OT: UConn jumps ahead of Syracuse and Pittsburgh in US News

[upstater]

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/page+7

UConn jumped into the 50s for the first time, now at 57.

Mind you, I think these rankings are bunk. Some of the schools in the 40s, 50s and 60s are highly questionable.

Another thing: Boston U. jumped from 51 to 41 a year after landing in the AAU. A 10 point bump. This goes to show you the amount of weight the rankings give to reputation. They are heavily tilted toward reputation, and the Presidents are the ones who fill out those questionnaires. In other words, it's a ranking completed by people who are not the most tuned in.

 

[upstater]

More interesting stuff:

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandr...nal-universities/high-school-counselor/page+4

22.5% of the ranking comes from how high school guidance counselors at the best high schools rate the universities. When you look at the list, you see why there are such discrepancies in the final rankings.

 

[Dove]

C'mon, you're dwelling on the negative. UConn is #19 for National Public Universities.

http://www.courant.com/news/educati...lleges-universities-pg,0,1042323.photogallery

 

[IMind]

More interesting stuff:

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/high-school-counselor/page 4

22.5% of the ranking comes from how high school guidance counselors at the best high schools rate the universities. When you look at the list, you see why there are such discrepancies in the final rankings.

Heh... that seems a bit arbitrary... my high school guidance counselor had a tenious grasp on this kind of thing.

 

[Sportsman5]

I believe Penn State also jumped up quite a bit. The big research Universities definitely do very well even if their acceptance rate and caliber of undergraduate student measured by test scores and grades aren't too impressive. That bodes well for UConn. High school students and parents DEFINITELY weight this ranking a lot. I went to a high school that had a very competitive environment when it came to colleges and almost everyone used U.S. news and world report as one of their main sources when researching schools. I'm assuming that trend has continued.

 

[upstater]

I believe Penn State also jumped up quite a bit. The big research Universities definitely do very well even if their acceptance rate and caliber of undergraduate student measured by test scores and grades aren't too impressive. That bodes well for UConn. High school students and parents DEFINITELY weight this ranking a lot. I went to a high school that had a very competitive environment when it came to colleges and almost everyone used U.S. news and world report as one of their main sources when researching schools. I'm assuming that trend has continued.

Usually the acceptance rates at big research schools are lower than at the big private schools. The SAT scores are higher at the publics as well. The caliber of student should be better. There are standout big institutions like Northwestern, NYU and BYU with high SATs but for the most part, you'll find the acceptance rates at around 50% and the SATs in the 1200s.

There's no doubt USNews is used. The savvier students though look at departmental rankings if they have an inkling of what they want to do.

 

[UConn3432]

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandr...kings/national-universities/a-plus?int=a557e6
HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHHAHAHAHA

 

[Sportsman5]

More interesting stuff:

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/high-school-counselor/page 4

22.5% of the ranking comes from how high school guidance counselors at the best high schools rate the universities. When you look at the list, you see why there are such discrepancies in the final rankings.

tied with a ton of other schools at 69. Within a few years UConn will easily make the top 50 for reputation. For example, UMass Amherst is tied for 52. Being from Massachusetts I can guarantee that not a single person I have ever spoken to thinks that UMass is a better school than UConn. Most would give a clear advantage to UConn.

 

[UConn3432]

another gem. cuse and providence are the top A+ schools for B students.
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/a-plus
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandr...s/rankings/regional-universities-north/a-plus

full disclosure i went to miami

 

[Sportsman5]

Usually the acceptance rates at big research schools are lower than at the big private schools. The SAT scores are higher at the publics as well. The caliber of student should be better. There are standout big institutions like Northwestern, NYU and BYU with high SATs but for the most part, you'll find the acceptance rates at around 50% and the SATs in the 1200s.

There's no doubt USNews is used. The savvier students though look at departmental rankings if they have an inkling of what they want to do.

I understand there are a lot of things that can affect acceptance rates so put that aside. However, I think that top employers want to know that the average student at a school had high SAT scores and Grades out of highschool. This reinforces their college resume. If I have the chance to hire a student from Lehigh or Penn State and all things are about equal I will go with the person from Lehigh. However, Penn State is ranked higher. This often only applies to the most prestigious industries and firms though. That being said, those are the places that are most desirable to work. There are a million factors to consider and every individual employer or grad school will view things differently.

 

[upstater]

tied with a ton of other schools at 69. Within a few years UConn will easily make the top 50 for reputation. For example, UMass Amherst is tied for 52. Being from Massachusetts I can guarantee that not a single person I have ever spoken to thinks that UMass is a better school than UConn. Most would give a clear advantage to UConn.

U. Rochester is somehow at #32 or so but in guidance counselor world they are like BYU or Marquette!!!!

 

[upstater]

I understand there are a lot of things that can affect acceptance rates so put that aside. However, I think that top employers want to know that the average student at a school had high SAT scores and Grades out of highschool. This reinforces their college resume. If I have the chance to hire a student from Lehigh or Penn State and all things are about equal I will go with the person from Lehigh. However, Penn State is ranked higher. This often only applies to the most prestigious industries and firms though. That being said, those are the places that are most desirable to work. There are a million factors to consider and every individual employer or grad school will view things differently.

I was comparing the publics with schools of decent size. Lehigh is teeny. There are so many more students at PSU that the law of averages will drive down overall scores. That's why a savvy employer should look at things like individual scores and programs. Every state university these days has an honors college where the average SAT is 1500 and the students who enroll have turned down Ivy league schools. It's happening more and more. In the past, I would've been inclined to agree with you.

Public education is going to sweep away the vast majority of the privates IF someone decides to fund it. That's a big IF.

 

[upstater]

Syracuse, Clark, Baylor and Marquette are in a danger zone when you look at those numbers. Lower average SATs and high acceptance rates. It signals that eventually students will stop coming. One way to nip this in the bud is to stop hiring professors and downsize, as all 4 schools have room to do that. This will be detrimental to education but it will counterintuitively increase their rankings; they'll go up in USNews&WP just as the quality of instruction is dropping. But hey, that's how things work these days.

A school like UConn, on the other hand, is expanding, increasing its reputation, but when it comes to the hard numbers that USNews emphasizes (acceptance rate and average SAT), the decision to expand can only hurt it in the rankings unless its offset by a gain in reputation.

 

[UConnJim]

Syracuse, Clark, Baylor and Marquette are in a danger zone when you look at those numbers. Lower average SATs and high acceptance rates. It signals that eventually students will stop coming. One way to nip this in the bud is to stop hiring professors and downsize, as all 4 schools have room to do that. This will be detrimental to education but it will counterintuitively increase their rankings; they'll go up in USNews&WP just as the quality of instruction is dropping. But hey, that's how things work these days.

A school like UConn, on the other hand, is expanding, increasing its reputation, but when it comes to the hard numbers that USNews emphasizes (acceptance rate and average SAT), the decision to expand can only hurt it in the rankings unless its offset by a gain in reputation.

Good public universities are gaining big time vs middle of pack privates in attracting students. Why? Cost. If you are a Connecticut kid and can pay annual tuition and fees of $12k at UCONN or $41k at Syracuse, which would you choose? The cost issue is even more important if you plan on going to grad school.

 

[Sportsman5]

I was comparing the publics with schools of decent size. Lehigh is teeny. There are so many more students at PSU that the law of averages will drive down overall scores. That's why a savvy employer should look at things like individual scores and programs. Every state university these days has an honors college where the average SAT is 1500 and the students who enroll have turned down Ivy league schools. It's happening more and more. In the past, I would've been inclined to agree with you.

Public education is going to sweep away the vast majority of the privates IF someone decides to fund it. That's a big IF.

top employers don't have the time to sift through a ton of resumes from big public schools. In fact, some will just throw them away without even reading them. To give you an example of the reality of the situation. I know of someone who gave his boss 3 resumes for a position. One from Harvard, one from Dartmouth and one from Villanova. the boss got mad at the person for giving him the one from Villanova because in the bosses words he was wasting his time. Villanova is a solid school like UConn, but it is not seen as very close to top tier. If goldman sachs gets 200 resumes from UConn they most likely won't even consider them unless the person from UConn has a connection. If you are in a position where you must hire say 8 people for entry level positions in the next 3 months and you get an average of 150 resumes per position, than the easiest thing to do is to sort through them and pick out only the resumes of people who went to top schools. Obviously when you are talking about hiring for an executive position or a very high up engineering position it is a lot different. At that point there are other markers to weed out applications.

 

[jibsey]

Where we didn't jump ahead of them is the athletic conference we're in. Uconn is harder to get into than a lot of used to be name brand schools based on their upgraded investment and cost to students but it even though we are heads and shoulders better academically than many members of major conferences, it didn't mean squat for us when conference realignment was going down.

 

[upstater]

Good public universities are gaining big time vs middle of pack privates in attracting students. Why? Cost. If you are a Connecticut kid and can pay annual tuition and fees of $12k at UCONN or $41k at Syracuse, which would you choose? The cost issue is even more important if you plan on going to grad school.

This is definitely the trend. The Q is, will it continue? At some point, gutting public school funding is going to bring back the old questions for people that have the money.

 

[upstater]

top employers don't have the time to sift through a ton of resumes from big public schools. In fact, some will just throw them away without even reading them. To give you an example of the reality of the situation. I know of someone who gave his boss 3 resumes for a position. One from Harvard, one from Dartmouth and one from Villanova. the boss got mad at the person for giving him the one from Villanova because in the bosses words he was wasting his time. Villanova is a solid school like UConn, but it is not seen as very close to top tier. If goldman sachs gets 200 resumes from UConn they most likely won't even consider them unless the person from UConn has a connection. If you are in a position where you must hire say 8 people for entry level positions in the next 3 months and you get an average of 150 resumes per position, than the easiest thing to do is to sort through them and pick out only the resumes of people who went to top schools. Obviously when you are talking about hiring for an executive position or a very high up engineering position it is a lot different. At that point there are other markers to weed out applications.

It depends on what your definition of "top employer" is. When you see job recruiting at a place like Michigan, you see massive corporations hiring kids like a herd of cattle. There's an annex set-up with thousands of interviewers at tables, and half those kids land a job on that day. Goldman Sachs is still practically a boutique place by comparison.

 

[B1GEast]

Non of these rankings matter unless you have a good football team, just ask WVU and Louisville.

 

[jibsey]

Non of these rankings matter unless you have a good football team, just ask WVU and Louisville.

correct, and at some particular future point I can't help but wishfully think that it will make a difference for our conference situation. There's plenty of mediocre football in the ACC.

 

[ctchamps]

Non of these rankings matter unless you have a good football team, just ask WVU and Louisville.

This is a limited viewpoint. Think B!Ger. Maryland and Rutgers were taken into that conference and neither is a major player in football currently. There are other parameters.

Cuse and Pitt were taken and both have been playing poorly in football. Perhaps it was the result of JC being close to retirement that was the factor.

UConn's best chance will be more conference realignment. The football program will certainly have to improve, but UConn can make a case for itself if KO proves himself. There is one other play.

If Fox gets the upper hand in the B!G negotiations, then ESPN is is the dark about what that conference is planning. They could "encourage" the ACC to consider UConn. Or the ACC, not having the ability to consult ESPN about what is going on in the B!G, may make a move without ESPN's advice. But to make this happen UConn needs to show it is academically on par with the B!G's standards. If UConn is rapidly approaching the academic standard of the B!G, which is upstaters contention, it removes the barrier to the B!G.

So from a fans limited perspective (sports are all that matters) the information upstater is presenting is relevant. From my perspective as an alumnus I have mixed feelings since I'm a graduate of both UConn and Bucknell.

 

[TheRogers]

Schools ranked lower than UCONN. We're getting there....

 

[ctchamps]

View attachment 3689
Schools ranked lower than UCONN. We're getting there....

I encourage you to listen to the SH interview on NPR. UConn will rapidly shoot up ahead of many of these universities. Under B!G in your chart somebody put Neb at 12 when it should have been Northwestern.

 

[CTGoonie]

Good public universities are gaining big time vs middle of pack privates in attracting students. Why? Cost. If you are a Connecticut kid and can pay annual tuition and fees of $12k at UCONN or $41k at Syracuse, which would you choose? The cost issue is even more important if you plan on going to grad school.

Is Uconn "only" $12k a year for in-state? I thought it was much higher.

 

[TheRogers]

I encourage you to listen to the SH interview on NPR. UConn will rapidly shoot up ahead of many of these universities. Under B!G in your chart somebody put Neb at 12 when it should have been Northwestern.

Thanks. Updated!