<p>Haystack, I do not have a false assumption. If they raised 1 billion, and I am not doubting your statement, where is it? They should have saved most of it and enhanced their endowment. They certainly don’t have an extra 1 billion added to their endowment,which would have made a HUGE difference in what they could accomplish. They should not have squandered it on things that don’t improve their academics. I am NOT knocking Syracuse’s commitments or their connections. I am suggesting that they have the wrong priorities in the use of their funds.</p>
<p>I also didn’t have a false assumption when Syracuse moved their art and design programs to the downtown area against both my wishes and that of many other parents that I spoke to. In fact,according to an admission person that I spoke to at the time, no one at Syracuse ever polled or even considered the wishes of prospective students and parents regarding this. I didn’t make this up.</p>
<p>All I can say is that 1 billion dollars at $4,000,000 per endowed chair, would result in 250 endowed chairs. So where are they? Answer: they blew the money. In fact, even if half of those contributions were used for endowed chairs, there would be 125 chairs. This would have greatly enhanced the reputation of Syracuse.</p>
<p>“schools like Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and others are not in ideal , big metro areas but have a sterling reputation.”</p>
<p>Minneapolis-St. Paul is a big city that beats the crap out of Syracuse, and Wisconsin & Michigan are in idyllic college towns. But more importantly, they’re public flagships. That’s hugely important in attracting large numbers of top recruits every year. These schools are automatically on the list of every good student in those states. Many desirable students get in at the beginning of senior year and never even bother applying elsewhere. There is a sense of public ownership; supporting and attending these schools is a matter of deep local pride for tens of thousands of families. Private universities can’t benefit from this kind of rooted relationship.</p>
<p>Hanna, there is no question that top state flagships have an advantage , especially regarding tuition. However, most state schools are being severely hit as a result of the recession. There have been significant cutbacks in many school programs. In addition many state schools have actually eliminated programs due to cuts state funding. Heck, the University of Texas system is thinking of dropping physics as a major in about half of their school. Look at whats happening to the California state schools.</p>
<p>Syracuse has the advangage of turning this around and not cuting back or eliminating program.</p>
<p>I would bet my bank account that if Syracuse had 100 more well- endowed chairs ( and I do mean the amount of money endowing the chairs and not the physical characteristics of the professors) and a large endowment for research, their rankings would greatly improve. This would attract better students,which would also increase rankings. It is a circular process.</p>
<p>Finally, I wanted to mention what happened at the Univesity of Michigan. They had a president, whose name escapes me, that felt that state endowments would eventually dry up. Thus, he went on a campaign to increase the endowment of the university to over 3 billion. Look at where University of Michigan is now! The same can be said of Syracuse. With the right leadership and with different priorities, I believe that they can achieve the same result as Michigan. They certainly have the potential. There are plenty of school in crapy areas that have done well.</p>
<p>Taxguy evidently likes his chairs ‘well- endowed’ rather than just endowed.</p>
<p>You really need to stop talking about research and Syracuse and how that will ‘turn Syracuse around’. Syracuse was never even close th being at the level of MI and never will be even if they do create 200 ‘well- endowed’ chairs.</p>
<p>Why would a commitment to improving the surrounding community hurt Syracuse in the rankings? One would think that this would make Syracuse more attractive to prospective students. (Blighted surroundings may have hurt Syracuse.) Penn has made a similar commitment to improving its West Philadelphia neighborhood and it hasn’t hurt Penn in the rankings. [Penn:</a> Penn’s Local Commitment](<a href=“http://www.upenn.edu/campus/westphilly/]Penn:”>http://www.upenn.edu/campus/westphilly/)</p>
<p>Penn has much more $$$ and the blight was far worse impacting student recruitment.
And for most Madison is still quite the great place with several recent Top 10 rankings. Yes some poor folks have moved in from Chicago and Milwaukee but the area is still strong economically and very attractive as all the recent ESPN attention noted time and again.</p>
<p>And it would be great to see this “fairness” applied to athletics at a Division 1 school too. Is Syracuse going to be consistent and apply their “fairness” to its basketball and football program - eliminate athletic scholarships and just allow need-based aid for players? If not, why not? Why are top potential athletes in a different category than top potential students?</p>
<p>Both bring something to a University. </p>
<p>I have a lot of family living around Syracuse and rooting for the Orangemen. None consider it a school worth paying for at full fare even for a “B” student (unless they are a main-sport athlete, but then they wouldn’t be paying full fare).</p>
<p>They are a private school and can choose to make their decision based on their whims. I’ve no issue with that. They’ve decided top academics are not their priority.</p>
<p>creekland notes, “have a lot of family living around Syracuse and rooting for the Orangemen. None consider it a school worth paying for at full fare even for a “B” student (unless they are a main-sport athlete, but then they wouldn’t be paying full fare).”</p>
<p>Response: I actually think that Syracuse is a good school academically despite their lower admission standards than schools such as BU or Miami. However, you m ight be willing to pay full fare if they had a top 25 ranking, including some top ranked gradute programs. It just takes money, and alot of it, to reach this level. It takes a policy driven administration that will ignore non-academic priorities and focus on what makes a strong academic reputation. It is very doable.</p>
<p>UP did it despite being located in a horrible section of Phily. The same can be said for Temple, USC, and many others. </p>
<p>quakerstake notes, “Why would a commitment to improving the surrounding community hurt Syracuse in the rankings? One would think that this would make Syracuse more attractive to prospective students”</p>
<p>Response: There is nothing wrong with that if Syracuse had the endowment of that of Harvard. However, they don’t!. They have to build up their endowment and not place funds in places that aren’t going to help the academics and aren’t going to be appreciated by both parents and students alike. Parents and students are the buyers of Syracuse’s product. I see nothing wrong with somewhat adhering to what their buyers want and staying away from what their buys don’t want. This is what makes a business successful.</p>
<p>Haystack, I was just just making a joke, probably a bad one at that. However, endowed chairs can be at almost any level. I am suggesting that they have enough for each chair in order to attract really top people from other schools. This would take in my opinion somewhere between 3-4 million per chair.</p>
<p>Well. I don’t view the presence of poor people as evidence that a city isn’t an idyll for prospective students. What with all the amazing sports events, cafes, bars, live music venues, record shops, bookstores, hiking trails, etc. I’m hardly alone in thinking that Madison and Ann Arbor are among the nation’s greatest college towns, along with Austin and Chapel Hill. I’m pretty sure they have poor people too…some of them are probably married grad students! :)</p>
<p>I find this so ironic. On the law board, you’ve complained vociferously that your son, whom you thought had a lot of other things to offer, couldn’t get into a top tier law school because of his LSAT score. You lamented the fact that the LSAT score seems to trump all when it comes to law school admissions. </p>
<p>Why does it? In large part because LSAT scores are so important in the ranking of law schools. </p>
<p>Now you are saying that the undergrad portion of a college should give merit aid to attract high scoring students so it can protect its ratings in US News. It has the “wrong priorities” if it chooses to give need based aid --to kids who might not be able to afford college without it or would have to take on back breaking loans --rather than merit based aid which will attract those high scoring kids. </p>
<p>With this reasoning, I hope you concede that it’s entirely fair that your son didn’t get into a top law school. After all,according to your logic, the right priority is improving a law school’s ranking by accepting candidates with high LSAT scores and, if necessary giving them merit money, and turning away candidates like your son. Only law schools at the lowest end of the rankings should accept candidates like your son and, of course, he should have to pay sticker price and finance his law school education with high interest private loans, which may limit his choice of future jobs. Or, of course, he could opt not to go to law school at all. </p>
<p>The ONLY factors which should count in admissions to any school of any kind are those which count in the rankings–that seems to be your logic. </p>
<p>What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.</p>
<p>Jonri, if you are going to cite me, at least do it correctly!</p>
<p>I never complained that my son didn’t get into a top school. My complaint was about the LSAT in particular and the extreme use of it in admission to the exclusion of almost everything else. It even is used more strongly than the GPA</p>
<p>While I think rankings are in may ways misleading, they are what they are. In the case of rankings, perceived reality becomes reality for hiring decisions. This is particularly true for law school and might not be as true for undergrad.</p>
<p>In 2010, U.S. News & World Report ranked Syracuse number 55 among undergraduate national universities. In 2012, U.S. News & World Report ranked Syracuse number 62 among undergraduate national universities.[67]</p>
<p>Many of SU’s programs have been nationally recognized for excellence. A 2008 survey in the Academic Ranking of World Universities places Syracuse University in the top 100 world universities in social sciences.[68] The industrial design program is ranked 13th nationally by the same 2009 issue of DesignIntelligence. The School of Architecture’s Bachelor of Architecture program was ranked second nationally in 2010 by the journal DesignIntelligence in its annual edition of “America’s Best Architecture & Design Schools.”</p>
<p>The SI Newhouse School of Public Communications is one of the top ranked in the country and has produced alumni in many fields of broadcasting.[69] The School of Information Studies offers information management and technology courses at the undergraduate level at Syracuse University. Within the school, U.S. News & World Report has ranked the graduate program as the third best in the United States. It also has the top-ranked undergraduate Information Systems program, the second ranked graduate program in Digital Librarianship, and the fourth ranked graduate program in School Library Media.[70] The College of Business Administration was renamed the Martin J. Whitman School of Management in 2003, in honor of SU alumnus and benefactor Martin J. Whitman. The school is home to about 2,000 undergraduate and graduate students. The undergraduate program was ranked No. 39 among business schools nationwide by US News & World Report in 2008. The entrepreneurship program was ranked No. 8 by the US News & World Report in 2008, and No. 13 by both Entrepreneur Magazine and The Princeton Review in 2007. The supply chain management program was ranked No. 10 in the nation by Supply Chain Management Review. Also, the Joseph I. Lubin School of Accounting was named No. 10 in the nation by The Chronicle of Higher Education.[71] The College of Law is ranked #86 nationally, and is ranked in the top 10 by U.S. News and World Report for its trial and appellate advocacy program and is an emerging leader in the relatively novel field of National Security Law.[72] The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs combines social sciences with public administration and international relations. It is ranked as the top graduate school for public affairs in the US.[73] The graduate program of the College of Visual and Performing Art is considered one of the top 50 programs in the US.[74] Project Advance (or SUPA) is a nationally recognized concurrent enrollment program honored by the American Association for Higher Education, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the National Commission on Excellence in Education, and the National Institute of Education.[75]</p>
<p>emilybee, the question is NOT whether Syracuse has been a good school. I have always felt that is was and still is. The question raised in the Chronicle article is whether their current policies will cause a decline in the rankings from where they are today</p>
<p>^^^ It’ll be interesting to watch those numbers as the effect of no merit aid takes over.</p>
<p>Being the parent of a high stat kid, we are not considering any non merit-aid schools (including Ivies - though of course his stats would be more average at some of those). Syracuse was never on my guy’s list (too urban), but Franklin & Marshall was - until he found out they had changed their merit aid policy. He’s not even going to apply.</p>
<p>He does well academically. I have no problem with his being rewarded for it. Many schools out there are worthy academically. It makes no economic sense for us to pay for him to be on X’s “team” when he could be on “Y’s” and not have to pay as much, if at all. The University of Rochester is still on his list…</p>
<p>I think one thing hurting syracuse and other northern universities is the weather. Watching the weather channel and seeing the lake effect snow plumes gives people a strong impression about the area. Having all the employment shift south and west doesn’t help either.</p>
<p>ANother issue that may have been discussed somewhere on these boards is that my perception is that northeastern students are more receptive today than in the past to going to southern state schools, where out of state tuition is much lower than private school tuition. I’m aware of more than a few northeastern students who have ended up at Clemson, South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia Tech,…you name it. Even the kids going to private school are looking more at Washington and Lee, Furman, etc. I think that the kids see the winters as being more people friendly, and the old prejudices about the south are fading as the reality takes hold.</p>
<p>These things present a serious challenge for northeastern private schools. My point is simply that a material portion of what was their natural market is now looking elsewhere. There is some chance that the Chancellors actions are more out of necessity than out of altruism.</p>
<p>From a business standpoint, this might not work out too well. Reduced enrollment means that the school has extra, unused capacity (faculty, staff, buildings, etc.) that it has to maintain, but is not generating revenue from.</p>
<p>Even without intentionally reducing enrollment, the school may have found that it was not able to attract enough of the desired students with merit scholarships (which probably were not competitive with the generous highly selective schools’ need-based aid, nor the initially lower in-state price of many state flagships), but lost a lot of students who could not afford it.</p>
<p>Diversity attracts diversity. If a university does not have a certain amount of persons from a minority group, it will be hard to attract additional quality students from that minority group. I know of one mostly white selective private university that has to give full scholarships away to attract quality African-American students, because they feel so uncomfortable when they visit and don’t see any other African-American students.</p>
<p>Almost every college and university has placed a greater emphasis on need based aid in recent years out of necessity. If they didn’t, they would not only have lost high quality new students, but would have also lost much of their current student body because their families suffered reduced incomes.</p>
<p>Almost every urban university has placed an emphasis in recent years in investing in the surrounding urban neighborhood. Many families do not want to send their children to a city where the nearby downtown is dead, depressing and dangerous. The downtown serves as the “face” of the city and greatly affects the city and region’s reputation.</p>
<p>Also, downtown facilities are often useful to attract part-time grad students, who are profitable to a university.</p>
<p>In addition, downtown facilities often avoid fights with neighbors over expansion plans.</p>