I rather take the US Government is a better indicator than these others who play favortism. Boise State at number 212 is much better academics than what the others put them at.

(09-19-2023 08:44 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  I rather take the US Government is a better indicator than these others who play favortism. Boise State at number 212 is much better academics than what the others put them at.

"We're Number 212!"

That has a nice ring to it.

(09-18-2023 09:53 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  Am I reading Washington Monthly right that FIU (#19) and Fresno State (#26) are ahead of Northwestern (#31)?

Some of these rankings are inane. WM looks at the social scores, NICHE includes partying in their rank, silly. The best ranking of a school, employers and how many graduate in 4 years. Who do they want to hire out of school and what is the starting wage and how long does it take your students to graduate.

(09-20-2023 01:14 PM)jacksfan29! Wrote:  

(09-18-2023 09:53 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  Am I reading Washington Monthly right that FIU (#19) and Fresno State (#26) are ahead of Northwestern (#31)?

Some of these rankings are inane. WM looks at the social scores, NICHE includes partying in their rank, silly. The best ranking of a school, employers and how many graduate in 4 years. Who do they want to hire out of school and what is the starting wage and how long does it take your students to graduate.

My cousin went to Texas Tech. One day, he went to this crazy frat party and ended up with his head stuck between the toilet and bathtub. It took them like 2 hrs to get him unstuck. He met has future wife at that party. if that's not a great marketing campaign for a true College Experience, then I don't know what is!

(09-20-2023 01:14 PM)jacksfan29! Wrote:  Some of these rankings are inane. WM looks at the social scores, NICHE includes partying in their rank, silly. The best ranking of a school, employers and how many graduate in 4 years. Who do they want to hire out of school and what is the starting wage and how long does it take your students to graduate.

Indeed. That gets us to the reason the methodologies are always 'flawed.' Rankings aim to attach a number (quantity) to something that is really a matter of quality. It will never be finally 'right.'

Quality in anything expresses desire. What exactly are we shopping for? For education the answer will be complex, and the cocktail of priorities will be a bit different for each person.

(09-20-2023 08:16 PM)Gitanole Wrote:  

(09-20-2023 01:14 PM)jacksfan29! Wrote:  Some of these rankings are inane. WM looks at the social scores, NICHE includes partying in their rank, silly. The best ranking of a school, employers and how many graduate in 4 years. Who do they want to hire out of school and what is the starting wage and how long does it take your students to graduate.

Indeed. That gets us to the reason the methodologies are always 'flawed.' Rankings aim to attach a number (quantity) to something that is really a matter of quality. It will never be finally 'right.'

Quality in anything expresses desire. What exactly are we shopping for? For education the answer will be complex, and the cocktail of priorities will be a bit different for each person.

I really can't imagine someone wanting getting your head stuck between a toilet and bathtub part of your cocktail!

(09-20-2023 08:23 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(09-20-2023 08:16 PM)Gitanole Wrote:  

(09-20-2023 01:14 PM)jacksfan29! Wrote:  Some of these rankings are inane. WM looks at the social scores, NICHE includes partying in their rank, silly. The best ranking of a school, employers and how many graduate in 4 years. Who do they want to hire out of school and what is the starting wage and how long does it take your students to graduate.

Indeed. That gets us to the reason the methodologies are always 'flawed.' Rankings aim to attach a number (quantity) to something that is really a matter of quality. It will never be finally 'right.'

Quality in anything expresses desire. What exactly are we shopping for? For education the answer will be complex, and the cocktail of priorities will be a bit different for each person.

I really can't imagine someone wanting getting your head stuck between a toilet and bathtub part of your cocktail!

The wife was and is way out of his league, too. I’ll never understand that.

(09-20-2023 08:30 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(09-20-2023 08:23 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(09-20-2023 08:16 PM)Gitanole Wrote:  

(09-20-2023 01:14 PM)jacksfan29! Wrote:  Some of these rankings are inane. WM looks at the social scores, NICHE includes partying in their rank, silly. The best ranking of a school, employers and how many graduate in 4 years. Who do they want to hire out of school and what is the starting wage and how long does it take your students to graduate.

Indeed. That gets us to the reason the methodologies are always 'flawed.' Rankings aim to attach a number (quantity) to something that is really a matter of quality. It will never be finally 'right.'

Quality in anything expresses desire. What exactly are we shopping for? For education the answer will be complex, and the cocktail of priorities will be a bit different for each person.

I really can't imagine someone wanting getting your head stuck between a toilet and bathtub part of your cocktail!

The wife was and is way out of his league, too. I’ll never understand that.

I married up too, but I never got my head stuck near a toilet to do it!

Everyone, please read this link about the Washington Monthly rankings:

https://www.bestcolleges.com/news/analys...xcellence/

One of these articles was pointing out how Georgia State was rated really highly because their Pell Grant student graduation rate was very close to their regular student graduation rate. The president of this school noted that his school was marked down because there was a gap. BUT, his school had a higher graduation rate among Pell Grant students, it just wasn't as high as his other students.
So his school did better with Pell Grants, but because everyone wasn't equal, it wasn't considered as good. The social mobility component seems to reward mediocrity, dragging everyone down to the lowest common denominator.

The community service portion I find just total nonsense. And yes, the Ivies do well because they have wealthy students who can take a couple years off to join the peace corps. Not surprisingly, military schools did well as military service also counted like the peace corps as community service. And it also rewarded having lower paying degree programs that had a social component.

(09-22-2023 11:30 PM)bullet Wrote:  One of these articles was pointing out how Georgia State was rated really highly because their Pell Grant student graduation rate was very close to their regular student graduation rate. The president of this school noted that his school was marked down because there was a gap. BUT, his school had a higher graduation rate among Pell Grant students, it just wasn't as high as his other students.
So his school did better with Pell Grants, but because everyone wasn't equal, it wasn't considered as good. The social mobility component seems to reward mediocrity, dragging everyone down to the lowest common denominator.

The community service portion I find just total nonsense. And yes, the Ivies do well because they have wealthy students who can take a couple years off to join the peace corps. Not surprisingly, military schools did well as military service also counted like the peace corps as community service. And it also rewarded having lower paying degree programs that had a social component.

A better guide is to look at Linkedin and check top companies and the recent grads that work there. That's really the only indicator that matters.

(09-24-2023 10:31 AM)Scoochpooch1 Wrote:  A better guide is to look at Linkedin and check top companies and the recent grads that work there. That's really the only indicator that matters.

I’ve long said that the most important stop on a college tour shouldn’t be the dorms or classrooms, but the career services office (and if applicable, the career services offices that applies to your specific major). The critical question is which companies actually interview *on-campus* and how many people are they taking per year (as a lot of firms definitely have quotas depending upon the quality of school - they might hire 10 people from an Ivy, 5 people from Michigan, have 1 slot reserved for someone from Illinois or Wisconsin, and need your father to be a hiring partner if you’re at a lower-ranked school). It’s also crucial to know where the career services are restricted to certain majors (often engineering and business at a lot of schools) or they can be used by any major - I can’t tell you how many people see “Google hires from X school” assuming that they could get an interview in a random liberal arts major and then find out they won’t talk to anyone other than computer science and computer engineering majors.

Having performed quite a few on-campus interviews over the years, there can be quite a difference. There are certain schools that punch above their weight in on-campus hiring compared to their rankings because of the quality of their career services office (Indiana comes to mind for me - they’re getting high brand value companies to interview on-campus ahead of a lot of schools that are superficially higher in the rankings), while there are some higher-ranked schools where it seems like the students have to do most of the work in making contacts.

(09-24-2023 10:42 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(09-24-2023 10:31 AM)Scoochpooch1 Wrote:  A better guide is to look at Linkedin and check top companies and the recent grads that work there. That's really the only indicator that matters.

I’ve long said that the most important stop on a college tour shouldn’t be the dorms or classrooms, but the career services office (and if applicable, the career services offices that applies to your specific major). The critical question is which companies actually interview *on-campus* and how many people are they taking per year (as a lot of firms definitely have quotas depending upon the quality of school - they might hire 10 people from an Ivy, 5 people from Michigan, have 1 slot reserved for someone from Illinois or Wisconsin, and need your father to be a hiring partner if you’re at a lower-ranked school). It’s also crucial to know where the career services are restricted to certain majors (often engineering and business at a lot of schools) or they can be used by any major - I can’t tell you how many people see “Google hires from X school” assuming that they could get an interview in a random liberal arts major and then find out they won’t talk to anyone other than computer science and computer engineering majors.

Having performed quite a few on-campus interviews over the years, there can be quite a difference. There are certain schools that punch above their weight in on-campus hiring compared to their rankings because of the quality of their career services office (Indiana comes to mind for me - they’re getting high brand value companies to interview on-campus ahead of a lot of schools that are superficially higher in the rankings), while there are some higher-ranked schools where it seems like the students have to do most of the work in making contacts.

I can see how you’d know that Indiana does a good job helping its grads find jobs, but I’m curious how you’d know about multiple schools punching below their weight. Is your experience limited to law schools, or have you recruited for graduates from all majors?

My recruiting experience is from 15-30 years ago and limited to A&M and Texas St, but I thought they both had excellent support back then. I’d expect that today a lot of schools have copied the most successful ones due to the intense competition for students, though perhaps schools like WV that are suffering cuts have issues? I think they’d be a good one to research. Perhaps one of our WV alums or current students will weigh in on this.

(09-24-2023 10:42 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(09-24-2023 10:31 AM)Scoochpooch1 Wrote:  A better guide is to look at Linkedin and check top companies and the recent grads that work there. That's really the only indicator that matters.

I’ve long said that the most important stop on a college tour shouldn’t be the dorms or classrooms, but the career services office (and if applicable, the career services offices that applies to your specific major). The critical question is which companies actually interview *on-campus* and how many people are they taking per year (as a lot of firms definitely have quotas depending upon the quality of school - they might hire 10 people from an Ivy, 5 people from Michigan, have 1 slot reserved for someone from Illinois or Wisconsin, and need your father to be a hiring partner if you’re at a lower-ranked school). It’s also crucial to know where the career services are restricted to certain majors (often engineering and business at a lot of schools) or they can be used by any major - I can’t tell you how many people see “Google hires from X school” assuming that they could get an interview in a random liberal arts major and then find out they won’t talk to anyone other than computer science and computer engineering majors.

Having performed quite a few on-campus interviews over the years, there can be quite a difference. There are certain schools that punch above their weight in on-campus hiring compared to their rankings because of the quality of their career services office (Indiana comes to mind for me - they’re getting high brand value companies to interview on-campus ahead of a lot of schools that are superficially higher in the rankings), while there are some higher-ranked schools where it seems like the students have to do most of the work in making contacts.

As an example of that, the Houston office of my firm only went to Texas, Texas A&M, Houston, LSU and Lamar. Pretty sure the Dallas office did Texas Tech, Baylor, SMU and TCU (in addition to Texas and Texas A&M). Probably North Texas because they had a strong accounting program. If you were at Texas St., Sam Houston, Stephen F. Austin, Prairie View A&M or Texas Southern, you needed your professors to make contacts to get you an interview. That did happen, but the process was more difficult.

Is there any student out there in which the number of students going to the peace corps or the military has any influence on their decision? Yet that is a key part of the Washington Monthly criteria.
Maybe by being the anti-USNWR, they mean they look at criteria that are of no importance to anyone!

(09-20-2023 01:48 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(09-20-2023 01:14 PM)jacksfan29! Wrote:  

(09-18-2023 09:53 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  Am I reading Washington Monthly right that FIU (#19) and Fresno State (#26) are ahead of Northwestern (#31)?

Some of these rankings are inane. WM looks at the social scores, NICHE includes partying in their rank, silly. The best ranking of a school, employers and how many graduate in 4 years. Who do they want to hire out of school and what is the starting wage and how long does it take your students to graduate.

My cousin went to Texas Tech. One day, he went to this crazy frat party and ended up with his head stuck between the toilet and bathtub. It took them like 2 hrs to get him unstuck. He met has future wife at that party. if that's not a great marketing campaign for a true College Experience, then I don't know what is!

Move toilet -- a three-minute job:

1) Loosen and remove two nuts which secure toilet to floor flange. Twist each bolt 1/4-turn to free them from the floor-flange, lift, and remove.
2) Turn off toilet's water supply valve and detach supply line (this step is not necessary if the supply line is flexible hose).
3) Slide toilet sideway in a direction away from the bathtub a sufficient distance to free cousin's stuck head.

The name Texas Tech suggests that at least some of its students might be engineering majors, but maybe not.