<p>"favors schools with wealthy student bodies? And that those schools tend to be private? "</p>
<p>I have learned here on CC that graduates of privates are all weighed down by 200k in debt, and earning salaries little more than graduates of the better publics. Ergo, they should be LESS able to afford to make donations to their alma maters. ;)</p>
<p>^^hahahaha</p>
<p>Good stuff, b-dad. But the facts are that 50-65% of students at the top privates are full pay, i.e., top ~5% income earners in the US.</p>
<p>a. i have also learned here on CC that it is in fact the full pay families who are worst off - the evil and unfair ways EFCs are calculated, plus socialist taxes, have made college truely unaffordable for folks with 180k to 300k incomes, who are living in most distressing circumstances to pay for the oversold, overhyped, gimmicky top prestige schools</p>
<p>b. At any rate, theres still enough kids not on full pay that it would be hard to get to 90% donation rates with full pays only</p>
<p>c. I am also told here on CC, that the prestige college big loan racket is so huge, its the new bubble, and will endanger the US economy going forward. Could that really be true if over half of all students at such schools are full pay? </p>
<p>;)</p>
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<p>Fair enough, but that skews the number in favor of big research schools even more–further proving my point. Grad students receive much more funding, particuarly for sciences, which would skew this further in favor of major research schools.</p>
<p>
You are just lumping wealthy students with wealthy schools in your argument. Resources and money is important; money always matters. Let us look at Pell Grants (and it is just a coincidence that Cal, UCLA, and Michigan are not listed as the most selected 
): On average it seems pretty well distributed. The California schools are outliers.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.tcf.org/Publications/Education/pellgrant.pdf[/url]”>http://www.tcf.org/Publications/Education/pellgrant.pdf</a></p>
<p>So all schools, private or public, need to maintain value.</p>
<p>It was just a matter of time before the rankings reflected USC’s growing reputation, based largely upon SATs and GPAs that have eclipsed those of all of the University of California branches for at least 10 years, as reported by the Los Angeles Times and each institution. USC’s undergraduate student body is arguably the “smartest” in California per capita, next to the Big “S” to the north. USC’s admissions rate is only about 20 percent and half the student body comes from out of state. The most significant measure, however, of its growing national reputation and “prestige” factor is that USC is one of only two California institutions that compete for students from the East Coast’s very finest prep schools. Check out the matriculation rates for USC at Phillips Academy, Choate, Exeter, and the other elite prep schools in the East and USC is the only school in California besides “S” that attracts them in large numbers. That fact alone, IMO, is the reason USC has risen as quickly as it has in the past 20 years.</p>
<p>Some colleges are urging alumni to donate anything, even if it’s $5 or less (a plea this cheapskate is happy to comply with). With an eye towards the USNews criteria, alumni donations have taken on the values of the singing frog…more important that it’s done at all than that it’s done well.</p>
<p>Haha, this must be a first … the public schools fanboys are complaining about the rankings BEFORE the release date. </p>
<p>Ah the nostalgia of better days! </p>
<p>Oh great Bob Morse, please drop all those pesky numbers, and let our two thousand experts continue to rule the day as they did in the eighties. Please let those great minds continue to fill the survey --or pretend to do-- without scrutiny and in total impunity. Please let this great group of experts follow the lead of those who complete the survey with as much integrity as the people at those most honorable people at Wisconsin or Clemson. </p>
<p>Yes, if you let us manipulate, cheat, and lie, please make it count more than that paltry 25 percent. As you can tell, it ain’t working too well.</p>
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<p>It’s not like sabermetrics. Sabermetricians don’t assign each player a number based on what they believe are important criteria. The goal is to describe what actually happens in detail and objectively determine what helps a team win.</p>
<p>Objective measures are nice, as long as the measurements are reliable and the things that are being measured actually matter.</p>
<p>“Objective measures are nice, as long as the measurements are reliable and the things that are being measured actually matter.”</p>
<p>Might we say that just because we assign numbers to things, making them quantitative, it doesn’t make the data objective or relevant.</p>
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<p>When someone removed Peer Assessment from rankings, they found that the publics slipped.</p>
<p>I think that publics have no way of keeping up with private universities based on the facts of poor funding, larger class sizes, and the necessity of having to enroll relatively subpar instate students. Publics have great faculty and are great places for research, but not as great places for undergrad education. Now, if it is better for your buck, that is a different issue.</p>
<p>“Might we say that just because we assign numbers to things, making them quantitative, it doesn’t make the data objective or relevant.”</p>
<p>Exactly right Schmaltz. People like Xiggi think the objective numbers are accurate. I say they can be easily manipulated because there isn’t anyone to enforce honesty.</p>
<p>“When someone removed Peer Assessment from rankings, they found that the publics slipped.”</p>
<p>Well I’m shocked! You mean all of those public schools with superior academic faculties and breadth/depth of programs dropped when we only consider manipulated objective numbers that many private schools use to game the ratings? How could that be?</p>
<p>“People like Xiggi think the objective numbers are accurate.”</p>
<p>How do YOU possibly know what I think?</p>
<p>“How do YOU possibly know what I think?”</p>
<p>When somebody blows his own horn 8,804 times, it’s not hard to tell what tune he’s playing.</p>
<p>Unless one is hearing challenged.</p>
<p>… to US News’ rankings:</p>
<ol>
<li>As Smaltz said, donate whatever one can, and pump up that giving rate to 80%, even if youre a new grad searching for a job into November.</li>
</ol>
<p>The good news is if UCLA is top-10 and receivess ~ $300M/year based on, what, 14% alumni giving rate, that would seemingly bode well if the administration ever gets the rate to a respectable %. </p>
<p>And UCLA is fairly passive. A fairly recent MBA I know was harassed by Harvard the precise minute he graduated. </p>
<p>And only fairly recently, have public schools tried to build endowments at rates on par with privates.</p>
<p>2a. Super-score & encourage retakes. </p>
<p>UC doesnt super-score.</p>
<p>Retakes are harder on the poor, let alone being able to afford a personal a top-grade prep course, let alone an SAT tutor to pump up Buffy’s scores. </p>
<p>2b. Lower the floor, or have no floor at all from which to admit students. Search for those high-SAT scorers, at expensive prep schools, regardless of class standing, etc. Social good, who cares? </p>
<p>UC has a pre-qual floor. </p>
<p>The highest private-school representation at UC is at UCLA or Cal, at, what, 20-25%? </p>
<p>2c. See 2b, Encourage all applicants w/o floors, to lower that acceptance rate, even if your yield tanks.</p>
<p>I would mention the school, but in deference to fallenchemist…</p>
<p>2d. Wait lists to sully the calculation of acceptance rates and to keep them low.</p>
<p>UC incorporated wait-lists in admissions, with UC Davis having the largest wait list among the UCs, because its yield has been extremely low.</p>
<p>Too many universities to mention try to work the acceptance-rate variable by having wait-lists, including some of the top universities in the nation. But of course, a lot of these universities have students willing to wait. </p>
<p>2e. Early acceptances to drive up the yield, to lower the acceptance rate.</p>
<p>Unrelated to most schools that have EA, I actually think UC schools should do this and encourage early enrollment becuase most Ucs are on quarter system, which means the applicant could graduate early, start school in January of what would be his/her senior year, and have two quarters under his/her belt when most are just finishing high school. </p>
<p>Most schools have EA to lower its acceptance rate and increase their yields. </p>
<p>2e. Hide legacies, special admits in the lower 25th percentile. Be as non-transparent as possible.</p>
<p>Back-door admits, ie, legacies, special admits to those whose parents contributed large bucks to the university, are audited carefully by UC, as UCLA was dinged by the public via the LA TImes.</p>
<p>UC is the most transparent university in the world. UCLA is the most transparent of the UCs.</p>
<p>2f. International students: Their SATs shouldnt be included in the totals.</p>
<p>See abovej, 3… UC includes all students, special admits, athletes, internationals in the computation of stats at each individual high school in CA for each of the UC campuses. </p>
<p>Essentially , a lot of what UC does runs counter to working the US News variables.</p>
<p>If I am incorrect, please correct, and add if anything can be added.</p>
<p>The UC’s don’t include Community College Transfer statistics, and they are a sizable group. I am not sure about other publics but it would be the same problem. UVA takes quite a few kids from CC as transfers too.</p>
<p>^^^That’s right. Who really cares what students did academically when they actually attended college? I mean how could they possibly be worthy of attending a quality institution? It is so much better to only admit those students who could afford to prep for a few hour test when they were 17-18 year olds. Those same students could take them over and over again until they got their desired superscored results. That’s the way it should be, right?</p>
<p>So exactly why is there an eleven page thread debating whether two top schools deserve to be ranked higher? WHy does it even matter? They are both great schools that even if they were ranked lower people would still attend. Rankings are not be all end alll…</p>