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I know that they actually use the 6 year graduation rate for schools because of co-ops programs some schools have. They do also use trailing rates by a few years . Will be interesting to see in a few years when the class of 018 graduates - we were the first to have "the commons"/ a two year on campus policy.

As I have stated before, when I graduated many moons ago (Pony Express Days), SMU was ranked in mid-to-low 50's.

Given the explosive growth of Metroplex over the past 30 years, it is completely unacceptable that SMU is now ranked 61.

tristatecoog wrote:

RGV Pony wrote:I really think it's as some others mentioned the peer assessment. My daughter is at BYU and peer to peer on incoming freshman SMU had a higher average GPA and higher average ACT. % admitted was 49 SMU 53 BYU. Like SMU, BYU has a law school but no medical school.

I presume US News doesn't use BYU's sub-30% 4-yr grad rate due to the preponderance of students doing a mission. Only $13K in total cost per year?? Is there a commitment to tithe all future income to the church? BYU is special and students are well trained.

What about two other urban/suburban competitors...GW and Villanova?
Acceptance rates: SMU (49%), GW (40%) and Nova (44%)
4-yr grad rates: SMU (68%), GW (76%) and Nova (86%)
Student/teacher ratio: SMU (11/1), GW (13/1) and Nova (12/1)
If those stats are true, the other two seem worthy of higher rankings.

For kicks, here are two local private Us.
TCU (#78) -- 38% accepted, 63% grad rate, 13/1 ratio and $37K in debt. [SMU has $30K on avg.]
Baylor (#75) -- 40% accepted, 58% grad rate, 15/1 ratio and $45K in debt.

Wow, why is Baylor higher ranked than TCU? Better counselor ratings? Higher incoming stats?
What is it about TX universities (other than Rice) and their graduation rates? Southwestern is 66%.

There are different tuition rates for member and non-member at BYU. All LDS students are considered to be "on scholarship" and pay exactly half the non member tuition rate.

TCU's admission % is surprising. Anecdotally speaking, they don't come across as substantially more selective than SMU.

RGV I think TCU gets a boost in applications from the name brand in football. The difference is that many of the kids are not really academically eligible for even a tcu. Talking like 20 act/2.5 gpa kids - less of those apply to smu because of athletics and the sticker. Maybe a big time marketing campaign could boost applications at smu to lover our rate but need a lot of capital to do so.

NCAA somehow involved with this? Of course joking, but we can't seem to elevate to our rightful place in this realm either. Keep putting up numbers. The scoreboard has to work itself out eventually. But it does seem like all of this ranking business is someone else's game.

Fall 2017
Applied: 13,128
Admitted: 6,402 (48.76% Admission Rate)
Enrolled: 1,423 (22.23% Yield Rate)
Total SMU Student enrollment: 11,789
Endowment: $1,509,819,653

Fall 2016
Applied: 13,250
Admitted: 6,482 (48.92% Admission Rate)
Enrolled: 1,522 (23.48% Yield Rate)
Total SMU Student enrollment: 11,739
Endowment: $1,376,274,836

I bet being a member of a P-5 conference would double the number of applicants outside of raising our endowment to 3 to 5-Bn. Which one will it be? LOL

NavyCrimson wrote:I bet being a member of a P-5 conference would double the number of applicants outside of raising our endowment to 3 to 5-Bn. Which one will it be? LOL

It is more about reducing Acceptance Rate and Yield. Of course increasing the pool is on method, but I don't think it is the only way. SMU has 49% Admission rate and 22% Admission Yield is trifling for a private school of our size. Check out private schools in the east coast of similar size that aren't in P-5 conferences. It is bad for all private schools in Texas but Rice. Trinity University has 48% Admission rate and 23% Yield and they have a 1 billion dollar endowment for only 2,500 students. While scholarships will increase the applicant pool and yield, Texas schools historically are horrible with admission rates and yield.

I'm not sure if it's the applicant pool or just all Texas schools do similar tomfoolery when it comes to college admissions. I feel we need to find east coast admission officers and follow their practices of reducing the admission rate and increasing the yield.

One interesting note, is that Rice University has a wealthier student body. 38% of Rice receives financial aid, while 70% of SMU receives some form of aid. This means that Rice students have better resources to succeed and eventually graduate from college--that is one admission trick. Either get a richer student body to inflate states, or give students better aid options so they don't graduate with as much debt.

I'm sure the Rice scholarship rate of 38% vs SMU at 70% is a reflection of Rice not needing to lower the cost to attract highly qualified students. Where SMU has to "money whip" top students to attend thereby driving up the scholarship funding.

Pony81 wrote:I'm sure the Rice scholarship rate of 38% vs SMU at 70% is a reflection of Rice not needing to lower the cost to attract highly qualified students. Where SMU has to "money whip" top students to attend thereby driving up the scholarship funding.

I can see your perspective, but at Harvard "approximately 70 percent of our students receive some form of aid, and about 60 percent receive need–based scholarships and pay an average of $12,000 per year." At Harvard there graduates typically graduate with little or no loans. At Rice you graduate about 9K and SMU 22.5K. https://www.raise.me/edu/southern-methodist-university

I think the truth is somewhere in the middle.