MWC Schools in US News 2024 Rankings

[Nevada Convert]

On 9/18/2023 at 9:38 AM, bigd said:

Good for Boise, I believe that's the first time they're actually ranked among national universities (ie not in the range lumped at the end). 

Fresno's ascent has been impressive in numerous rankings, as the transformation of economically disadvantaged students takes a larger share of the ranking. 

Overall more MW schools moved up than down, which is good. 

That new Concrete Trucking Technology Degree at Boise must have been what made it happen.

[818SUDSFan]

On 9/18/2023 at 12:26 PM, RebelAlliance said:

Which is exactly what CSU's should be doing instead of prestige chasing by adding unnecessary doctoral programs in some vain attempt to turn themselves into poor man's UC's. 

SDSU already is a poor man's UC.

[Superiorlifestyle15]

On 9/18/2023 at 9:59 AM, FresnoFacts said:

Time for the new US News and World Reports rankings for the next year's thread battles.

US News released its latest college rankings for 2024.
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings

This year's rankings included some changes in categories used and how categories were weighted. That resulted in moves that benefited some colleges (mainly public schools) while dropping some colleges down (often private schools).

The rankings also used more outside data sources rather than relying just on the data submitted to USNWR by the schools to counter issues with incorrect data.

Changes included dropping items such as undergraduate class sizes, alumni giving rates and high school class standing which previously were about 18% of the ranking. Those changes impacted many private schools.

USNWR also added new faculty research items such as citations per publication, field-weighted citation impact and the share of publications cited in the top 5% and 25% of the most cited journals. The survey of survey of presidents, provosts and deans about other school's academic profile remained.

Then the ratings added student factors involving first-generation and low-income students such as first-generation graduation rate,

The NY Times noted "But more than a dozen public universities, many of them with relatively low profiles, climbed at least 50 spots in the rankings. Fresno State moved up 64 places, to No. 185, for instance, and Florida Atlantic ascended 53, to No. 209. Many other public institutions recorded smaller, if notable, gains, like Rutgers, which saw each of its three campuses rise by at least 15 places. They benefited from an algorithm that sent some private universities’ rankings plummeting but represented an effort to account for deals that higher education leaders routinely talk up, like transforming the lives of economically disadvantaged students."
http://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/18/us/us-news-college-ranking.html

 

National Universities (Carnegie Doctoral Schools - R1, R2, R3)
San Diego State - #105 tie (up from last year's #151 tie)
Colorado State - #151 tie (no change from last year's #151 tie)
Hawaii - #170 tie (down from last year's #166 tie)
Fresno State - #185 tie (up from last year's #250 tie)
Nevada - #195 tie (up from last year's #263 tie)
Wyoming - #216 tie (up from last year's #292 tie)
New Mexico - #236 tie (down from last year's #212 tie)
Utah State - #269 tie (down from last year's #250 tie)
UNLV - #269 tie (up from last year's #285 tie)
Boise State - #332 tie (up from last year's #331-440 tie)

West Regional Universities (Carnegie Master's Colleges & Universities)
San Jose State - #4 tie (up from last year's #22 tie)

National Liberal Arts Colleges (Carnegie Baccalaureate Colleges)
Air Force -  #7 (up from last year's #16 tie)

Yeah that seems credible, moving up 46 spots in a year. I guess all the "ties" prove that it really doesn't +++++ing matter where you got your degree, unless the school is top 5 in your field. 

[Slapdad]

On 9/19/2023 at 1:28 PM, Superiorlifestyle15 said:

Yeah that seems credible, moving up 46 spots in a year. I guess all the "ties" prove that it really doesn't +++++ing matter where you got your degree, unless the school is top 5 in your field. 

Time will tell how credible the new formula is, but at this point, it's a matter of previous year's data NOT being credible, particularly self-reported data that wasn't verified or policed. Temple's business school Dean was sentenced to 14 months and fined $250K for his role and other schools have admitted to similar embellishments. At this point, I'll consider this a correction more than anything. 

[RebelAlliance]

I said it earlier.  This change methodology is a good thing.  Universities, and especially public universities, should be engines for socio-economic mobility and not just finishing schools for kids crapped out with a silver spoon in their mouth (looking at you, Santa Clara!).  I think that it's a great credit to UNR that they jumped so much higher because of this.  I'd be interested to know if this is a result of specific policies that Sandoval has implemented in his three years or rather long term aspects of the university that were going unappreciated by USNWR.  It's also an indictment on UNLV that it didn't really change their ranking all that much. 

Hell, my undergrad alma mater did drop a couple of spots in their ranking, so maybe having the nickname of "Club Midd" isn't necessarily a good thing, and they need to try harder in their realm. 

That being said, the reasons for UNR's rise in this ranking have zero relationship to AAU membership.  The questions there would be these.  By how many hundreds of millions of dollars (not millions or tens of millions) have they increased their research funding?  How many dozens of National Academy members have been added to the faculty (as of right now, UNR has 2 and UNLV has 1)?  Have you raised your average freshman SAT score into the 1300 range?  Have you raised your endowment to the $1B+ level?  What's the increase in Ph.D's awarded and post-doctoral fellows on campus?  How many doctoral programs are ranked in the top 25 or top 50 by the NRC?

[bigd]

On 9/19/2023 at 4:35 PM, RebelAlliance said:

I said it earlier.  This change methodology is a good thing.  Universities, and especially public universities, should be engines for socio-economic mobility and not just finishing schools for kids crapped out with a silver spoon in their mouth (looking at you, Santa Clara!).  I think that it's a great credit to UNR that they jumped so much higher because of this.  I'd be interested to know if this is a result of specific policies that Sandoval has implemented in his three years or rather long term aspects of the university that were going unappreciated by USNWR.  It's also an indictment on UNLV that it didn't really change their ranking all that much. 

Hell, my undergrad alma mater did drop a couple of spots in their ranking, so maybe having the nickname of "Club Midd" isn't necessarily a good thing, and they need to try harder in their realm. 

That being said, the reasons for UNR's rise in this ranking have zero relationship to AAU membership.  The questions there would be these.  By how many hundreds of millions of dollars (not millions or tens of millions) have they increased their research funding?  How many dozens of National Academy members have been added to the faculty (as of right now, UNR has 2 and UNLV has 1)?  Have you raised your average freshman SAT score into the 1300 range?  Have you raised your endowment to the $1B+ level?  What's the increase in Ph.D's awarded and post-doctoral fellows on campus?  How many doctoral programs are ranked in the top 25 or top 50 by the NRC?

Glad Slapdad was able to trigger you into responding to your favorite topic. 

Obviously we haven't met the AAU standards yet, but we are improving at a rapid pace, and there's no reason to think we won't get there eventually. 

-Our research expenditures increased from $90.1 million in 2015 to $181.7 million in 2022. Not yet "hundreds of millions", but that number already exceeds that of some AAU members *cough* Oregon *cough*.

-The number of research doctorates has increased from 109 in 2015 to 161 in 2021, and Postdocs increased from 73 to 110 in the same time period.

-Our endowment is up to $458 million

-We actually now have 3 National Academy members after adding another this week (One science, one medicine, and one engineering). Our dean of engineering even stated the following in the article: 

“This appointment also pushes forward the University’s effort to join the Association of American Universities (AAU), one of the most prestigious honors a research university can attain,” Jones added.

https://www.unr.edu/nevada-today/news/2023/dani-or-announcement

 

 

[Slapdad]

On 9/19/2023 at 8:03 PM, bigd said:

Glad Slapdad was able to trigger you into responding to your favorite topic. 

Obviously we haven't met the AAU standards yet, but we are improving at a rapid pace, and there's no reason to think we won't get there eventually. 

-Our research expenditures increased from $90.1 million in 2015 to $181.7 million in 2022. Not yet "hundreds of millions", but that number already exceeds that of some AAU members *cough* Oregon *cough*.

-The number of research doctorates has increased from 109 in 2015 to 161 in 2021, and Postdocs increased from 73 to 110 in the same time period.

-Our endowment is up to $458 million

-We actually now have 3 National Academy members after adding another this week (One science, one medicine, and one engineering). Our dean of engineering even stated the following in the article: 

“This appointment also pushes forward the University’s effort to join the Association of American Universities (AAU), one of the most prestigious honors a research university can attain,” Jones added.

https://www.unr.edu/nevada-today/news/2023/dani-or-announcement

 

 

Bow down to kiss our soon-to-be AAU sandals, @RebelAlliance!