UVa Ex-president:UVa is overrated

[barrons]

What is the agenda of The Hook, The Cavalier Daily, the Daily Progress, New York Times, or the Washington Post not to mention The COHE and other higher ed media which posted the stories quoted here?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/14/us...president.html

NBC29 ‏@NBC29
#UVA Faculty Senate resolution this afternoon expresses support for #Sullivan and a "lack of confidence" in the Rector, Vice Rector and BOV.

[JHS]

It's interesting to look at the composition of Virginia's Board of Visitors, and to compare it to the boards of Princeton, Yale, Harvard, or Michigan, the sorts of institutions Virginia feels it belongs with. Virginia's board seems to be almost entirely people working in financial businesses, with a few business attorneys, and one medical doctor. There may be one non-financial CEO in there. As far as I could tell, there are no academics, no people with political experience other than as contributors, and no people working in the nonprofit sector. The other boards all have their share of financial types and attorneys, too, but they have lots of academics, lots of public interest people, lots of non-financial business people, people with public sector experience, more doctors and other professionals, journalists and artists. Princeton has slots for alumni from recent graduating classes; its board has a TFA elementary school teacher and a graduate student on it. The Virginia board may be split between Democratic and Republican appointees, but it is practically monolithic in its finance-business orientation.

[blueiguana]

Originally Posted by xiggi

While it is entirely possible that students have to be very competitive, it does not require to have 1450ish range to have a chance, unless you meant 1450/2400. Otherwise, 1450 is just below the 75th percentile at UVA. With 71% instate from a competitive state such as Virginia, it is doubtful that the OOS stats would be drastically different from the average.

For the class of 2016 the average M&CR SAT was 1395. They don't give a break down of IS vs OOS scores. The data you have is outdated. Dadx made no other claim than at his kids high school the competitive number was 1450. It is a well known and an accepted fact that admission standards are tougher for OOS students. They get more than twice the applications for 30% of the spots in the class.

[xiggi]

For the class of 2016 the average M&CR SAT was 1395. They don't give a break down of IS vs OOS scores. The data you have is outdated. Dadx made no other claim than at his kids high school the competitive number was 1450. It is a well known and an accepted fact that admission standards are tougher for OOS students. They get more than twice the applications for 30% of the spots in the class.

Humm, someone is mixing the terms data and speculation.

First of all, my data are NOT outdated. It is actually the most recent DATA available. Here's the source for the enrolled class at UVA in 2011-2012. Yes, that is the most recent class. Go to section C9:

Common Data Set: Institutional Assessment and Studies, University of Virginia

What you call data for 2016 is nothing but an estimate of a class that has YET to be formed. At best your numbers are representing a combination of admitted student data and a good dosis of wishful thinking as there is ZERO chance to know the enrolled data for a few more months.

A 1395 CR/M average is a reflection of a crystal ball. The current average is 1350. And speaking about speculation, the probability that the same number of 1350 will be on the NEXT Common Data Set form is close to ... 100 percent. The probability of being 1395? Close to zero!

HTH!

[blueiguana]

Originally Posted by padad

Barrons, what is your agenda?

You'll find barrons agenda/opinion at the bottom of the linked post (from the other thread he started on this...). Plus, he just likes to mix it up.

UVa President was fired for telling the truth

[Pizzagirl]

Oh, it's a U Wisconsin / UVA match thing with barrons. Whatever.

[blueiguana]

Fair enough Xiggi. You are correct, these are the accepted students. I supposed we will have to wait and see how far these numbers shift when the committed class is formed. I still hold that OOS is higher and close to 75% is accurate for an unhooked applicant.

[charlieschm]

UVa has stated that they do not find SAT scores to be the best predictor of college success. Instead, they find the difficulty of the high school courseload and the GPA to be a better predictor. That is why almost every enrolled student shows up with AP credits.

[charlieschm]

This was not intended to be a public document. I believe she used the words "overrated" to simply get the attention of the Boardmembers. If you read her whole report, it makes a great deal of sense.

[padad]

I just read through Sullivan's Academic Strategy memo to Dragas in May. If I were on the faculty, I would be seriously alarmed. She is proposing to reduce faculty teaching of first and second year courses, hiring of teaching fellows to take on those teaching loads, abolish individual departmental budget and letting unprofitable departments die by attrition. What she wants is to focus resources on stars and create centers as their playgrounds to attract them. These are clearly drastic initiatives that may even be successful but will clearly change the University as we have known and loved. If these were indeed the views that alarmed the Board, I would undoubtedly agree with the action.

[xiggi]

UVa has stated that they do not find SAT scores to be the best predictor of college success. Instead, they find the difficulty of the high school courseload and the GPA to be a better predictor. That is why almost every enrolled student shows up with AP credits.

How unusual! Is there anyone who still pretends the SAT to be the SOLE best predictor? Now, borrow the tagline of the College Board, and you have the position that the best predictor is a combination of the SAT plus high school performance. But then, what else could there be?

Fwiw, if UVA believed so strongly in the HS courseload alone, they could always decide to drop the SAT. That'd make the idiots at FairTest happy!

As far as students showing with AP credits, a cynic might say that Virginia might be renamed IB/AP-landia. Especially when considering how long Jay Matthews has been waging his crusade on the issue.

[barrons]

That's why they are tough decisions. Everyone wants to eat their cake and have it too. If you want a reputation as a significant academic power you have to have some academic power and not the illusion of that. Sullivan has been at enough real academic powers that she knows it when she sees it and when she does not. Maybe it was news to some at UVa. In the 2012-13 UVa budget she goes much deeper into finances and trends in same. One way she saw for UVa to secure funds for quality growth was to grow the research component which has been flat while other research U's were enjoying rapid growth. With a 50%+ overhead rate every $100 million in new research grants means $50 million to spend in other areas.

BTW--newsflash

http://www.readthehook.com/104241/he...comment-280801

[charlieschm]

Padad - I didn't read it that way. She wants to move some additional content for 1st year students to online formats. That can actually increase classtime available for discussion and questions, vs. passively sitting in a large lecture hall. That hybrid model is working at other universities.

It would be desirable to have some faculty who concentrate on undergrad teaching, with a higher course load, vs. picking every new employee for research.

There are probably some departments that have little interest from students and don't need to remain a separate dept. She proposes abolishing the dept. structure for some small departments, but keeping those faculty members with interdisciplinary titles.

[Bay]

FWIW, on our recent visit, we found UVA uninspiring. We were surprised and disappointed. OTOH, impressed by UTexas. Have never seen UWisconsin.

[sevmom]

Interesting comments,Bay. Sorry you found UVa "uninspiring" and were "surprised and disappointed " with no explanation. To each their own but UVa is part of a World Heritage Site ,founded by Thomas Jefferson , and has beautiful ,historic Grounds. But as they say, to each their own. There are many private universities, including many of the top schools that many CC folks aspire to, that I found to be uninspiring as well, but don't think I would be inclined to comment on that if they were going through challenging times. As someone said earlier, kind of like kicking someone while they're down.