<p>Great list there Bclintonk. Thanks for the time and info. :)</p>
<p>Hawkette, if you take transfer figures in context of the institution’s size, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin are roughly similar to Cornell, Georgetown, Northwestern, Notre Dame and Penn.</p>
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It’s more relevant to rank the # of transfer students as a % of overall undergraduate student body. Here’s hawkette’s list re-ranked by %:</p>
<p><school> <# of transfers> <% transfers></school></p>
<p>UCLA … 3321 … 12.8%
UC-Berkeley … 2036 … 8.3%
UC-David … 1875 … 8.0%
UC-San Diego … 1742 … 7.9%
UC-Santa Barbara . 1273 … 6.9%
USC … 1116 … 6.8%
UC-Irvine … 1448 … 6.7%
U Texas-Austin … 2128 … 5.7%
U Florida … 1706 … 4.8%
U Washington … 1345 … 4.7%
UNC-Chapel Hill … 793 … 4.5%
Cornell … 571 … 4.2%
U Wisconsin … 1276 … 4.2%
U Virginia … 590 … 3.9%
New York U … 736 … 3.5%
William and Mary … 192 … 3.3%
Georgetown … 227 … 3.2%
Georgia Tech … 380 … 3.0%
U Michigan … 779 … 3.0%
U Illinois … 866 … 2.8%
Northwestern … 190 … 2.3%
Notre Dame … 171 … 2.0%
U Penn … 197 … 2.0%
Rochester … 102 … 2.0%
Vanderbilt … 126 … 1.9%
Rice … 56 … 1.8%
RPI … 92 … 1.8%
Boston College … 149 … 1.6%
Lehigh … 70 … 1.5%
Case Western … 57 … 1.4%
WUSTL … 93 … 1.3%
Emory … 82 … 1.2%
Columbia … 81 … 1.1%
Brandeis … 34 … 1.1%
Wake Forest … 45 … 1.0%
Pennsylvania State … 366 … 1.0%
Brown … 55 … 0.9%
U Chicago … 41 … 0.8%
Carnegie Mellon … 44 … 0.8%
Cal Tech … 6 … 0.7%
Yale … 33 … 0.6%
Dartmouth … 23 … 0.6%
Tufts … 27 … 0.5%
Johns Hopkins … 26 … 0.5%
MIT … 15 … 0.4%
Stanford … 20 … 0.3%
Princeton … 0 … 0.0%</p>
<p>While public universities have an obligation to the state to take in community college grads, it’s interesting to see some private universities also have significant transfers: USC(6.8%), NYU(3.5%), G’town(3.2%).</p>
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<p>Well I’m flattered, hawkette. But only up to a point. As GoBlue81’s post shows, many privates do as much of this as the publics, and with less valid reasons. The only figure that counts, really, is transfers as a percentage of the entering class: Georgetown’s 227 transfers will have a greater impact on its reported US News stats than Michigan’s 779, due to the differential in class size. And GoBlue81 is also absolutely right that most state flagships are under a statutory obligation to take qualified transfers from in-state community colleges. They’re not taking transfers in order to cut the size of their entering class and thereby game the US News numbers, they’re doing it because by law they have to. Privates like Cornell, NYU, Georgetown, Notre Dame, Penn, Rochester, Vanderbilt, Rice, et al. are under no such statutory obligation (though I’m not sure about Cornell; possibly its quasi-public “contract colleges” are under such an obligation). This immediately raises suspicions about “gaming.”</p>
<p>But what about my broader point, hawkette? The so-called “objective” metrics relied upon by US News are vulnerable to the most outrageous forms of manipulation. They’re pretty much junk because they’re so easily gamed. It’s all bogus. And frankly, it’s really counterproductive to the mission of higher education that so many college and university presidents, provosts, deans, and other responsible officers spend so much time and effort devising creative new ways to game these rankings because they feel have no real choice; they’re locked in what is called in game theory a “prisoner’s dilemma,” believing if they don’t game the rankings their competitors will and they and their institutions will be played for suckers, and as a result suffer in recruiting the students they want.</p>
<p>I maintain the US News rankings—and especially the so-called “objective” portions of the US News rankings (as the PA is only what it purports to be, an opinion survey, nothing more, nothing less)—are not only useless, but downright pernicious. Do you agree with that? If not, I don’t accept your selective endorsement of one part of what I say, taken out of context and applied in a transparently biased way, by misleadingly listing absolute numbers rather than the relevant figure here, percentages of the student body.</p>
<p>bc,
I agree about the % numbers that have been presented here for the transfers are more useful. (BTW, which schools are you alleging that I am trying to hurt and help with my presentation of the numbers of students?) Thanks to those who calculated and presented the percentage data. </p>
<p>By using the transfer game, certain schools can mask the true quality and depth of their student bodies. Among those who do this are two prominent colleges-Cornell and Emory, both of which have delayed entrance admissions. I’m not sure of the overall numbers of students admitted via these programs, but clearly the institution benefits from their statistical exclusion. </p>
<p>As for your other comments on all of USNWR, I’m not here to defend their methodology, but IMO they aren’t the guilty party if schools are actively trying to game the system. That would be the corner-cutting institutions and the academics who endorse these moves (Presidents, Provosts, Deans of Admissions, other responsible college officials, etc.). If they don’t exercise the integrity to properly count and report their numbers, then what kind of an example is that? </p>
<p>Maybe I’m na</p>
<p>“…I’m not sure about Cornell; possibly its quasi-public “contract colleges” are under such an obligation…”</p>
<p>As I understand it, the contract colleges are indeed under such obligation, and the transfer #s are predominantly the contract colleges. I don’t like the stats non-disclosure either, by all schools. </p>
<p>But to me, the poster child for stats non-disclosure is Columbia University. Its School of General Studies enrolls 1,600 students with no stats available. They boast about how GS is integrated with the university, same profs, nearly all interchangeable classes where anyone at columbia can enroll, so where are the GS stats. They have an undergrad nursing program with 155 students, where are the stats I dont know. Students at its affiliated colleges all take classes at Columbia, if you’re one who insists on glomming stats together glom those too. Also, it’s one of the few engineering colleges where the 3-2 program is actually used, so some people are enrolling in SEAS from small LACs, also with no stats made available to third parties. I don’t know that these people are counted as transfer applicants, my guess is no. When SEAS stats used to be weaker they did not report SEAS stats in US News submission.</p>
<p>BTW Cornell Arts & Sciences martriculated 79 transfer students Fall '08, and another 15 in the Spring. The total constitutes 2% of overall CAS undergraduate student body.</p>
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<p>I’m less interested in laying blame than in pointing out the “junk” quality of the so-called “objective” metrics in the US News rankings, and encouraging people not to rely on this garbage. I don’t think US News gives much care to trying to design metrics that are more difficult to game, or affirmatively trying to ensure quality control in the data coming in, or trying to correct the metrics when obvious ways of gaming them are pointed out. But that’s really beside the point. US News is just pop journalism, for gosh sakes; this is a world in which shoddiness abounds, and they’re under no special obligation to the public to put out a quality product. No, what I object to is the degree to which their rankings have become so influential in students’ decisions about where to apply and where to attend that colleges feel they have no choice but to pander to the US News rankings, because if they don’t their competitors will, they’ll lose ground, and the US News ranking will become a self-fulfilling prophecy as thousands or tens of thousands of applicants, reading US News, will deem them a notch below the competitors who did tailor their operations to make themselves look just a shade better here and there in the things US News measures. And as long as US News uses such crude brightline statistical categories (“classes under 20 students good; award points,” “classes of 50 or more bad, deduct points”), colleges are going to continue to game them to make themselves look better than their closest competitors. Frankly at this point it might be almost irresponsible for a college administrator not to play the game. A few have tried, and their schools have been badly punished in the US News rankings and in some cases probably paid a price for it later in the kinds of students they’re actually able to attract—and eventually possibly even in the faculty they’re able to recruit and retain. So I think it’s up to those of us who know better to call a stop to this madness, and point out just how deeply flawed the entire US News ranking is—not to lend it credence by continually citing it, and treating its “objective” metrics as if they really meant something. They mean about as much as a fresh pile of horse manure.</p>
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[quote=hawkette]
Maybe I’m na</p>
<p>us news was a useful source of info up to a few years ago. I bought
it every year first in paper and then online. However most of the info
is now available elsewhere on line, often in more detail. The particular
way they collect the info to produce “rankings” is of no real interest
to me. Although I am aware that schools do make adjustments to raise
their rankings. I no longer purchase the product and use the on line info
in my own way. i guess it is still popular with the general public - a quick
read.</p>