• Welcome to OGBoards 10.0, keep in mind that we will be making LOTS of changes to smooth out the experience here and make it as close as possible functionally to the old software, but feel free to drop suggestions or requests in the Tech Support subforum!

US News 2024 Rankings (Wake #47)

Louis Gossett Jr said:
Oh yes let me get taught by a TA that’s only teaching the class so they don’t starve, I’m sure they are full of useful knowledge.
Click to expand...
Some are excellent, some are terrible. But on average, I would agree that the faculty are significantly better.
 
with these changes it will be hard for Wake to get top 40 again, let alone top 30
 
Frosty said:
Wente FUCKED the USNWR worse than Hatch FUCKED Shaka !
Click to expand...
I think Hatch did take the wrong approach, to some degree. He expanded Wake's size, from 4000 undergrads to 6000 undergrads, which seemed like a move to make Wake more like Notre Dame, Duke, Vandy. But it just made us more Duke-lite, instead of emphasizing our unique place in higher education.
 
I mean I think the obvious answer there was $$$, which is the driving force for most decisions in any business.

Why have 4,000 people at $70K a pop when you could have 6,000 (and yes I know most probably aren't paying the full tuition). Especially when we've made a clear choice to admit a lot of international students who are paying the full amount.
 
freakadeac said:
with these changes it will be hard for Wake to get top 40 again, let alone top 30
Click to expand...
I think it will take some bold moves on tuition. If Wake froze tuition (or even lowered it), our borrower debt would improve and we would attract more lower income students with Pell grants. I'm not holding my breath.
 
Deacsfan27 said:
I mean I think the obvious answer there was $$$, which is the driving force for most decisions in any business.

Why have 4,000 people at $70K a pop when you could have 6,000 (and yes I know most probably aren't paying the full tuition). Especially when we've made a clear choice to admit a lot of international students who are paying the full amount.
Click to expand...
Of course. And now we're tied with Virginia Tech in the academic rankings.
 
sucks for us. did any other schools have huge drops / gains?
 
Deacsfan27 said:
Tulane had a massive drop as well.
Click to expand...
This is a big reason why I honestly don't care about this. My wife went to Tulane. It's an excellent school and it's significantly harder to get into than Wake even though it's been hovering in the 40s in the USNWR for years. It's almost as though these rankings don't matter for much outside of stroking egos. I asked her if she knows what Tulane's USNWR ranking is and the response was "No, does it matter?".

If Wake really wants to up its perceived prestige then find ways to increase application numbers and lower the acceptance rate. And it sounds contradictory to say, but Wake can increase its perceived exclusivity by making the university more accessible to qualified students from lower-income families.
 
Frosty said:
And it sounds contradictory to say, but Wake can increase its perceived exclusivity by making the university more accessible to qualified students from lower-income families.
Click to expand...
Makes sense to me that a school would be, in-effect, penalized for being more economically exclusive than academically exclusive. It’s not a country club.
 
As the kids today would say, we clout chasing
 
Rafi said:
US News does have different rankings. Wake is ranked in the "National Universities" category, which tends to get the most press. US News also ranks "National Liberal Arts Colleges," which is where Davidson, Williams, etc. are ranked. The Liberal Arts colleges ranking does not include faculty citation data and places slightly more emphasis on student:faculty ratio (though they also eliminated class size this year).
Click to expand...

No. Those are different categories of institutions. I’m talking about rankings that take into account what you’re interested in.

The weights are arbitrary mostly based on assumptions that favor the most prestigious institutions. I’ve reviewed grad students and faculty. Grad students generally get higher student evaluations. We’ve had to tell our grad students to tone down their syllabi. They’re young and hungry and their future depends on getting good evals. They’re not as specialized as faculty.

Publications and citations just make sense as a small weight for faculty prestige
 
Frosty said:
This is a big reason why I honestly don't care about this. My wife went to Tulane. It's an excellent school and it's significantly harder to get into than Wake even though it's been hovering in the 40s in the USNWR for years. It's almost as though these rankings don't matter for much outside of stroking egos. I asked her if she knows what Tulane's USNWR ranking is and the response was "No, does it matter?".

If Wake really wants to up its perceived prestige then find ways to increase application numbers and lower the acceptance rate. And it sounds contradictory to say, but Wake can increase its perceived exclusivity by making the university more accessible to qualified students from lower-income families.
Click to expand...
Wow, I had no idea Tulane had such a low acceptance rate. They're at 11% and Wake is 20%.
 
PhDeac said:
No. Those are different categories of institutions. I’m talking about rankings that take into account what you’re interested in.
Click to expand...
Gotcha, that would be cool. Something like a US News tool where a student rates what is important to them, and then it spits out the best fit schools?
 
Rafi said:
Having been around higher education for almost 30 years now, I would argue that faculty citation factors have nothing to do with teaching ability, and, in fact, probably negatively correlate with the education experience provided by the professor. There are always exceptions, but in general, the faculty that heavily focus on their research often put a lot less emphasis on their teaching.
Click to expand...

Certainly true for medicine in my experience.
 
Rafi said:
Having been around higher education for almost 30 years now, I would argue that faculty citation factors have nothing to do with teaching ability, and, in fact, probably negatively correlate with the education experience provided by the professor. There are always exceptions, but in general, the faculty that heavily focus on their research often put a lot less emphasis on their teaching.
Click to expand...
The new ranking system is putting more emphasis on research and less on teaching. That’s just the way it is. That’s where the big money (outside of football) is at universities so the scoring system is adjusting to reflect that. One faculty in the microbiochem Dept can bring in millions of indirect $ on a single grant whereas getting the class size down below double digits is economically inefficient, especially when, as you say, the faculty have leas time to work on the million dollar grant packages.
 
birdman said:
The new ranking system is putting more emphasis on research and less on teaching. That’s just the way it is. That’s where the big money (outside of football) is at universities so the scoring system is adjusting to reflect that. One faculty in the microbiochem Dept can bring in millions of indirect $ on a single grant whereas getting the class size down below double digits is economically inefficient, especially when, as you say, the faculty have leas time to work on the million dollar grant packages.
Click to expand...
I completely agree. But, it's too bad the rankings have decided to emphasize this money-first approach.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top