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

Matt James' mom is a contestant on the golden bachelor, so we have another loosely related D-list celebrity. Maybe we can get her to come wave the checkered flag at a tractor pull at the Joel.
 
Deacsfan27 said:
It's pretty obvious just based on who dropped and who moved up, that public schools were huge beneficiaries of the new ranking system.
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But what does that mean for what they are trying to measure? It seems to me that small classes and a larger percentage of faculty with terminal degrees are both factors indicating a high level of teaching and education is going on. The fact that very few classes are taught by TAs at Wake was always touted as a big deal. The fact that classes are small allows students to interact with and get to know actual professors. Apparently none of that matters now in this ranking system. Is that good? Bad?
Is there any push back against the changes they made?
 
donaldross said:
Income is now included in the Wall Street Journal rankings where we also plummeted.

We still value small class size and encouraging folks to save the world and be broke.

The rest of America just does not share our values. We are now Swarthmore. I guess that’s good if you share those values.

If you want to go to a school in the top 25 by any objective metric and go get a real job in the current version of America, we are no longer that school.
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I'll bite. Wake prepares kids for the "real world" a LOT better than most public schools, in my opinion, though this is also area-of-study dependent. Complaints around grade deflation aside, I have several drunk idiot friends who cruised to 3.8s in lecture class majors at state schools, while many of us worked hard, in much more rigorous and engaging classes, to stay above 3.0 at Wake.
 
scooter84 said:
But what does that mean for what they are trying to measure? It seems to me that small classes and a larger percentage of faculty with terminal degrees are both factors indicating a high level of teaching and education is going on. The fact that very few classes are taught by TAs at Wake was always touted as a big deal. The fact that classes are small allows students to interact with and get to know actual professors. Apparently none of that matters now in this ranking system. Is that good? Bad?
Is there any push back against the changes they made?
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I agree with you there 100%. I think they should both be incorporated into their rankings. Anybody with a brain thinks that small class sizes are much better than large class sizes, so it should 100% be taken into consideration.

They are just measuring different things. My guess is that it's trying to highlight schools that have really good diversity in their SES and is affordable for all parties in society. That's measured by their system in relation to Pell Grants (based on what I have seen from the criteria), and Wake does poorly there, as do most other private schools.
 
Ranking universities like this is, objectively, fucking stupid. People go to college for different reasons and with different goals. For example, if your singular goal is to obtain a degree that will maximize your initial income level and minimize debt, many programs at NC State would be an excellent choice for a North Carolina student. If your goal is to go to graduate school, other schools might make more sense. If you're looking for the highest quality education, there is no way in hell you will find it at many of the schools (now) ranked above Wake. So, it's incredibly unfortunate that anyone gives a shit what US News has to say on this subject.

I went to a very small school that does not perform well in this ranking system, but I felt totally prepared for law school, enough to be in the top 25% of my class at Wake. I attribute much of that to courses where professors closely read and critiqued our writing and where you couldn't hide in the back of a 300 person classroom during a lecture.
 
Deacsfan27 said:
I agree with you there 100%. I think they should both be incorporated into their rankings. Anybody with a brain thinks that small class sizes are much better than large class sizes, so it should 100% be taken into consideration.

They are just measuring different things. My guess is that it's trying to highlight schools that have really good diversity in their SES and is affordable for all parties in society. That's measured by their system in relation to Pell Grants (based on what I have seen from the criteria), and Wake does poorly there, as do most other private schools.
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That is kind of my point - they are measuring different things. If they wanted to make a list emphasizing affordability or diversity or whatever, they should have started a different list - not radically change the formula for a list that has been used to judge schools for decades.
 
I mean the way they have always ranked was completely subjective too when it first started, and it probably favored private schools. Not saying that the new way is better or worse, just that it's different.
 
So big universities with lots of people willing to "buy" a magazine that shows ratings benefit? Shocked, I say.
 
Deacon92 said:
So big universities with lots of people willing to "buy" a magazine that shows ratings benefit? Shocked, I say.
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Are alumni of big universities going out and buying a copy of US news and world report now that their school is higher ranked?

This isn’t like recruiting coverage where you have to cater to big fan bases
 
Deacon92 said:
So big universities with lots of people willing to "buy" a magazine that shows ratings benefit? Shocked, I say.
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Ah yes, fans and alums alike of their favorite colleges are flocking to newsstands to get the newest USNWR showing their team ranked in the top 30!
 
The change in Wake over the years has been quite interesting. All you have to do is look at the parking lots. When I attended there were plenty of middle class kids without cars and the ones we had were broken down jalopies. Fast forward and you see plenty brand new cars that mommy and daddy want their children to have. I have no problem with that, but it’s real different.
 
macktheknife said:
The change in Wake over the years has been quite interesting. All you have to do is look at the parking lots. When I attended there were plenty of middle class kids without cars and the ones we had were broken down jalopies. Fast forward and you see plenty brand new cars that mommy and daddy want their children to have. I have no problem with that, but it’s real different.
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Yeah, that's kind of what the rankings are pointing out though, right? In the 70's Wake cost like $3K a year. It now costs $70K+.
 
Frosty said:
Matt James' mom is a contestant on the golden bachelor, so we have another loosely related D-list celebrity. Maybe we can get her to come wave the checkered flag at a tractor pull at the Joel.
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Oh well this makes up for everything else then
 
macktheknife said:
The change in Wake over the years has been quite interesting. All you have to do is look at the parking lots. When I attended there were plenty of middle class kids without cars and the ones we had were broken down jalopies. Fast forward and you see plenty brand new cars that mommy and daddy want their children to have. I have no problem with that, but it’s real different.
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That’s been since 20 years ago. I often felt like I was the “only one” who hadn’t done things like summer in Europe, have parents with advanced degrees, etc. It’s one of the reasons why I never wanted to be in a sorority and really mostly hung out with athletes. We just had more in common background wise. Also, (and you didn’t say this) I’m going to laugh at the idea that Wake fell in the rankings because of income and not because of the lack of diversity in its student body.
 
awakegirl said:
That’s been since 20 years ago. I often felt like I was the “only one” who hadn’t done things like summer in Europe, have parents with advanced degrees, etc. It’s one of the reasons why I never wanted to be in a sorority and really mostly hung out with athletes. We just had more in common background wise. Also, (and you didn’t say this) I’m going to laugh at the idea that Wake fell in the rankings because of income and not because of the lack of diversity in its student body.
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I do think it's diversity, but not necessarily racial diversity. It's the lack of diversity from an income standpoint, as the rankings see fit to measure it. There is definitely some truth there overall, but I don't think their way of measuring it tells the whole and complete story.
 
Deacsfan27 said:
I do think it's diversity, but not necessarily racial diversity. It's the lack of diversity from an income standpoint, as the rankings see fit to measure it. There is definitely some truth there overall, but I don't think their way of measuring it tells the whole and complete story.
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I think it’s probably both. I noticed Brown didn’t go down in the rankings despite being a small private school. There are many reasons for that, but diversity and emphasis on first gen college students is one. And I’ll add that I think devaluing small classes is a terrible decision, but that most of us have had these same criticisms of Wake that made its ranking fall.
 
If the rankings are about the quality of education then they should absolutely include diversity related metrics (economic & racial). For a liberal arts education, a variety of perspectives are critical.

But, then if rankings are about the quality of education then they should absolutely include class size and degree of instructors. Seems like some of these shifts are more about increasing the value of quality of research, which is not that relevant to most people using these rankings.
 
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