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US News 2024 Rankings (Wake #47)

I really struggled at Wake, and with hindsight I didn’t adequately consider all the important factors that I should have when choosing a school. Even after enrolling at Wake I probably should have transferred out, but I met my (now) wife and group of friends at my lowest point, so that probably kept me from seriously considering it. Had I been actively keeping up with my accruing debt I almost certainly would have transferred, but I had no parents or mentors in my life at that time, or at least no one who was keeping up with my life.
 
Man y’all sweat a lot about what other people think and whether a few spots in a dumb assed rating is going to matter to anyone.
 
DeacDiggler said:
Man y’all sweat a lot about what other people think and whether a few spots in a dumb assed rating is going to matter to anyone.
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Diggler i am on the record about not giving a shit about if my diploma is from a tier 1 or Tier 4 university. I also have no idea where my diploma is...
 
Hard to get into the minds of high school kids. For myself, I wanted a good education and wasn't looking for a huge school. I wanted to be nearish my home. And wanted good sports programs to follow. Unc and wake were ranked roughly the same. So I went with wake. Simple as that. Honestly. Rankings mattered to me. If the difference was twenty spots, high school me might have gone to unc and saved my parents a lot of money. No idea
 
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Wake is a freaking country club now. Why would a kid want to got there? Because its like living at a resort for four years.
 
In a former life I did a lot of research into these rankings and at one time was really familiar with methodology, etc. The rankings aren't as static as some think. When they were first published in the early 80s, Penn, an Ivy, wasn't in the top 25. Wash U made a major jump around twenty years ago. I think even Duke wasn't always consistently top five or so like it has been lately. Also, lot of chatter on here about "top 30" but Wake peaked at #22 sometime in the late 90s/early 2000s. Nothing to sniff at.

The drop for Wake definitely sucks from a bragging rights standpoint. While the sky isn't falling like some of the usual provocateurs suggest, this will create headaches for Wake's PR folks and will materially impact things like number of applications, etc. I'm sure we'll see some subtle or not so subtle efforts over the next few years from MSD to try to regain ground. As others note, these rankings really don't measure academic quality but something else entirely. The idea that schools like Va Tech, OSU, Maryland, TAMU, and others are qualitatively better than Wake from an academic standpoint is laughable.

Would really suck to be a Brandeis alum. Brandeis at #60 is insulting. If anything Brandeis has more cache in academic circles than Wake does. Tulane got shafted too, although I thought Tulane was a little overrated to begin with.
 
I think Duke made their push to the top 10 in the late 90s/early 00s.

Bigger schools like VT, OSU, etc offer a lot more courses and opportunities than Wake. Don't underestimate that.
 
They're all fine schools and I don't doubt that with the huge rise in tuition at MSD some are a comparatively better "value" than they were a generation or two ago. But you'll never convince me that the average student at let's say Maryland gets a better, more well-rounded education than the average student at Wake.
 
What do you mean by a well-rounded education?
 
It’s probably a more economically efficient education though
 
The term “best” is so vague as to be meaningless, so we are all just arguing in circles based on different metrics. College is: a social experience, a privileged delay, an educational opportunity, a professional networking gateway, a professional and social credential, etc. If none of us were really concerned with this a week ago, why are we concerned now just because #numbergodown? Our previous ranking was just as arbitrary as this current one.
 
I also just want to point out that I posted about Wake’s troubling lack of Pell grant recipients like 2 weeks ago when the NYT(?) study was published about it. IMO, Wake should be doing much more to increase the economic diversity of its student body in the service of our motto, Pro Humanitate, regardless of any stupid magazine ranking.
 
there is a minor issue with using Pell Grant recipients as the sole indicator of economic diversity, though: there's a pretty large gray area between "Pell Grant recipient" and "being able to afford Wake (or any non-public institution for that matter)," and I say that as a former Pell Grant recipient. Just wanna make sure that we're on the same page that once a kid exceeds the FAFSA threshold for Pell Grant eligibility, by no means is that a guarantee that the kid or family are upper class / comfortably middle class.

I obviously agree that WFU is nowhere near economically diverse enough. Should the university take in more Pell Grant recipients? Obviously, yes. But it's sliiiiiightly disingenuous to discount WFU's (or Vandy's) need based aid entirely by referring to it as solely a fund to top off Pell Grants for those kids.

Of course, I also don't have any suggestions for how a national publication would quantify that, especially if they can't get better uniform data from university sourced need based aid. I just wouldn't discard the university's argument out of hand, is all.
 
I’m sure Wake will give them all the data they want on need based aid next year.
 
DeaconCav06 said:
I’m sure Wake will give them all the data they want on need based aid next year.
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well sure, but it doesn't sound like USNWR really gives a shit about that data regardless

and realistically, I don't see how they'd even consider using it as an apples to apples comparison across universities
 
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