<p>I think Tech and UGA are really solid (but still…it’s nice that UGA added all of that stuff, but that won’t necessarily benefit undergrad. education and experience. However, there are awesome things they did like increase their endowment by quite a bit and add freshman seminars. That’s a step in the right direction). And CollegeStu: Gaffes don’t matter to ranking agencies (other than the SAT thing). Harvard (Larry Summers, etc), Yale (sexual assault), and schools like that have had a ridiculous amount and such things never affect the rankings. Berkeley has very serious financial issues and yet is considered solid. I thought Emory would decline slightly (as in, it could have tied us w/Berkeley and G-town at like 21 or something) because of the new numbers and then I realized that SAT scores and stuff, even for enrolled students, are very close, nearly indistinguishable, from the schools tied with us. Emory has always trailed the other top 20s by quite a bit in this category. </p>
<p>For these rankings specifically, it will have to work on that and its retention and graduation numbers (the graduation rate should be a little better I thought. We should maybe try to shoot for 92-93%). At least it’s fairly clear that we don’t necessarily have to have a super low admit rate or super high app. numbers to be successful in it, so much as begin to attract better students, retain, and graduate them. In essence, Emory can aim for a self-selected pool of good applicants to choose from. Unfortunately, it has work to do before it gets to that point. As in, it needs to be clearly offering something different or more academically interesting than many peers and attract students that it usually wouldn’t. Right now, we have things like Human Health major and stuff, but that attracts who we’ve always been attracting. I’m thinking a success in chemistry will help to set a launching pad to at least fix science recruitment. I suppose social science and humanities will have to keep marketing the faculty and success they’ve had and maybe offer scholarships for outstanding applicants that appear as if they may consider humanities/social science. Emory may also want to recruit students with better quantitative backgrounds, or at least those who aren’t afraid to use them (I know we offer little to math, CS, and physics majors but we could at least attract better pre-bus and econ. majors, which would likely help some). </p>
<p>Part of this is a numbers game (the ranking), and part of it is attracting people that don’t just merely look amazing on paper (actually making a better school). Seriously, notice how some schools admissions stats have sky-rocketed, yet the school is generally considered not much different in caliber from schools with lower stats (and some schools with lower stats. are no doubt higher caliber institutions. They take academics and academic rigor much more seriously and are much more than a “playground for smart people” or what we like to call “a great socializing experience”). I think Emory can do it better and shouldn’t go down such a path.</p>