UConn ranked #58 in USNWR

[Hoophound]

It’s related to a lot of factors. A major one effecting Northeastern schools is full time faculty. Due to close proximity, many faculty teach classes at multiple institutions. This is easy in New England. It is well known that professors teach at Brown, Bryant, PC, UConn, Trinity and others depending on the day of the week. That’s just one example. UConn can be hiring Yale professors to teach Tuesday and Thursday in Storrs and get penalized rather than rewarded for it. In places like Gainesville, that just doesn’t happen. Other comparable institutions are just too far away for it.

 

[HobokenHusky]

I don’t love being 18 spots behind Rutgers. Wtf happened

I believe diversity is now a metric, and Rutgers is extremely diverse. Likely helped a good deal.

 

[HobokenHusky]

"Rutgers-New Brunswick placed 40th, tied with the University of Washington and Tufts University. That’s up 15 spots and the first time it broke the top 40, according to U.S. News, which said Rutgers’ benefited from the rankings’ increased emphasis on how well schools did enrolling and graduating students from economically diverse backgrounds“

 

[upstater]

The University of Connecticut made the conscious decision to stop playing to the US news and world report criteria. That drops you in the rankings. The fact that we have jumped up makes me wonder if we have reverse that decision. I believe State support is one of the criteria, so that a university would jump up during a building/ expansion phase.

@upstater knows all the ins and outs of this well. I defer to him if I got any of that wrong.

No one knows the ins and outs. It's all random nonsense.

True story: our new provost decided our school needed to game the system. It's not enough that we have an AAU school with tons of research and support, nationally top ranked depts, my department has an international reputation.

They decided to game things, like under 20 students in classrooms, and a host of other things which mostly didn't make any sense. They spent 3 yrs rearranging the entire university in ways that weren't healhy.

Only for USNWR to arbitrarily announce that it would no longer be using those criteria!!!!!!!

This is the equivalent of someone steering a ship like the Titanic away from an iceberg that's been spotted, only to be told much later on that there are no icebergs anywhere in the north atlantic and that the ship is 1,000 miles off course.

 

[upstater]

The US News rankings are not going to get us an invite to anything.

I suspect they’re not worth much of anything, save marketing, but one school that seems to be making strides is USF. Now in the top 100 somewhere and newly AAU.

Also building a new football stadium on campus.

If you want to know where our next realignment nightmare is going to come from, Tampa is a good guess.

The state has poured all its money into USF's hospital for research, and the hires there have grabbed a lot of grants.

U Miami hospital has a great reputation, but USF is challenging it. Academically though it is not a very good school at all. The last round of AAU expansion is curious because it signals some problems with the organization. Nationally, we've stopped funding research like we used to, so I imagine the game is to add more powerful friends to lobby and approve for more money for research grants.

 

[BGesus4]

rankings are skewed by the straight As on every sec sports team

 

[huskymedic]

For the visual folks…

 

[Punkbo]

For the visual folks…

LOL Nebraska and especially Louisville. Misfits in their own conferences.

 

[HooperScooper]

For the visual folks…

I know this conference realignment stuff has been pretty crazy lately, but when did Johns Hopkins join the B1G? Not too sure their D3 football team could compete there. Lol

 

[mussels]

I know this conference realignment stuff has been pretty crazy lately, but when did Johns Hopkins join the B1G? Not too sure their D3 football team could compete there. Lol

Their Lacrosse team plays in the B1G

 

[UConnRock]

The rankings are a total farce.

If you can go to Harvard, Stanford, Princeton etc. more power to you. Any school from 15 thru 250 is going to be the same thing.

I think 15 is a bit low. I would say anything above 25-30

 

[bazz&boujee]

Hurley on the hot seat?

 

[HooperScooper]

Their Lacrosse team plays in the B1G

Didn't know that. Thanks. I know their lax is D1 but never stopped to think they were in a conference for it.

 

[upstater]

I think 15 is a bit low. I would say anything above 25-30

I would never agree to this. There is such a radical difference between schools. I'm going through this right now with a child looking at colleges, so I'm peeling back the layers and seeing huge differences.

 

[Excalibur]

I would never agree to this. There is such a radical difference between schools. I'm going through this right now with a child looking at colleges, so I'm peeling back the layers and seeing huge differences.

That’s more about personal needs and preferences than the actual content and quality of the education and any advantages that it provides post-graduation. When it comes to that, outside of 12-15 schools, you’re dealing with a commodity.

Best advice to 95% of college-bound high school seniors is to find the cheapest place you’re comfortable and go there.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

The US News rankings are not going to get us an invite to anything.

I suspect they’re not worth much of anything, save marketing, but one school that seems to be making strides is USF. Now in the top 100 somewhere and newly AAU.

Also building a new football stadium on campus.

If you want to know where our next realignment nightmare is going to come from, Tampa is a good guess.

Can you give it a rest? The edge lord act is getting old, and it is exhausting to read your "sky is falling" posts in every thread. You do not have some special insight that no one else has figured out. We all know we are in trouble with realignment. The rest of us just don't feel the need to drop a deuce on every single thread that could be peripherally related to conference alignment.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Curious as to why you would you say Rutgers is surprisingly good academically? Jersey is typically considered to have one of the best public school systems in the country.

That also might explain why UConn is as high as it is.

Did Rutgers jump 15 or so spots?

 

[nelsonmuntz]

They changed the criteria, in part because so many schools stopped playing the games.

I think the "stopped playing the game" was more marketing than anything by the prestige privates in a desperate attempt to remain relevant and justify charging $80,000/year to teach kids about Chaucer and Milton. The state schools have done an excellent job over the last 20 to 40 years, both within the rankings, and in actually providing an excellent, practical education. They were way ahead of the prestige privates in jumping into STEM and business degrees, and now many of the good, and even second and third tier state schools are climbing the rankings and attracting better students because they chose to provide degrees that were useful in the 21st century. The prestige privates openly ridiculed what they called "vocational" degrees right up until they realized they were dead unless they offered Computer Science and majors like it, and now most of them offer Computer Science.

 

[HuskyHawk]

I would never agree to this. There is such a radical difference between schools. I'm going through this right now with a child looking at colleges, so I'm peeling back the layers and seeing huge differences.

I think that comment just takes common sense a bit too far. The basic point is that there is a value component to this that is too often discarded by parents in pursuit of prestige. It's become more about the credential than the education.

You look at departments, most parents don't have that information at all. Faculty is so variable. In some fields, maybe you want the geniuses teaching physics at MIT. But in other areas you have published experts who are crappy teachers, or you end up with grad students (I did for calculus at UConn, couldn't understand a word she said). Nobody is really giving that info to parents that lets them peel back the layers.

But the truth remains, if you or your child is taking out major loans for college, it's almost certainly a mistake. If you are smart enough and poor enough, the Ivy's are free. If you get in to an expensive private or top public and get no aid, it's better to go elsewhere than take out loans. If your family lacks the means to pay, and you don't get merit or significant financial aid, go to the cheapest school or community college and transfer.

 

[kibblesnbits]

I think the "stopped playing the game" was more marketing than anything by the prestige privates in a desperate attempt to remain relevant and justify charging $80,000/year to teach kids about Chaucer and Milton. The state schools have done an excellent job over the last 20 to 40 years, both within the rankings, and in actually providing an excellent, practical education. They were way ahead of the prestige privates in jumping into STEM and business degrees, and now many of the good, and even second and third tier state schools are climbing the rankings and attracting better students because they chose to provide degrees that were useful in the 21st century. The prestige privates openly ridiculed what they called "vocational" degrees right up until they realized they were dead unless they offered Computer Science and majors like it, and now most of them offer Computer Science.

STEM versus Chaucer is not the difference - at least outside the small, premier liberal arts schools. The elite universities recognized that challenge 20 years ago. It wasn’t a coincidence that in the late 200x decade Harvard and Yale upgraded their engineering “faculties” (in other words, they weren’t full schools or colleges within the university but smaller sub-units) to full college status (I.e. the College of Engineering) within 6 months of each other. They now have higher STEM (engineering plus the traditional physical sciences) participation rates than a place like UConn. 48% of recent Harvard grads are in STEM vs. 31% at UConn. What they don’t offer at the undergrad level, except in a few niche instances, are the practical terminal degrees in things like business, nursing & health sciences and education. They expect their students to get grad degrees (MBA, MD, PhD) to participate in those fields.

 

[husky429]

STEM versus Chaucer is not the difference - at least outside the small, premier liberal arts schools. The elite universities recognized that challenge 20 years ago. It wasn’t a coincidence that in the late 200x decade Harvard and Yale upgraded their engineering “faculties” (in other words, they weren’t full schools or colleges within the university but smaller sub-units) to full college status (I.e. the College of Engineering) within 6 months of each other. They now have higher STEM (engineering plus the traditional physical sciences) participation rates than a place like UConn. 48% of recent Harvard grads are in STEM vs. 31% at UConn. What they don’t offer at the undergrad level, except in a few niche instances, are the practical terminal degrees in things like business, nursing & health sciences and education. They expect their students to get grad degrees (MBA, MD, PhD) to participate in those fields.

I'd be curious to know what the Storrs campus v. branch campuses. My wife always had way more STEM majors at Storrs. More labs, wealthier/better academic students, stuff like that.

UConn has an interesting thing with the branch campuses. They use them to look way more diverse than Storrs (Storrs is exceptionally white and wealthy), but I would assume it effects graduation %, STEM participation, etc. negatively.

 

[upstater]

That’s more about personal needs and preferences than the actual content and quality of the education and any advantages that it provides post-graduation. When it comes to that, outside of 12-15 schools, you’re dealing with a commodity.

Best advice to 95% of college-bound high school seniors is to find the cheapest place you’re comfortable and go there.

No, I'm saying the opposite. I'm seeing threadbare staffs with no support at some of these top 150s. I'm seeing stuff I would never ever pay for. Then elsewhere there are powerhouse depts where a kid can get a top notch education.

This is the difference between depts run by people on minimum wage (literally) and depts with staff that have a lifetime of research, knowledge and teaching behind them.

When you got out for dinner, you don't say let's choose between McDonald's and a 4-star, it's all calories anyway

 

[upstater]

I think that comment just takes common sense a bit too far. The basic point is that there is a value component to this that is too often discarded by parents in pursuit of prestige. It's become more about the credential than the education.

You look at departments, most parents don't have that information at all. Faculty is so variable. In some fields, maybe you want the geniuses teaching physics at MIT. But in other areas you have published experts who are crappy teachers, or you end up with grad students (I did for calculus at UConn, couldn't understand a word she said). Nobody is really giving that info to parents that lets them peel back the layers.

But the truth remains, if you or your child is taking out major loans for college, it's almost certainly a mistake. If you are smart enough and poor enough, the Ivy's are free. If you get in to an expensive private or top public and get no aid, it's better to go elsewhere than take out loans. If your family lacks the means to pay, and you don't get merit or significant financial aid, go to the cheapest school or community college and transfer.

I'm seeing adjuncts only at places like Clark University. There is no place in academia where that makes for a viable department or faculty.

Things are grim out there.

I mean, there are colleges and universities hacking their arms off.

This isn't the old days, folks. Things have changed.

 

[upstater]

I think the "stopped playing the game" was more marketing than anything by the prestige privates in a desperate attempt to remain relevant and justify charging $80,000/year to teach kids about Chaucer and Milton. The state schools have done an excellent job over the last 20 to 40 years, both within the rankings, and in actually providing an excellent, practical education. They were way ahead of the prestige privates in jumping into STEM and business degrees, and now many of the good, and even second and third tier state schools are climbing the rankings and attracting better students because they chose to provide degrees that were useful in the 21st century. The prestige privates openly ridiculed what they called "vocational" degrees right up until they realized they were dead unless they offered Computer Science and majors like it, and now most of them offer Computer Science.

No, that's not why it happened. It happened because of the decisions by administrators to prostate themselves to USNWR were causing damage to the schools. And it happened not in the Liebral Arts or the Scienvces, but in the professional schools.

It was Medicine, Business and especially Law that objected to USNWR and opted out.

That's where the changes came in. The things USNWR valued were upending the functioning of Law schools.

 

[Excalibur]

No, I'm saying the opposite. I'm seeing threadbare staffs with no support at some of these top 150s. I'm seeing stuff I would never ever pay for. Then elsewhere there are powerhouse depts where a kid can get a top notch education.

This is the difference between depts run by people on minimum wage (literally) and depts with staff that have a lifetime of research, knowledge and teaching behind them.

When you got out for dinner, you don't say let's choose between McDonald's and a 4-star, it's all calories anyway

If McDonald's and the 4-star were serving the same product . . .

When it comes to education, it's really hard to see the difference in quality of product. Employers certainly don't, with few exceptions in a handful of industries. It's the by-product of making college some overpriced admission ticket to life.