UConn drops a spot in the latest US News college rankings (Hartford: chapel, high schools)
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Two years ago, UConn was at #56 among National Universities
Last year, UConn dropped to #63
This year, in the just released rankings, UConn dropped to #64
Budget cuts I would assume have at least partially caused the drop?
It's really hard to evaluate these rankings. For instance, under the heading of "social mobility", they factor in graduation rates for students receiving Pell grants, and there's also a component having to do with first generation students. So, for instance, you could have a non-selective school with low admission criteria and low academic standards that graduates a high proportion of poorly qualified students (you know, students who have a college degree but who can't really read, write, or do simple mathematics very well). That school might move up in the rankings simply because it awards degrees to students who received Pell grants or who are first generation college students.
I was just about to say the same - spot on. Many of these rankings are clickbait. UCONN is a great public university.
It's still a very good school and a good asset to the state, but it is not considered on par with UVa, UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Michigan and most of the University of California schools in terms of public universities.
Yes, the rankings don't mean a lot, just like the top 10 or top 20 high schools in Connecticut don't mean a lot, but they do give people a starting point for reference.
Just like how people relocating to the Hartford area on here looking for good schools on here get referred to Glastonbury, Avon, Simsbury, etc before people refer them to South Windsor, Southington, Granby or similar towns. SW, Southington and Granby have very nice school systems as well, but most responses on here start with Avon, Simsbury, Farmington and Glastonbury.
It's still a very good school and a good asset to the state, but it is not considered on par with UVa, UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Michigan and most of the University of California schools in terms of public universities.
Yes, the rankings don't mean a lot, just like the top 10 or top 20 high schools in Connecticut don't mean a lot, but they do give people a starting point for reference.
Just like how people relocating to the Hartford area on here looking for good schools on here get referred to Glastonbury, Avon, Simsbury, etc before people refer them to South Windsor, Southington, Granby or similar towns. SW, Southington and Granby have very nice school systems as well, but most responses on here start with Avon, Simsbury, Farmington and Glastonbury.
Agreed, UCONN is a great school but overall doesn’t compare to the schools you mentioned.
It's really hard to evaluate these rankings. For instance, under the heading of "social mobility", they factor in graduation rates for students receiving Pell grants, and there's also a component having to do with first generation students. So, for instance, you could have a non-selective school with low admission criteria and low academic standards that graduates a high proportion of poorly qualified students (you know, students who have a college degree but who can't really read, write, or do simple mathematics very well). That school might move up in the rankings simply because it awards degrees to students who received Pell grants or who are first generation college students.
Yep. US News changed their metrics this year so schools with limited diversity get hit. The rankings are now meaningless in many cases. You're better off just doing a rank order of average SAT scores. That at least gives you some sense of the intellectual horsepower of the students sitting in the classroom chairs and the academic load they can likely handle.
An example:
UConn has an average SAT score of 1250. The University of Vermont has an average SAT score of 1259. UVM tumbled to #121 this year on the US News rankings. UConn is #64. Vermont is the 2nd whitest state in the country and has pretty much zero immigrants. The out of state students pay huge tuition and are largely upper middle class from the Northeast Corridor who pay the bills. The horsepower of the students in the two schools are pretty much identical. UVM gets slammed for not being diverse enough. It's not like a tiny state of 630,000 has the spare cash to fund needs-based scholarships for out of state ghetto kids. They have a tough enough time scraping up the money to fund needs-based scholarships for the poor rural (white) Vermonters who go there.
Penn State: SAT 1249, US News Rank #54
American University: SAT 1260, US News Rank #77
Baylor: SAT 1275, US News Rank #79
Drexel: SAT 1260, US News Rank #97
Syracuse: SAT 1255, US News Rank #54
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