US News and World Report - Best Colleges 2011
ISU comes in at #94
Iowa State University - Best College - Education - US News
ISU comes in at #94
Iowa State University - Best College - Education - US News
US News and World Report - Best Colleges 2011
- Thread starter zumbro clones
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that is including all the private schools. We are in the 40's in public schools which is up from last year.
Now we're behind Alabama and Auburn - so much for looking down our nose academically at the SEC...
Backlash building against college rankings - Business - Personal finance - msnbc.com
Interesting story. But it doesn't cloud the fact that there are things ISU can improve.
Interesting story. But it doesn't cloud the fact that there are things ISU can improve.
Glancing through, it looks like we are outranked by Texas and Baylor, and tied with Mizzu in the rankings.
Overall this is a much more legit list than the Forbes one.
I know I wasn't a fan of their old methodology (neither were a lot of people), but I think they've changed the way they've done things. I'll wait till I get my hands on a copy of the magazine, as I don't think you can really access anything without paying for it online...
Quick math...
Big 12 average: 100.3
Big 12 average w/o NU and CU: 101.3
SEC average: 106.6
Vanderbilt pulls the SEC up quite a bit. Without Vandy, the SEC average is 114.7
Drop TT from the Big 12 and the average drops to 94.9.
Also, remember that just because schools like Florida or LSU or Alabama are ranked well, it doesn't necessarily mean that the academics for student athletes (and more specifically with football players) matches that ranking.
There are several criteria that are subjective: high school counselor's perspective, assessment by administrators at peer institutions, student selectivity, etc.
Couple of things that work against us: financial resources, alumni giving to name a few
Couple of things that work against us: financial resources, alumni giving to name a few
Alumni giving is only 5 percent, right? But I agree that many of the criteria would work against smaller schools (large schools being schools like Michigan, Florida, Texas, etc). It's not ALWAYS the case, but I think there is a benefit to being a larger state school. Or maybe a larger famous state school.
Anyway, if we look at JUST the public "national universities" for the Big 10, Big 12 and SEC (essentially take out Northwestern, Baylor and Vandy, if I'm not mistaken), this is how things shake out...
- Michigan 4
- Wisky 13
- Texas 13
- Illinois 15
- PSU 15
- Florida 17
- OSU 18
- Purdue 18
- Georgia 18
- A&M 22
- Minny 23
- Iowa 29
- Indiana 32
- MSU 34
- Bama 34
- Auburn 38
- Colorado 39
- ISU 41
- Mizzou 41
- Kansas 47
- Nebraska 47
- Tenn 47
- Okla 52
- S. Car 52
- LSU 60
- Kentucky 63
- KSU 66
- OkSU 66
- Arkansas 66
- TT 72
- Ole Miss 72
- Miss SU 79
Note: I'll add the Pac-10, Big East and ACC public "national universities" later
2 things that probably hurt us in the ranking:
1. School Selectivity (15 percent of the total ranking) Compared to a lot of the schools on there , we aren't selective at all.
2.Faculty Salary (35% of the Faculty Resources rank which is 20% of total, so about 7% of the total rank) This seems like a gimme for the universities with attached med schools and law schools.
Not saying either of these is bad, just observations.
1. School Selectivity (15 percent of the total ranking) Compared to a lot of the schools on there , we aren't selective at all.
2.Faculty Salary (35% of the Faculty Resources rank which is 20% of total, so about 7% of the total rank) This seems like a gimme for the universities with attached med schools and law schools.
Not saying either of these is bad, just observations.
Bingo. We simply can't match what Med Schools can pay.
And, selectivity is antithetical to ISU's mission as the land grant university of Iowa. The point is that Iowans regardless of background are given a chance to study here, whether they can hack it and graduate is up to them.
The mission of a land grant institution is to provide a college education to those who cannot afford one otherwise. In other words, land grant schools are the "Poor Man's Colleges." Therefore, being a land grant school, ISU cannot be "more selective" as that would in violation of its land grant status. I think USNWR unfairly hits land grant institutions by grading "selectivity" so high. Does this list actually grade the amount in research grants a school receives as a part of its "Faculty Resources" rank? That is one area in which ISU excels.
You are correct that the selectivity criterion kills ISU in these rankings. The reason why is because, unlike most universities, ISU' s admission requirements are completely transparent. Most students who are not admissible know so before they apply so they don't bother applying. This makes ISU's selectivity appear to be much lower than it really is.
For me the bottom line is that you can't compare Coast Guard Academy with Grinnell with ISU; it's nonsensical.
A ranking of land grant universities would give you a much more accurate picture of where ISU stands among peer institutions ans would be more useful to prospective students.
Seems like schools in higher cost of living areas would offer greater salary as well. Ames isn't cheap but it is cheaper than a lot of places.
I'm pretty sure they adjust for cost of living. Not that that entirely evens things out, but they do weight it some.
We also have a large number of students who take their first two years at a community college and then move to ISU to get their bachelor's degree. Not anything wrong with this, on the contrary, it is a great idea if you aren't sure what you want to major in and want to save some money while you figure out. But it probably has an effect of decreasing our selectivity, decreasing our ranking.
