it would require a change in USNews criteria to ever get NEU that high. As we have noted (and debated) on cc for many years, the largest single component of the prestige rankings is the Peer Assessment score, and quite frankly, schools with large vocational programs – like coops – are not considered as highly as those schools with major liberal arts and research programs, at least by those who vote the PA.
It’s cool to be “different” and “controversial” but don’t expect to be rewarded for it by those in the “academy”.
Is it the students or is it the faculty that make a school elite?
Many state schools have a slew of Nobel Prizes to their credit but relatively “weak/average” student populations because their mandate is to educate their states’ students.
Meanwhile, there are ever more - given the increase in demand for higher ed while supply is relatively inelastic - private schools with little or no research cachet or major international awards earned by students or faculty, who are moving up the USNews rankings because they are increasingly selective.
It begs the obvious question:
Is academic prestige more rightly dependent upon research/awards/robust grad programs, or is it more dependent upon student quality?
At the UG level, I think it is more about the students than the faculty. Or, put it in another way: right or wrong, the society grants the prestige to the student body more than to the faculty/researchers, even though the faculty at both places are definitely more capable than the students anywhere in general.
It is no longer a secret that many faculty at many state schools are comparable to their counterpart at many elite privates (especially private LACs) in their academic capability. It is the AVERAGE quality (say, as measured by their average SAT score) of the student population at these two places that is more different, as compared to the differences of the faculty at these two places. But the reason for this disparity of the student body as a whole is because of the purpose of the school, as you said. It is really not the school’s or faculty’s fault.
NEU brings in a fraction of the research dollars that BU does (probably a quarter as much). It is not a true research university, and I think you need that to even play the elite game. I don’t consider either school elite, but I think that’s what being in Boston does – lots of competition for elite status around here.
When you game the system purposely like Northeastern has its a mirage. Heavily recruit internstional full pay students and tell them not to supply test scores (because they are typically low) that’s 17% of your enrolled students and then take your lowest full pay domestic students and start them in the spring semester because those test scores don’t count towards the ranking.
So effectively you wiped out for ranking purposes the bottom 25% (at least) test takers. So now what should be the 25-50% of your test takers becomes your bottom 25% for ranking purposes. The school has not changed at all. But your test scores look a world better.
However, when Money magazine scores the relative outputs for colleges, Northeastern scores not anywhere in elite range, instead well towards the bottom where probably they have always been.
@ClarinetDad16
I absolutely agree w you that NEU is gaming the rankings. NEU has openly stated as much-- there’s no secret. But I was just pointing out that, test scores don’t contribute much to the rankings formula.
TomSrofBoston, life-of-the-mind folks don’t concern themselves with the leg up NEU students get when they search for their first job. Only the elite can afford to think so. I think you can sense this, though.
While I don’t think NEU is elite, I don’t think it’s all smoke and mirrors either. From my brother’s experience there, I can tell that they have either recruited extremely motivated students, are doing a lot to motivate them and provide opportunities for growth, or both. From his descriptions of career advising, it’s several notches above that which I got at NYU. He is in one of the lowest income brackets and has no problem affording it as they’ve been extremely generous. He’s extremely grateful and makes the most of it, and finds that he’s in good company in that regard. He toured BU at the same time and found it so underwhelming in comparison, he didn’t even apply.
From my friends’ reports, schools like Yale and Duke are able to pay generous stipends for summer internships, with an application process that is largely a formality. I think that piece is missing in the schools that are several notches below, like NEU/NYU/BU.
If NEU is not providing an experience that the top students they lure in really want, this game will only last a few years maybe a decade.
If NEU is becoming a better school, it will likely be able to stay where it is (I don’t think it can go higher, since other schools have more claim to being elite through research or prestige or history or other things). Being in Boston with some very heavy hitting competition does not really help them to have a shot at #25, and if you look at the top 30, that is a tough crowd to beat.
Do elite students need co-op experience or should they be concentrating on learning their major ? Why not just finish your degree and make a real salary somewhere ? The workplace is not that complex, but I don’t think companies want to train people in basic skills (in engineering, math, science, etc). The co-ops do have conveniently lower salaries. Most elite schools also send a lot of folks on to higher degrees, the co-op seems a waste for those people.
Also, if you really hate the high endowment top 20 schools, here is a new player in the game … let them show if they are really a viable competitor, maybe they can take some students and alumni away from the top 20 … They only have a measly 600M and are likely spending a lot on all these initiatives. Or they are actually self supporting ?
I disagree. Preftige is all about research and publications, at least for Unis. (I have no idea how faculty is compared at top LACs). With top faculty, yields top rankings, which then begets more top students. (And that is why 'SC can’t go higher; buying greater undergrad test scores with merit money does nothing for faculty pubs.)
My opinion is that a school becomes more elite by successfully attracting more elite students, and then by publicizing itself. This is what I think Wash U did, quite successfully. I think it helps if the school is already relatively elite on a regional basis–Wash U, Duke, Emory, and Vanderbilt are examples of schools that have done this more or less successfully.
Also, you can tell a school is elite when kids on CC start posting “should I even bother to apply” threads.
@GMTplus7 gaming the system rather than holistically improving the university is foolish. One would have to be a fool to pick their school based on rankings from a failed magazine now website. Bringing all schools down to a score to compare Penn State to Yeshiva in and of itself is kind of silly. To say Northeastern is better than UT Austin or Miami because of a couple of points in this one rank is worthless.
There are many rankings out there that judge output, ROI instead of the ways US News does. Northeastern fails and falls to a very low rank in those other measures of quality. So by gaming one rank is NEU magically and mystically now a top school? Or by its failure on output in other ranks is it a very weak school? Is it still the commuter school it always was until the late 1980s?
No, Northeastern is and has been for recent memory a school in the middle that serves a very distinct purpose. It’s co-op program is strong, and for full Pays wanting a big city experience NEU makes a lot of sense. There are a lot of choices out there and Northeastern has its niche. Time to give up gaming the system and truly focus in on quality.
It’s a rational thing for schools to do. Once the USNWR fairy godmother gives them a higher magical rank, then the school can get into a virtuous cycle of improved student pool, improved finances, improved reputation.
“My opinion is that a school becomes more elite by successfully attracting more elite students, and then by publicizing itself. This is what I think Wash U did, quite successfully. I think it helps if the school is already relatively elite on a regional basis–Wash U, Duke, Emory, and Vanderbilt are examples of schools that have done this more or less successfully.”
I think this is exactly right. WashU and Vanderbilt were already known as attracting elite students – just those elite students in their backyards as opposed to a nationwide student body. I think there is a world of difference between WashU expanding beyond “really smart St. Louisans” and Vanderbilt expanding beyond “really smart Nashvilleans” to “really smart people from all over,” and a school that wasn’t historically known for having really smart students.
“An up & coming school has finally “arrived” when an alumnus gives it a 100 million dollar donation the school doesn’t really need.”
I partially agree with this. Schools which were heretofore considered very fine regional schools benefited from a great rise in notoriety upon receipt of a substantial financial gift. This is what happened with Emory University in Atlanta after R. Woodruff’s enormous donation in the early 1980s. Emory was long thought to be a Methodist aristocrat college throughout the early and mid-twentieth century. The Woodruff gift significantly boosted its national profile and perceived prestige, as did Coca-Cola CEO Goiezta’s gift to the Emory business school years later. As for state universities, for example the U of Washington has always been excellent and included in the group of outstanding public schools (Wisconsin, Michigan, California-Berkeley, Illinois, Minnesota-TC) as regards STEM. When it comes to STEM research dollars, Washington is a powerhouse. After billionaire Paul Allen’s gift to the UW a few years ago, ordinary folks from other regions of the country began to notice the UW.
IMO, its a chicken and egg problem. Methinks you need to go back a generation (or two).
WashU, Vandy and Duke had plenty of prestige-- in other words research and faculty – in their backyards; they just went national with student recruitment. They were already well known in the academic academy, if not by the masses.
USC, on the other hand, was not much more than a rich kid’s school in which students could literally drive up to campus on the first day, apply, register and and go to class. In contrast to those above, USC was well known by the masses – Coach John Mckay – but not highly thought of by the academy.