Duke and UNC-CH Rising in National Ranking (Wake Forest: 2014, top schools)

[uncchgrad]

I was surprised to see both Duke and UNC have risen in the national colleges and university rankings.

What's especially surprising is that UNC has seen the biggest bump, up to #22 and tied with Georgetown. That's even higher than UVa, which has always been considered a slightly better performing school. Chancellor Guskiewicz should be commended for guiding this university higher, amidst all of the turmoil over the last several years.

This is all great news for the Triangle. It will continue to help us attract the best and brightest.

[TarHeelNick]

What does it say about me that when I first read the title of this thread I assumed it was in reference to the FBS rankings? (Which is also true and also very rare; for both schools to be ranked in football season)

[CLT4]

US News changed their methodology this year to throw out some factors that benefited private schools against public schools. Like most things with the US News ranking, it will be highly debated.

18% of the old ranking was eliminated: Class size, Alumni giving rates, terminal degree of faculty, and high school standing / rank. Also deprioritized in this year's method was overall graduation rate and spending per student on instruction / research.

New or more weighted factors include: Graduation rates for need-based Pell grant students, whether graduates earn more than high school graduates, first generation graduation rates, debt levels of graduates, citation volume, citation impact, publications, et.

This new method worked in favor of research institutions and public universities that use to get hit hard by the class size weight being 8% and worked against smaller private universities like Wake Forest where class size offset their smaller volume of first generation college students, high tuition (thus debt), and lower volume of research. This caused a surge of public universities. 6 of the top 50 colleges now are University of California campuses for example (Berkley, Los Angeles, Davis, San Diego, Irvine, and Santa Barbara), which historically were hit on the average class size and alumni giving scores versus a Wake Forest or University of Southern California or Tufts, et.

22 of the Top 50 are now public universities.

https://www.usnews.com/education/bes...d-the-rankings

[SFspiderman]

U.S. News has tweaked its methodology over time, but for the most part the top schools have stayed pretty steady. Duke has been ranked between 3 and 12 in every edition since 1984. Did jump from #10 to #7 this year. Last time it was as high as #7 was 2014.

UNC was ranked #9 and #11 in a few of those early mid-'80s surveys, but has been pretty consistently in the #25–30 range for the past 30 years before jumping to #22 this year from #29.

And of course, U.S. News gets a lot of criticism for its rankings, so take all of it with a grain of salt.

[uncchgrad]

Originally Posted by TarHeelNick

What does it say about me that when I first read the title of this thread I assumed it was in reference to the FBS rankings? (Which is also true and also very rare; for both schools to be ranked in football season)

Agreed. To see them both ranked so high in football...don't think i've ever seen that before.

[pierretong1991]

As always, rankings are subjective and are only as good as the metrics behind them.

Both schools are generally well regarded and that's all that matters (also rankings won't tell you how well regarded a school is in a specific subject matter per say)

[uncchgrad]

Originally Posted by pierretong1991

As always, rankings are subjective and are only as good as the metrics behind them.

Both schools are generally well regarded and that's all that matters (also rankings won't tell you how well regarded a school is in a specific subject matter per say)

For a lot of college bound kids, whether these rankings are subjective or not, they definitely do consider such rankings when making college decisions.

If it skews the decisions of at least 50-60% of college bound high schoolers towards the top schools listed in the rankings, then U.S. News & World Reports has done a good job at marketing, regardless of the metrics behind the rankings.

[pierretong1991]

Originally Posted by uncchgrad

For a lot of college bound kids, whether these rankings are subjective or not, they definitely do consider such rankings when making college decisions.

If it skews the decisions of at least 50-60% of college bound high schoolers towards the top schools listed in the rankings, then U.S. News & World Reports has done a good job at marketing, regardless of the metrics behind the rankings.

I'm honestly surprised that's still the case. It was certainly the case when I was in high school but I would have figured that the rise in sources of information on the internet would have led to a shift to other sites of info as well.

[michgc]

Yes, USNews changed their ranking metrics a fair amount this year. Class size, alumni giving rates, class rank, test scores, graduation rate, amt. of spending per student, and educational background of faculty have less significance or no longer matter at all.

Social mobility - Pell Grant recipients and first-generation graduation rates and median earnings are now pretty important. In general, it helped public schools and hurt private schools.

[uncchgrad]

Originally Posted by michgc

Yes, USNews changed their ranking metrics a fair amount this year. Class size, alumni giving rates, class rank, test scores, graduation rate, amt. of spending per student, and educational background of faculty have less significance or no longer matter at all.

Social mobility - Pell Grant recipients and first-generation graduation rates and median earnings are now pretty important. In general, it helped public schools and hurt private schools.

That would certainly help explain things, but i'm not sure how I feel about the revised weighted criteria. Nevertheless, these current rankings are more aligned with my own thinking on the overall performance of the top schools.