gostangs wrote:good facts. As I mentioned they are very catchable. No idea how they are ranked so high when our student quality is the same or even a hair better. I think the academic world has not caught up with where our testing scores have gone - hate to be a promoter, but we should be sending that information out in whatever ways are necessary. We will have a much higher yield when our ranking goes up.
It's likely three areas that are hurting SMU's US News Rankings: 1) reputation 22.5%; 2) selectivity 12.5%; and 3) Graduation and retention rates 22.5%.
http://www.usnews.com/education/best-co ... nd-weightsReputationSMU isn't good at all of the above. In terms of reputation, the east coast has an advantage. Students generally apply to multiple colleges and there are coastal leanings for both east coast, California, and Chicago. The schools such as Vanderbilt, Emory, Rice, and Washington University in St. Louis, that traditionally do well in the rankings all draw from the coasts and have massive research. The academic peer assessment survey allows top academics—presidents, provosts, and deans of admissions—to account for intangibles at peer institutions such as faculty dedication to teaching.
http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/c ... -officials . The reputation of Texas schools aren't the best. Besides, Rice, University of Texas and maybe Texas A&M (due to research as size), the rest of the institutions could definitely use a bigger boost in reputation. The main reason UT and A&M ranking is lower is due to the Top 10 percent Rule and class size. They have to accepts students irrespective of their standardizes test scores, etc. In addition, the institutions are too big. Compare the class size of A&M and UT to Berkeley, UCLA, Virginia, UNC or Michigan.
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandrevie ... top-public . UT and A&M became greedy and the politicians screwed up the public school system. Texas universities are looked down by the coasts and Chicago. It doesn't help that our public school system in Texas is trash either.
SelectivitySelectivity and Graduation and retention rates should be the easiest ones to fix. GSelectivity is low due to affordability and finding the right students that want to apply. SMU needs to pimp the early decision apps. They already do, its at 51%. Early Decision Admission Rate 51% of 406 applicants were admitted.
http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/coll ... oolId=1147The issue now is that more students should be applying via Early Decision. They could make more students apply by making Early Decision apps free. Making all athletes apply early decision to secure a spot (obviously the best athletes can wait, i'm thinking at least the Olympic sports). Giving more financial aid to Early Decision apps. The highly selective schools in the 10-30 range definitely ensure that the Early Decision and Early Action Programs work for their advantage. I think that mandatory faculty or alumni interviews could be helpful in not only selecting students but also getting students interested selecting SMU.
Graduation and Retention RatesGraduation rates are probably partially low due to affordability and job prospects after graduation. I'm not sure why job prospects should be an issue since SMU is in DFW. The main issue I see is that alums that can hire don't make sure all SMU alums have jobs. Affordability is an issue, since students may transfer or take time off if they do not have the money to finish. Accumulating loans with bad job prospects will do that. Finally, is probably student quality. While the quality has increased, we could still get higher quality students.
Again, I blame President Turner and the administration. They have a lack of vision for the University in terms of academics and athletics. They are over their head in terms of directing SMU to become a better version of itself. I love what Turner has done, but he needs to go. I also think SMU is financially mismanaged. I don't have all the numbers, but we could be more efficient.