at least one of the reasons that certain HC presidents didn't bother about the rankings. Repeating myself, Vince Rougeau has a different position on this and he seems to be pro-actively working the leaders of our peer institutions, some of whom are his friends apparently.
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Post by mm67 on Aug 2, 2024 14:56:50 GMT -5
USNWR numerically ranking colleges & universities is a priori ridiculous. My opinion doesn't matter. Families and younger graduates are hooked on the certainty of numerical rankings in an uncertain world of nuance. Similarly, USNWR controls hospitals and their decision making all to worse outcomes for patients.
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Post by KY Crusader 75 on Aug 2, 2024 15:18:50 GMT -5
I’d love to see a survey of college students to
Learn how heavily they relied on USN&WR when they made their college decisions. I don’t dismiss the magazine but I’ll repeat what I’ve reported on this forum many times: in the years when I represented HC at a very large college fair here in the Ville, I never once saw a student carrying the magazine or asking about where HC ranked on its lists.
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Post by sader1970 on Aug 2, 2024 15:56:26 GMT -5
USNWR numerically ranking colleges & universities is a priori ridiculous. My opinion doesn't matter. Families and younger graduates are hooked on the certainty of numerical rankings in an uncertain world of nuance. Similarly, USNWR controls hospitals and their decision making all to worse outcomes for patients. So, you are in the McFarland camp on rankings? 😉😂👍 |
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Post by mm67 on Aug 3, 2024 9:12:38 GMT -5
Actually, Fr. McFarland & I did in fact briefly discuss rankings. He did point out weaknesses in the criteria such as the money for academic services. He is a brilliant guy probably brighter than most of us on this board.(No insult meant but the good Father exists in the stratosphere). I would never dare to speak for Fr. McFarland and put my own comparatively simplistic spin on his statements about rankings. A Priori, baby, intrinsically flawed says it all. Unfortunately, USNWR is a fact of life. Preferred grouping as was done in Barrons w/out the false pretense of flawed use of statistics to come up with an intrinsically flawed numerical ranking. Ranking by number rests on the flawed premise that schools can be ranked in numerical order. Although one of the commentators indicated USNWR had little influence on graduating HS on their choice of colleges. He never saw the USNWR magazine at college fairs. Actually, I had frequent conversations with a hs college guidance counselor. He is a bright guy, Tufts grad. He thought USNWR basically distorted the college application process.
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Post by sader1970 on Aug 3, 2024 9:35:19 GMT -5
As to Fr. McF's intelligence. I have posted in the past that he was a high school classmate of one of my best HC classmate friends who described him as a "certifiable genius" and following the usual calendar, he should have graduated from Cornell in '70 but did so in '69, having done so in 3 years. So, yeah, he is academically smart for sure.
As to USN&WR, I certainly won't try to defend their methodology or rankings and I cannot give you any stats on what percentage of high school collegebound students use those rankings to help make their choices but my gut tells me that a significant number do.
30 years ago, we went to a college fair in Columbus. Went to the Holy Cross table manned by Rick Carter's son. I didn't bring a copy of the USN&WR with me but certainly researched the rankings before I went though Holy Cross was the one I was most interested in in both the rankings and to see if and who HC would have at the fair.
Bottom line: SOMEBODY is buying and looking at these rankings. Including the Northeastern president who decided to game the rankings and apparently was able to do so successfully. Would bet good money that he wasn't the only one.
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Post by rgs318 on Aug 3, 2024 11:24:32 GMT -5
That is probably a safe bet, sader70. If true, I hope HC starts to play that game as well.
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Post by hcpride on Aug 4, 2024 4:21:53 GMT -5
I’d love to see a survey of college students to Learn how heavily they relied on USN&WR when they made their college decisions. I don’t dismiss the magazine but I’ll repeat what I’ve reported on this forum many times: in the years when I represented HC at a very large college fair here in the Ville, I never once saw a student carrying the magazine or asking about where HC ranked on its lists. Don't know if this is germane to your observation but… We are in the rather unique position of NOT being ranked (USN&WR) against any of our significant overlap/competitor schools (BC, PC,Fordham, ND, UMass, etc.). Sooooo college admins/grads/admissions folks may be more interested in HC and USN&WR LAC rankings than typical HC applicants. If you are a typical NESCAC-applicant (for example) those relative LAC rankings might tell you a bit more. FWIW. Or if you are looking at larger research institutions and casting a wide net. I golf with a good number of folks who look at the top 10 USN&WR nationally (not LACs) and if their kids don’t get in then they’re going to Stony Brook (I’ll leave it at that). |
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Post by sader1970 on Aug 4, 2024 6:24:24 GMT -5
I’d love to see a survey of college students to Learn how heavily they relied on USN&WR when they made their college decisions. (me too!) I don’t dismiss the magazine but I’ll repeat what I’ve reported on this forum many times: in the years when I represented HC at a very large college fair here in the Ville, I never once saw a student carrying the magazine (would you really expect them to do that? Or, more likely, do whatever research first before they go to the college fair?) or asking about where HC ranked on its lists. (maybe they came to your HC booth because they already researched where HC was?)I don't think our positions are too far off from one another, my friend. But, I totally agree that someone, somewhere ought to actually do a study on how important these rankings actually are. I totally reject however, the dismissal of them entirely as was done by the last couple of HC presidents. Might have been a Jesuit thing as they seemed to cling to the idea that HC was such a unique place that we were in a category all our own. While I would agree it is indeed a unique place, it's not like we inhabit the other side of the moon. KY, with 20/20 hindsight, did you ever ask the kids or their parents that came to your table why they did so? My fuzzy recollection of the Columbus one, they sort of front loaded the locals (sure wasn't based on the rankings). For example, guess whose table was front and center? Duh! THE Ohio State University! Holy Cross? Buried somewhere that you'd have to look hard for it. And, I've reported here before that the guidance counselors at the school were shocked, SHOCKED that my son was not looking to go to OSU, or at least some school in Ohio. Why, WHY would he be looking to attend a school "back east?" |
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Post by longsuffering on Aug 4, 2024 20:35:51 GMT -5
I’d love to see a survey of college students to Learn how heavily they relied on USN&WR when they made their college decisions. I don’t dismiss the magazine but I’ll repeat what I’ve reported on this forum many times: in the years when I represented HC at a very large college fair here in the Ville, I never once saw a student carrying the magazine or asking about where HC ranked on its lists. Don't know if this is germane to your observation but… We are in the rather unique position of NOT being ranked (USN&WR) against any of our significant overlap/competitor schools (BC, PC,Fordham, ND, UMass, etc.). Sooooo college admins/grads/admissions folks may be more interested in HC and USN&WR LAC rankings than typical HC applicants. If you are a typical NESCAC-applicant (for example) those relative LAC rankings might tell you a bit more. FWIW. Or if you are looking at larger research institutions and casting a wide net. I golf with a good number of folks who look at the top 10 USN&WR nationally (not LACs) and if their kids don’t get in then they’re going to Stony Brook (I’ll leave it at that). I always appreciate it when you bring up the types of schools HC applicants apply to most often in addition to HC. I don't recall UMass being mentioned before but it makes sense because we get a high number of Mass. applicants and there is a New England compact that reduces the cost of State schools for residents of the six state region that Holy Cross is smack in the middle of. I think it shows the market views Holy Cross as a ticket to a solid middle class life/career or something like that and the Catholic identity of HC and our peer applicant schools still has value with our most receptive segment of 17/18 year olds and their families. TPTB seems to be chasing NESCAC type fine institutions more than our actual students and families. The D-1 status of all of our peer applicant schools may have something to do with something. Our student athletes aren't interested in playing in the sandbox for four years.🙂 |
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