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Most Bothersome Wake Forest Development in the last 12 months? Pit/Tunnels Adjace

If it is of any value, the new Wake USNWR ranking is close to the ranking it has received from Forbes the past several years.

The world has changed in the 21st century and so have the values to a quality education. How well does Wake Forest prepare its students to succeed in today's job market? How relevent are the courses of study to the needs of the 21st century? How specific are the skills they develop? Is the student population representative of American society? There are many questions the university needs to address to become more relevant to the criteria Forbes and USNWR now employ in their rankings. The old criteria that has been eliminated by Forbes and USNWR need not disappear from Wake Forest, but the goal posts did change. For Wake Forest to return to its past rankings, it must address its present shortcomings. The ability to attract students from households able to afford the exorbitant costs of attendance makes good financial sense. That does not ensure that the education it provides will be considered as highly as it has in the past.
 
The professors everywhere these days are qualified. The academic job market is pathetic. Class size matters a ton…for undergrad experience. With that said, I had a bunch of shitty profs at Wake. There are great and bad profs everywhere. There is no way to quantify that. With the shift in academia, it makes some sense to qualify research output. Citations is a really stupid way but it’s being done by non-academics. We should be #1 in undergrad education though.
 
Coming from a student perspective I just don't really think all of this is as deep as some people (and a lot of other students here) are making it out to be. Sure it's frustrating and it feels reductive being compared to the academics of TAMU, UGA and VT, but at the end of the day it's just an arbitrary ranking. Wake is still Wake. We're still a school that has great academics regardless of what some number made up with some biased algorithm says. The changes in ranking, to me, are more of an indictment on US News itself as opposed to anything going on here. It isn't the end of the world. I'm still getting a damn good education here compared to a lot of other places and that's fine by me.
 
spritethr said:
Coming from a student perspective I just don't really think all of this is as deep as some people (and a lot of other students here) are making it out to be. Sure it's frustrating and it feels reductive being compared to the academics of TAMU, UGA and VT, but at the end of the day it's just an arbitrary ranking. Wake is still Wake. We're still a school that has great academics regardless of what some number made up with some biased algorithm says. The changes in ranking, to me, are more of an indictment on US News itself as opposed to anything going on here. It isn't the end of the world. I'm still getting a damn good education here compared to a lot of other places and that's fine by me.
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To you that's the case, I get that. You know Wake Forest. However, 1000s of the best 13-17 year olds will now never get to know Wake Forest. Will some venture down the last into the 40s? Sure, of course, they will know someone who knew someone. However, thousands and thousands of the best of the best will now not even have us on their list. I am not saying they will reject us--they just will not even look at us. It doesn't matter what spin we put on this, those that matter will not ever hear the spin since we are now not even on their college list.
 
BlackjackMc said:
If it is of any value, the new Wake USNWR ranking is close to the ranking it has received from Forbes the past several years.

The world has changed in the 21st century and so have the values to a quality education. How well does Wake Forest prepare its students to succeed in today's job market? How relevent are the courses of study to the needs of the 21st century? How specific are the skills they develop? Is the student population representative of American society? There are many questions the university needs to address to become more relevant to the criteria Forbes and USNWR now employ in their rankings. The old criteria that has been eliminated by Forbes and USNWR need not disappear from Wake Forest, but the goal posts did change. For Wake Forest to return to its past rankings, it must address its present shortcomings. The ability to attract students from households able to afford the exorbitant costs of attendance makes good financial sense. That does not ensure that the education it provides will be considered as highly as it has in the past.
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I think this hits on the key issue- what is the purpose of a college education? Is it to prepare students to succeed in the job market? Or is it to provide a place for students to grow and develop intellectually?
 
BlackjackMc said:
If it is of any value, the new Wake USNWR ranking is close to the ranking it has received from Forbes the past several years.

The world has changed in the 21st century and so have the values to a quality education. How well does Wake Forest prepare its students to succeed in today's job market? How relevent are the courses of study to the needs of the 21st century? How specific are the skills they develop? Is the student population representative of American society? There are many questions the university needs to address to become more relevant to the criteria Forbes and USNWR now employ in their rankings. The old criteria that has been eliminated by Forbes and USNWR need not disappear from Wake Forest, but the goal posts did change. For Wake Forest to return to its past rankings, it must address its present shortcomings. The ability to attract students from households able to afford the exorbitant costs of attendance makes good financial sense. That does not ensure that the education it provides will be considered as highly as it has in the past.
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Good post - it’s a value question for me. Yeah Wake is great but is it $200-300k better than UNC? Not even close (unfortunately).
 
It seem finding ways to make Wake affordable to more bright students from more modest economic backgrounds would both enhance the educational milieu and modern ranking algorithm standing.
 
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Wake Forest alums think it matters whether every Professor has a doctorate and that 30 students are listening to a one sided lecture rather than 80.

The rest of the world thinks it matters what income your graduates earn from the skills they learn and also whether the University has cutting edge researchers.

This sort of is what it is. We’ve chosen our old school values. America doesn’t share them. We haven’t acclimated, and now say that we will not even try.

We are choosing not to be a top ranked University. We think the rest of the world is nuts. Yet our graduates must venture into it. Prayers that they they find more success than the last generation of Wake Forest graduates found.
 
I don't even know what "we've chosen our old school values. America doesn't share them" even means. That entire paragraph is just a word salad of saying nothing at all (minus maybe the first sentence, which is clearly factually incorrect, but at least makes an assertion I suppose).

I am pretty sure the rankings indicate the opposite of what DR is arguing. We fell because we are not as economically diverse as other schools in the rankings. I surely don't think he is arguing Wake is "anti-woke" and trying to only get rich, wealthy people into the school. Maybe it's bizzaro world and DR is the WOKE one saying we DO need to be more economically diverse?!? In which case, I agree!
 
One more thing. I agree if you live in NC and get into Chapel Hill, it’s nearly impossible to argue value, but most states don’t have a top ranked public university that is affordable.
 
donaldross said:
Wake Forest alums think it matters whether every Professor has a doctorate and that 30 students are listening to a one sided lecture rather than 80.

The rest of the world thinks it matters what income your graduates earn from the skills they learn and also whether the University has cutting edge researchers.

This sort of is what it is. We’ve chosen our old school values. America doesn’t share them. We haven’t acclimated, and now say that we will not even try.

We are choosing not to be a top ranked University. We think the rest of the world is nuts. Yet our graduates must venture into it. Prayers that they they find more success than the last generation of Wake Forest graduates found.
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With each and every post you confirm that you are not nearly as smart as you think you are.
 
Deacsfan27 said:
I don't even know what "we've chosen our old school values. America doesn't share them" even means. That entire paragraph is just a word salad of saying nothing at all (minus maybe the first sentence, which is clearly factually incorrect, but at least makes an assertion I suppose).
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Isn’t it obvious? Wake doesn’t care about money😂. Like Kanye said back before he lost his mind (and to be clear- I do not support him at this point)“having money not everything, not having it is.”
 
Henry Chinaski said:
Well fair enough it’s not like the ranking changed anything - perhaps more just put a spotlight on the poor value. Our oldest is dead set on going to Wake and I’m trying to do everything I can to talk her out of it.
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I couldn’t even get my daughter to apply.
 
PhDeac said:
Changing either wouldn’t help increase the ranking because it’s not in the ranking at all.
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You missed his point - he was saying that he hopes we don't abandon the small class sizes, etc. in favor of chasing the criteria that the formula now favors - and I agree.
 
Biff Ochocinco Tannen said:
BTW, class sizes in public high schools are exploding and will continue to do so, due to competent teacher shortages. So a college class with15 kids is going to become even more of anomaly as kids don’t seek it out as much, because they don’t see value in it.
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I disagree. Just because kids have larger class sizes in HS doesn't mean they wouldn't value small class sizes in college. In fact it might even seem more attractive - "wow, I had 40 kids in my HS biology class and the teacher barely knew me but I can go to Wake and have 15-20 people in my classes and actually interact daily with a full professor in my chosen field"...
 
donaldross said:
To you that's the case, I get that. You know Wake Forest. However, 1000s of the best 13-17 year olds will now never get to know Wake Forest. Will some venture down the last into the 40s? Sure, of course, they will know someone who knew someone. However, thousands and thousands of the best of the best will now not even have us on their list. I am not saying they will reject us--they just will not even look at us. It doesn't matter what spin we put on this, those that matter will not ever hear the spin since we are now not even on their college list.
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Absolutely agree as the reality is perception is everything and these type of rankings drive that perception for MS and HS students who are now starting to consider where they want to go to college. We will no longer be viewed as one of the top tier schools by a lot of young folks even though we know that it is not reality. Over time I wouldn't be surprised if the level of quality of students applying starts to drop. Just way too much money to go there for a perceived lower return and benefit relative to other schools we now rank similarly to. I remember WF was ranked by Money magazine as the best values when I came out of HS, as well as the top regional school just before we went to the national rankings. $12k/year but then Hearns quickly ratcheted it up to get our tuition in line with the Ivies as sounded like we wanted to appear to be on equal footing with the top schools in country. That worked when you could point to a regular top 25 ranking, but not sure that works out so well when ranked behind a lot of so so state schools.
 
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