At the risk of potentially doxxing myself, I'll chime in here really quickly. For context, I am a current staff member at the University who grew up in a Wake family. My current position is one that will be directly impacted by the change in the USNWR ranking (you can assume of that what you will).
- These changes in the ranking metrics have been known for some time. It was unclear how far we would drop, but anyone who was following what was going on knew that this was coming to some degree. I wouldn't be surprised if Dr. Wente's e-mail that went out to the community was pre-written except for the particular ranking.
- Most of Wake's problems about specific USNWR metrics stem from trying to compete at an academic level with schools that have endowments multiple times our size. In many ways, we're the Little Engine That Could of higher ed. No one is to blame here; it's a product of being a smaller school (smaller alumni donor base) with a dedicated niche calling for the first 75% of our existence (North Carolina Baptist education does not naturally generate outside funding interest). Neither our size nor our history are anything of which we should be ashamed. It feels slightly strange saying this, because we're still in the top 1% of higher education institutions out there in terms of resources; it's just that the schools that we view as our academic peer institutions tend to be in the top .1% or top .01%. If you want to discuss problems with Wake Forest as an entity, a solid 90% of our problems stem from this fundamental issue (including a great many of the points made in this thread already).
- Wake will likely see a reduction in incoming undergraduate applications, or perhaps a slowed rate at which the rate of incoming undergraduate applications will increase compared to previous years. There are a lot of high school students out there who default to these rankings when looking at college options. For better or worse, these rankings are considered shorthand for academic prestige in lay-person circles.
- Semi-related, teenagers will remain teenagers. Teenagers sometimes act impulsively. It happens.
- One would hope that most professional administrators know that these rankings are highly flawed, and that kneejerk reactions are not necessary. The rankings were highly flawed in previous years, but we didn't care because they tended to be overly kind to schools like Wake. These changes put in place by USNWR are entirely arbitrary, and the previous metrics that had been put in place by USNWR were also entirely arbitrary, even when they favored us.
- I do not think Wake is one of the 30 best overall academic institutions in the country.
- I think Wake might very well be one of the 30 best academic institutions in the country for undergraduate education specifically.
- Wake is still the exact same school that it was on Saturday. The Chapel hasn't fallen down or anything. The quality of undergraduate education will remain high. Men's soccer will still lose to Stanford when it matters most (but maybe they won't this time?).
- The only people truly affected negatively are people who try to use Wake's reputation and their relationship to the school as a substitute for any sort of genuine personal accomplishments or discernible personality when bragging to friends. Unfortunately, this likely includes a fair few of the power-brokers in Wake's decision-making leadership (and potentially a fair few posters in this thread as well).
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