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Who Does Your College Think Its Peers Are?

WakeForestRanger

WakeForestRanger

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"Colleges submit "comparison groups" to the U.S. Education Department each year for data analysis, effectively revealing which institutions they see as their peers. The Chronicle analyzed the connections among 1,595 four-year colleges and found that they tend to select aspirational peers. Some of the nation's most selective research universities and liberal-arts colleges were the most popular peers chosen."


http://chronicle.com/article/Peers-Interactive-Data/134262/

Seems like there should be more crossover between who Wake sees as a peer and who sees Wake as their peer. There are names on both lists I would agree with but If I were submitting for Wake my list would look different.
 
Interesting list. UVA picked 59 schools that it considers peers and its list is laughable. I can tell you that nobody at UVA considers Catholic University or Rutgers a peer.
 
20Colleges that selected this college as a peer

Alabama A&M U
Baylor U
Boston C
Bowdoin C
Bucknell U
C of Charleston
C of New Jersey
C of William and Mary
Furman U
Lehigh U
Northeastern U
Pepperdine U
Regent U
Rice U
Southern Methodist U
Stevens Inst of Tech
U of Phoenix - Atlanta Campus
U of Phoenix - Columbus Georgia Campus
U of Tulsa
Villanova U
 
"Aspirational peers" is a good term for what several schools did here.

Harvard only listed Princeton, Stanford, and Yale as peers. Stanford and Yale listed Harvard. Princeton didn't list any peers.
 
Only one of the schools that we considered a peer also considered us a peer.
 
myDeaconmyhand said:
Only one of the schools that we considered a peer also considered us a peer.
Click to expand...

I was a little surprised by this as well, even though it's clear that schools were generally reaching upward for peers.

I was surprised Wake didn't pick schools like BC, Villanova, and Rice and was surprised schools like Richmond, GW and Vandy didn't pick us.
 
A more accurate method for determining these sorts of things would be the old "where else did you apply" criteria. I applied to Dartmouth, Tulane, Emory, and Vanderbilt. Maybe one or two others I can't recall. When you're looking for particular school-types and majors and settings, you're going to determine a best-fit for you. That says more about "birds of a feather" than after-the-fact perceptions.
 
Not everybody applies nationally or even regionally or to the same type of schools.

This peer reciprocity is interesting enough for exactly what it is. Who does Wake want to be like? Who wants to be like Wake?
 
PhDeac said:
Not everybody applies nationally or even regionally or to the same type of schools.

This peer reciprocity is interesting enough for exactly what it is. Who does Wake want to be like? Who wants to be like Wake?
Click to expand...

well these schools seem to line right up with MSD:

Alabama A&M U
Baylor U
Boston C
Bowdoin C
Bucknell U
C of Charleston
C of New Jersey
C of William and Mary
Furman U
Lehigh U
Northeastern U
Pepperdine U
Regent U
Rice U
Southern Methodist U
Stevens Inst of Tech
U of Phoenix - Atlanta Campus
U of Phoenix - Columbus Georgia Campus
U of Tulsa
Villanova U
 
PhDeac said:
Not everybody applies nationally or even regionally or to the same type of schools.

This peer reciprocity is interesting enough for exactly what it is. Who does Wake want to be like? Who wants to be like Wake?
Click to expand...

Yes, Ph, not "everybody" does that. However, a lot of people do. When looking at schools, most high schoolers and their parents have an idea of what type of school and major(s) they'd like to evaluate. And, as I said, that is a better indicator of "peer" than whatever methodology this site used to come up with Alabama A&M and U of Phoenix as peers for Wake.
 
I thought WFU's peer list was pretty reasonable and didn't show an embarrassing degree of upward reaching.

C of William and Mary
Dartmouth C
Davidson C
Duke U
Emory U
George Washington U
Tufts U
U of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
U of Notre Dame
U of Richmond
U of Virginia
Vanderbilt U
Washington and Lee U

Now, if you were to treat that as a list of peer athletic departments, it would a ROFLOL upward reach at this point. And Vandy doesn't even have an AD.
 
94Deac said:
Yes, Ph, not "everybody" does that. However, a lot of people do. When looking at schools, most high schoolers and their parents have an idea of what type of school and major(s) they'd like to evaluate. And, as I said, that is a better indicator of "peer" than whatever methodology this site used to come up with Alabama A&M and U of Phoenix as peers for Wake.
Click to expand...

This site is showing who the institutions self selected as their peers. So the methodology is pretty simple, they're just reporting what the institutions themselves said.

ETA: the point being that Alabama A&M and U of Phoenix are trying to claim WFU as a peer, which is laughable, not that anybody else actually believes it.

ETA 2: Wake and all schools track cross-applications, so Wake has a pretty good idea the other schools that prospects are applying to. It would be interesting to see how that list lines up with the list that Wake self-selects as its peer group.
 
Last edited:
Deacon923 said:
This site is showing who the institutions self selected as their peers. So the methodology is pretty simple, they're just reporting what the institutions themselves said.
Click to expand...

Yes, that is obvious. However there is a truer value in what the students who apply reveals than what an institution views as its peers. The latter is more self-serving, though certainly in WF's case seems reasonable.
 
I would consider our fellow Colonial Group members to be peers as well as the consortium we started last fall for online classes.
 
Interesting. I think State's list is a little optimistic but the "other colleges that list you" is pretty much spot on.


North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC

16 Colleges selected as peers by this college

Cornell U
Georgia Inst of Tech
Iowa State U
Michigan State U
Ohio State U
Penn State, U Park
Purdue U, West Lafayette
Texas A&M U, College Station
U of California, Davis
U of Florida
U of Georgia
U of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
U of Maryland, College Park
U of Minnesota-Twin Cities
U of Wisconsin, Madison
Virginia Tech

24 Colleges that selected this college as a peer

Auburn U main campus
Brigham Young U
Clemson U
Colorado State U, Fort Collins
Florida State U
Georgia Inst of Tech
Iowa State U
Johnson C. Smith U
Louisiana State U, Baton Rouge
Mississippi State U
Oregon State U
Rutgers U, New Brunswick
Texas Tech U
U of Alabama, Birmingham
U of Alabama, Tuscaloosa
U of Central Florida
U of Georgia
U of Phoenix - Atlanta Campus
U of Phoenix - Columbus Georgia Campus
U of South Florida
U of Tennessee, Knoxville
U of Texas, Dallas
Virginia Tech
West Virginia U, Morgantown
 
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