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US News 2024 Rankings (Wake #47)

I’m familiar with Opportunity Vanderbilt,
and it’s a great program, but the fact remains that it’s a school based aid program that builds upon outside grants and scholarships - federal/state/private. Vandy financial aid packages are built through Fafsa just like every other school. Pell Grants are based on your expected family contribution, even full scholarships generally don’t affect them. The idea that Vandy is providing so much aid that their low income students don’t need or qualify for Pell grants is ridiculous. Have you ever known a university to turn down federal money, especially when that saved money could hypothetically be used to give more aid to other students? It’s nonsense.
 
I've been reading along. This is more about social engineering than what are the "best colleges". I don't for a minute think that our private colleges that went from $20,000 a year in the '90's to $90,000 are not a problem. This has driven more students to public schools and decreased public school acceptance rates. That in turn has increased the quality of the students at public schools and pushed them up the USNWR rankings. While hurting schools like Wake that have priced themselves out of competing for as many low income students. Those public schools that benefited from the skyrocketing costs of private schools didn't necessarily become better "schools" but they increased in the rankings and attracted better students.

Then you had schools like Northeastern (from 162 to 49 in 2022) and Tulane starting playing a game with acceptance rates to get up the list. Drumming up demand, dropping application fees, taking most of their class in early admission and then creating ridiculously low acceptance rates in regular admission.

These new metrics, aren't about "best colleges" but a reflection on the country's social economic issues. Kids from wealthy families have more access to resources and have a better chance of succeeding. Kids from poor families have a higher mountain to climb. Kids who had more opportunities in high school and succeeded shouldn't be a detriment to a college. Because schools like Wake charge more money and then use that money to have small class sizes make it a better school, but in these rankings they harm Wake. The USNWR ranking have not been about 'best colleges" for a long time, but they are now so far from "best colleges" its hard to take them seriously.
 
Wakelaw2006 said:
This seems like a huge flaw in the data that Wake didn't point out in its communications (or if they did, I missed it). I would imagine Wake has a similar issue, but maybe a much bigger percentage of our undergrads take out federal loans (since we know our Pell grant recipients are negligible).
  • Data about earnings, indebtedness and first-generation students are being sourced for the first time from the U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard. The scorecard only captures about one-third of Vanderbilt undergraduates—those who receive Pell grants or federal loans. In other words, U.S. News is not factoring in the two-thirds of our graduates who did not rely on federal funds when determining the value of a Vanderbilt education, resulting in a highly non-representative sample. To put it differently, the U.S. News ranking puts no value on the career outcomes of any of our students not receiving federal aid. That is particularly ironic, considering that the main reason so few of our students rely on federally subsidized aid is because of the generous aid we provide through Opportunity Vanderbilt and other programs—a total of $366 million in 2022–23.
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We have similar problems. One of your best odds for social mobility out of wake is the accounting program. Great combination of strong career prospects and lots of scholarship money. In reality this sets people up for success but for US News, it increases the odds this success is not counted.
 
Atlanta Deacon said:
I've been reading along. This is more about social engineering than what are the "best colleges". I don't for a minute think that our private colleges that went from $20,000 a year in the '90's to $90,000 are not a problem. This has driven more students to public schools and decreased public school acceptance rates. That in turn has increased the quality of the students at public schools and pushed them up the USNWR rankings. While hurting schools like Wake that have priced themselves out of competing for as many low income students. Those public schools that benefited from the skyrocketing costs of private schools didn't necessarily become better "schools" but they increased in the rankings and attracted better students.
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I mean, doesn't increasing the quality of student play a role in making a place a better school? Being around a higher quality of student makes for a better educational experience than before, right?
 
I think overall we can acknowledge that Wake has fallen short of where they want to be from an "economically diverse" standpoint, and also be frustrated that we are ranked behind some of the schools that we are on the list.

The criteria clearly has some flaws, as well as a system that likely "overpunishes" schools that have a smaller enrollment base, but their overall point is to reward schools that are diverse across the spectrum.
 
Deacsfan27 said:
I think overall we can acknowledge that Wake has fallen short of where they want to be from an "economically diverse" standpoint, and also be frustrated that we are ranked behind some of the schools that we are on the list.

The criteria clearly has some flaws, as well as a system that likely "overpunishes" schools that have a smaller enrollment base, but their overall point is to reward schools that are diverse across the spectrum.
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I understand what you are saying but I think this is charitable to WF. WF eliminated need-blind admissions quite a while ago. They know exactly what economic diversity they are accepting.
 
BeachBumDeac said:
I mean, doesn't increasing the quality of student play a role in making a place a better school? Being around a higher quality of student makes for a better educational experience than before, right?
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It does, and in turn it can lead to better facility, etc. But, not changing class size or improving the quality of the facility but just having more students apply doesn't mean the school is immediately better. It's more a statement on the ridiculous cost of higher education and who can afford it. Wake is too expensive, but the quality of the education for those that can afford it didn't get worse.
 
Honestly, Wake isn’t what it was when we all went there and trended that direction every year since whenever you graduated. Wake deserves what has happened to it because it made the choice to sky rocket costs which did absolutely nothing to increase the quality of the education. Now they are being punished for it.
 
I think that's a pretty disingenuous analogy to the situation we're discussing.
 
Louis Gossett Jr said:
Honestly, Wake isn’t what it was when we all went there and trended that direction every year since whenever you graduated. Wake deserves what has happened to it because it made the choice to sky rocket costs which did absolutely nothing to increase the quality of the education. Now they are being punished for it.
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Wake was in an arms race with peer institutions to provide a Club Med for privileged white students and responded.
 
Yeah now you are judged by how many 97’ Honda Accords with 200,000 miles on them you have and then the number of them that get traded in for a Porsche 911 at some point.
 
Really, if we had a $10 billion endowment like Vanderbilt we could throw shade on the rankings and make our own decisions about what's best for the school and its students. But our endowment is under $2 billion so we're subject to market forces.
 
And Vanderbilt is now in a better athletic and academic conference than Wake too.
 
Just saw that Elon is #133 in national universities and is coming for us. Just a matter of time before we're in the same conference.
 
I mean, if you scroll through the Top 150 of that list there are bullshit schools you've never heard of. USN&WR has seriously damaged their credibility with this thing.
 
But who the hell would want to got to Wake Forest at #47 and face grade deflation on a daily basis ? They need to lighten up on the grading finally.
 
1st Gen student from a low income household gets into Wake and Rutgers. Are they better off graduating from Wake with $150,000 in debt or Rutgers with none? Fair question.

Student that's family can afford to pay $90,000 per year to send their kid to Wake gets into Wake and Rutgers. Are they better off graduation from Wake or Rutgers? Easy answer.

Does either of these make one school better a better college than the other? Absolutely no.
 
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