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The new Forbes list of schools was just published, Wofford and Furman were the only 2 SC schools in the top 100 national schools/universities. Clemson and Carolina were both in the mid 100 range. So, considering all of the schools in the country, having 4 schools in the top tier is not bad for a small state.
The good news is that these 4 schools all seem to be improving in awareness, fundraising, academics, research etc....Carolina is setting new records annually for fund raising, applications (the highest in SC), freshman scores, and all other metrics.
It is a magazine ranking but unlike US News, a large part of the methodology is not driven by a popularity contest.
The new Forbes list of schools was just published, Wofford and Furman were the only 2 SC schools in the top 100 national schools/universities. Clemson and Carolina were both in the mid 100 range. So, considering all of the schools in the country, having 4 schools in the top tier is not bad for a small state.
The good news is that these 4 schools all seem to be improving in awareness, fundraising, academics, research etc....Carolina is setting new records annually for fund raising, applications (the highest in SC), freshman scores, and all other metrics.
It is a magazine ranking but unlike US News, a large part of the methodology is not driven by a popularity contest.
the methodology is still a little suspect IMO. I hate using graduation rate as a factor for any level of education. Graduation rates are sometimes the most heavily influenced variables around. Graduation rate can always go in a different direction. The other issue with the graduation rate and Forbes admits this is they say you either graduate in 4 years or we penalize your school. That's basically what they're saying.
Student satisfaction is also suspect as well. Using transfer rates is not good. For all we know a kid left school to move back in and help a sick relative or parent.
the methodology is still a little suspect IMO. I hate using graduation rate as a factor for any level of education. Graduation rates are sometimes the most heavily influenced variables around. Graduation rate can always go in a different direction. The other issue with the graduation rate and Forbes admits this is they say you either graduate in 4 years or we penalize your school. That's basically what they're saying.
Student satisfaction is also suspect as well. Using transfer rates is not good. For all we know a kid left school to move back in and help a sick relative or parent.
Would not disagree, I think most rankings have flaws and are not an indication of success for the student. Using popularity contests and other metrics that could be easily manipulated give a false impression. I have always thought grouping colleges in tiers makes a little more sense but you still get distorted metrics, it just smooths out the distribution of schools.
Just out it here for info but I do think you consistently see these four schools mentioned as the best in SC regardless of the methodology.
If US News had SC ranked highest in state, rather than Clemson, you wouldn't be talking about it is a popularity contest.
I don't believe Wofford and Furman are as good as Clemson. Clemson def. has more name recognition. Just my dumb opinion but I think employers tend to view small private school grads as somewhat sheltered and coddled. Seems like it would be easy to brown-nose your way into better grades at a smaller school. Big public colleges not worried about x number of people dropping out, it is a weed out percentage they account for.
I don't think number of application is a good metric either. Could just be due to the impression it is an easier school to get into compared to others, partly because it takes a lot more students than the other colleges in the state.
Duke and Chapel Hill have a large number of applications, they arE very very selective for admissions. As for Furman and Wofford, you are just wrong about employer perceptions, grades etc....there is no grade inflation at these schools. More name recognition......so does University of Phoenix.
It is convenient for you that a lot of the previous post in this thread have been deleted. From what I remember you came in an immediately posed that the question of the validity of certain rankings wouldn't be an issue if certain rankings had Carolina ranked ahead of USC. That is trying to pick a fight (especially with your history). You then proceeded to say that Furman and Wofford weren't as well thought of as Clemson...that may be the case in the engineering field (which judging from your posts is the only field you feel is worthy of anything) but is in fact not the case when taking the schools as a whole. You may be the only person in SC that I have ever heard of that thinks as a whole Clemson is better than Furman/Wofford.
You make "arguments" based on nothing other than your rather narrow minded view and then resort to personal attacks or repeating the same "arguments" offering nothing to back them up or even defend them adequately. I could really care less what you do, in fact I have blocked many of your usernames so I don't even have to read your nonsense, but it is kind of hard to keep up when you have a new name every week or so.
My personal (or anyone else's) political beliefs have nothing to do with this conversation so I don't even know why you would bring it up (and you did before you went back and edited or deleted your post) but for the record no one in their right minds would ever call me a liberal.
I am done with you, my block list is getting longer.
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