The unofficial online home for fans of the University of Cincinnati Bearcats. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

Ohio
Case Western #42
tOSU #49
Miami University # 103
UC #148
Ohio University #179
Kent State #213
BGSU #249


Other Somewhat Local
Purdue #49
Indiana #68
UK #127
Louisville #187

BXII (New)
#75 Baylor
#79 BYU
#83 TCU
#122 Iowa State
#122 Kansas
#148 UC
#148 UCF
#162 Kansas State
#179 Houston
#187 Oklahoma State
#213 Texas Tech
#249 WVU

Weren't we in the 130's last year? If so, I wonder what the reason is for the drop. My hunch is we're growing enrollment too quickly at the expense of maintaining our momentum in selectivity.

Miami drops out of the top 100. But...but...but their website has an entire page devoted to "PUBLIC IVY!!!!!"

Interestingly, we're tied at 148 with Alabama. So please spare me the nonsense about "flutie effects" and "front porches." If that were real, I'd expect Alabama to have rocketed into the top 50 over the last decade. Schools get good at academics when they make the commitment and investment to be good at academics not when they sink hundreds of millions into athletics and hope for a Flutie Effect. It doesn't mean that UC can't have good athletics and shouldn't invest in them properly. It just means that using the excuse that it will directly help UC's academic profile is a false justification for athletic investment.

Malcolm Gladwell did a podcast recently on the absurdity of these rankings. A large component of these rankings are a reputation score where these schools rank each other many of whom have never had any association with the schools they're assigning a rep to. I'm not saying there bogus; just that there's significant bias in the process.

(09-13-2021 10:58 AM)RealDeal Wrote:  Malcolm Gladwell did a podcast recently on the absurdity of these rankings. A large component of these rankings are a reputation score where these schools rank each other many of whom have never had any association with the schools they're assigning a rep to. I'm not saying there bogus; just that there's significant bias in the process.

They are imperfect, and they vary due to how they value certain metrics over others. I personally think that USNWR is one of the more flawed ones (Forbes though is by far the worst). That being said, judging schools by things such as how talented their student body is, what their student to faculty ratio is, retention and grad rates and financial resources is not meaningless. And yes, institutional reputation does matter.

And this one in particular is unfortunately the most important because--for better or worse--it's the one that every high school counselor, parent and potential student in the country looks at. Doing well here, may not be the be all and end all in recruiting kids, but it can mean whether the rest of the process is rolling downhill or struggling uphill.

Plus, any ranking that continually bursts the Miami delusional bubble of "PUBLIC IVY!!!" and if for only a moment forces them to stare into the abyss of what they really are can't be all that bad.

Seems like all the Ohio publics (with the exception of OSU) have continued to go down the last several years. On the other hand the Florida schools have shot up the rankings. I can remember a few years back UC was 40-50 spots ahead of UCF and now we are tied. USF has also passed us, now up to #103. I am sure some others can comment on it better, but it probably boils down to funding and population shifts/demographics.

(09-13-2021 12:11 PM)CliftonAve Wrote:  Seems like all the Ohio publics (with the exception of OSU) have continued to go down the last several years. On the other hand the Florida schools have shot up the rankings. I can remember a few years back UC was 40-50 spots ahead of UCF and now we are tied. USF has also passed us, now up to #103. I am sure some others can comment on it better, but it probably boils down to funding and population shifts/demographics.

It's kind of why I'm in favor of the state putting a cap on the size of OSU's freshmen classes, which are over 7K now. If they were limited to 6K freshmen, that would definitely help some of the enrollment problems around the system as well as free up some fairly high quality kids that could help UC's profile. I wonder what they'd want in return though. Their selectivity and USNWR ranking would certainly skyrocket, but they'd want more out of it than that.

My wife, who works at Miami, claims these rankings are pay to play. I'm not sure if that is heavily Miami propaganda or not, but it does make some sense.

(09-13-2021 12:30 PM)Z-Fly Wrote:  My wife, who works at Miami, claims these rankings are pay to play. I'm not sure if that is heavily Miami propaganda or not, but it does make some sense.

They have some very odd parts of their criteria which still weigh heavily despite having nothing to do with the quality of instruction (4-year graduation rate [something that is impossible for most of our students given co-op] and alumni giving are two of the five "significant" categories in their ratings structure). 4 Year grad rate tends to favor liberal arts education over technical/professional education and average salary upon graduation, with no factor for cost of living, also unfairly undercuts much of the Midwest due to wages not being as high as those on the coasts.

(09-13-2021 12:30 PM)Z-Fly Wrote:  My wife, who works at Miami, claims these rankings are pay to play. I'm not sure if that is heavily Miami propaganda or not, but it does make some sense.

They're not. It would have come out by now and been a national scandal because there literally would needed to have been tens of thousands of people in on the scam. You can't keep that big of a scandal involving that many people secret for so long. Their metrics absolutely tend to favor private universities, rich universities and highly selective universities, but it's not pay to play.

That is just the Miami bubble creating any kind of excuse to maintain their delusional bubble of PUBLIC IVY! grandeur. They want to dismiss rankings because the metrics lay bare the lie of their carefully nurtured self-image. Yet they treat a 40 year old book that was the purely subjective opinion of one man (with no transparent formula or metrics) as the word of God. Hell, they were only included in the book (along with Vermont) to mix things up, create a little controversy and not just be a standard list of the top 8 public universities of the time. Does anyone really believe that they and Vermont were better universities then, now or ever than Wisconsin or Washington or Illinois or Purdue or Florida or Minnesota--all of whom were left out.

Word of the ranking has just reached the Miami administration.

Good conversation, as always. One of the factors hurting Ohio schools right now, quite frankly, is the state's population. The number of high school graduates has decreased, which limits the number of applicants. In California over the past few decades, it's been the opposite and a number of the UC schools have become incredibly selectivity, helping Santa Cruz, Riverside, and Merced - for example - rocket up the list. It's also bled into the University of Oregon up in my parts, which has increasing number of California students applying (they're also received $1 billion from Uncle Phil for academic facilities, which certainly helps).

UC is a hot college right now, with a ton of momentum, and this won't have much of an impact. I suspect that as the other state schools continue to struggle, UC may increase it's selectivity and attempt to move back up a bit. But it really doesn't matter too much in the end.

Crap. I just used hot college. Damn you, Santa Ono.

(09-13-2021 01:13 PM)geef Wrote:  Good conversation, as always. One of the factors hurting Ohio schools right now, quite frankly, is the state's population. The number of high school graduates has decreased, which limits the number of applicants. In California over the past few decades, it's been the opposite and a number of the UC schools have become incredibly selectivity, helping Santa Cruz, Riverside, and Merced - for example - rocket up the list. It's also bled into the University of Oregon up in my parts, which has increasing number of California students applying (they're also received $1 billion from Uncle Phil for academic facilities, which certainly helps).

UC is a hot college right now, with a ton of momentum, and this won't have much of an impact. I suspect that as the other state schools continue to struggle, UC may increase it's selectivity and attempt to move back up a bit. But it really doesn't matter too much in the end.

It's been interesting. My former High school graduates about half the people it used to. It'll be 20 years, next year. I don't know if that's part of the natural flow or not.

Let the yearly emptying of the colon over these rankings begin.

(09-13-2021 01:14 PM)geef Wrote:  Crap. I just used hot college. Damn you, Santa Ono.

You know Ono still tweets about UC, still
follows UC…and still uses #hottestcollegeinamerica.

It appears he was following - if not watching - the Murray State game.

Ono still promotes UC through social media.

Your post got me to checking up in him.

Also: UC may be improving, but not as fast as other schools. The rankings are disappointing.

It's a great thing that he still touts UC, because he does have quite a significant platform.

(09-13-2021 02:13 PM)BearcatsUC Wrote:  

(09-13-2021 01:14 PM)geef Wrote:  Crap. I just used hot college. Damn you, Santa Ono.

You know Ono still tweets about UC, still
follows UC…and still uses #hottestcollegeinamerica.

It appears he was following - if not watching - the Murray State game.

Ono still promotes UC through social media.

Your post got me to checking up in him.

Also: UC may be improving, but not as fast as other schools. The rankings are disappointing.

Playing Devil’s Advocate, I wonder what the BCU folks think about his Twitter engagement/following UC. My guess is if Dr. Pinto would be on social media saying “Go Cards”(or any other school) people would lose their minds.

Obviously, almost all of his tweets are for UBC, but he did tweet for UC being P5 back in July, Then again later, then a couple of tweets after UC was invited. He also tweeted, “C’mon, boys. This is Murray State.” He also tweeted the passing of a colleague from Children’s.

My point is that while he came across as “rah, rah” while he was here, I think he was genuine.

(09-13-2021 02:47 PM)geef Wrote:  It's a great thing that he still touts UC, because he does have quite a significant platform.

(09-13-2021 02:13 PM)BearcatsUC Wrote:  

(09-13-2021 01:14 PM)geef Wrote:  Crap. I just used hot college. Damn you, Santa Ono.

You know Ono still tweets about UC, still
follows UC…and still uses #hottestcollegeinamerica.

It appears he was following - if not watching - the Murray State game.

Ono still promotes UC through social media.

Your post got me to checking up in him.

Also: UC may be improving, but not as fast as other schools. The rankings are disappointing.

(09-13-2021 02:57 PM)CliftonAve Wrote:  Playing Devil’s Advocate, I wonder what the BCU folks think about his Twitter engagement/following UC. My guess is if Dr. Pinto would be on social media saying “Go Cards”(or any other school) people would lose their minds.

His tweets are overwhelmingly UBC oriented. UC has no history or rivalry with UBC. I seriously doubt they care

(09-13-2021 03:01 PM)BearcatsUC Wrote:  

(09-13-2021 02:57 PM)CliftonAve Wrote:  Playing Devil’s Advocate, I wonder what the BCU folks think about his Twitter engagement/following UC. My guess is if Dr. Pinto would be on social media saying “Go Cards”(or any other school) people would lose their minds.

His tweets are overwhelmingly UBC oriented. UC has no history or rivalry with UBC. I seriously doubt they care

Agreed. And, UBC is extremely well-regarded. Doesn't hurt at all to be associated with it.