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Re: US News Rankings

Postby tristatecoog » Thu Sep 17, 2020 4:34 pm

AM, that’s a troubling drop from 90% to 72% in six year graduation rates in two years. Not having course availability can push someone back a year but I’d expect SMU students are able to graduate in six years. Public urban universities like UH, UTD, UCF, etc. are going to have lots of people working PT jobs. SMU?

I noticed that Tulane had a one year jump in ranking from 54 to 41 in 2016. In the five years since then, their average has been 41.

I also note that TX Tech has fallen precipitously over the last decade to #217 while UH has moved from the 200s to 170s. Maybe a urban phenomenon? Baylor in Waco isn’t vastly different than Lubbock but much closer proximity to urban areas.
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Re: US News Rankings

Postby AfricanMustang » Thu Sep 17, 2020 5:17 pm

tristatecoog wrote:AM, that’s a troubling drop from 90% to 72% in six year graduation rates in two years. Not having course availability can push someone back a year but I’d expect SMU students are able to graduate in six years. Public urban universities like UH, UTD, UCF, etc. are going to have lots of people working PT jobs. SMU?

I noticed that Tulane had a one year jump in ranking from 54 to 41 in 2016. In the five years since then, their average has been 41.

I also note that TX Tech has fallen precipitously over the last decade to #217 while UH has moved from the 200s to 170s. Maybe a urban phenomenon? Baylor in Waco isn’t vastly different than Lubbock but much closer proximity to urban areas.


Here are the full figures;
Cohort 4 Yr Grad Rate 6 Yr Grad Rate
Fall 2010 56% 90%
Fall 2011 55% 83%
Fall 2012 50% 72%
Fall 2013 58% 80%
Fall 2014 59%

It's worth noting that the Fall 2012 cohort is when the new Curriculum (UC) was introduced and the Fall 2014 cohort is when a revised one to address the graduation rates were approved. The 6 Yr rate for the Fall 2014 cohort is not yet available.
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Re: US News Rankings

Postby tristatecoog » Fri Sep 18, 2020 11:24 am

Do you think Fall 2013 6-yr grad rates were used in the 2021 rankings or maybe 2012? With a two year on campus focus and the new UC, it expect grad rates to exceed the levels in 2010 and rankings to rise. As scholarships aid Pell Grant recipients, that figure will climb too.
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Re: US News Rankings

Postby mustangxc » Sun Sep 20, 2020 6:39 pm

Those graduation rates are extremely low regardless of curriculum. I would expect that from a community college, but not a pricey institution like SMU. Several people should be fired for that!
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Re: US News Rankings

Postby AfricanMustang » Mon Sep 21, 2020 1:07 pm

tristatecoog wrote:Do you think Fall 2013 6-yr grad rates were used in the 2021 rankings or maybe 2012? With a two year on campus focus and the new UC, it expect grad rates to exceed the levels in 2010 and rankings to rise. As scholarships aid Pell Grant recipients, that figure will climb too.


Those who had graduated as of Spring 2019 (Fall 2013 entering class)

Graduation and retention rates:

This has two components.
- A four-year rolling average of the proportion of each entering class (fall 2010-2013) earning a degree in six years or less (17.6%)
- A four-year rolling average of the proportion of first-year entering students (fall 2015-fall 2018) who returned the following fall (4.4%)

Graduation rate performance: We compared each college's actual six-year graduation rate with what we predicted for its fall 2013 entering class. For the first time this year, we averaged two years of graduate rate performance data for the graduation rate performance calculations to reduce the volatility of this indicator. So this indicator contains data from the fall 2012 and fall 2013 entering classes. The predicted rates were modeled from admissions data, the proportion of undergraduates awarded Pell Grants, school financial resources, the proportion of federal financial aid recipients who are first-generation college students, and National Universities' math and science orientations.

Graduation and retention rates (22%)
Social mobility (5%)
Graduation rate performance (8%)
Undergraduate academic reputation (20%)
Faculty resources for 2019-2020 academic year (20%)
Student selectivity for the fall 2019 entering class (7%)
Financial resources per student (10%)
Average alumni giving rate (3%)
Graduate Indebtedness (5%)

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-c ... e-rankings
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Re: US News Rankings

Postby Mustangs_Maroons » Mon Sep 21, 2020 2:22 pm

is there a timetable on turner officially retiring, or is this like the supreme court judge, where he has life tenure here?
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Re: US News Rankings

Postby tristatecoog » Mon Sep 21, 2020 5:16 pm

So next year's grad rate will get another boost as long as the six year rate is 80%+.

I wonder if Provost Laboa is being given a couple years to show her skills. It would seem that she'd be the interim in any case while a national search is undertaken.
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Re: US News Rankings

Postby Mustangs_Maroons » Tue Sep 22, 2020 10:39 am

I have always believed that we should target a provost or chancellor that is in place at an aspirational university, not someone that comes from the University of Missouri, Ole Miss, or Kansas, or one of these type of state schools. We need someone that is at an elite institution that will see the benefit of becoming a President at a university such as ours that is greatly positioned and primed to take us to another level. What a legacy that could be for someone. I'm sure we will pay top dollar, but we tend to go after Toyotas and Hyundais where there are top of the line Mercedes out there.
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Re: US News Rankings

Postby AfricanMustang » Tue Sep 22, 2020 12:18 pm

Mustangs_Maroons wrote:I have always believed that we should target a provost or chancellor that is in place at an aspirational university, not someone that comes from the University of Missouri, Ole Miss, or Kansas, or one of these type of state schools. We need someone that is at an elite institution that will see the benefit of becoming a President at a university such as ours that is greatly positioned and primed to take us to another level. What a legacy that could be for someone. I'm sure we will pay top dollar, but we tend to go after Toyotas and Hyundais where there are top of the line Mercedes out there.


I agree, though I think a Provost at an Aspirational School (Like Pepperdine) will be looking to go to an ever higher ranking institution.

For what its worth, R. Gerald Turner was the Brad Cheves (Point man) of the Pepperdine President while there, before moving with him to the University of Oklahoma and then the Ole Miss Chancellorship.
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Re: US News Rankings

Postby AfricanMustang » Tue Sep 22, 2020 1:53 pm

AfricanMustang wrote:
tristatecoog wrote:Do you think Fall 2013 6-yr grad rates were used in the 2021 rankings or maybe 2012? With a two year on campus focus and the new UC, it expect grad rates to exceed the levels in 2010 and rankings to rise. As scholarships aid Pell Grant recipients, that figure will climb too.


Those who had graduated as of Spring 2019 (Fall 2013 entering class)

Graduation and retention rates:

This has two components.
- A four-year rolling average of the proportion of each entering class (fall 2010-2013) earning a degree in six years or less (17.6%)
- A four-year rolling average of the proportion of first-year entering students (fall 2015-fall 2018) who returned the following fall (4.4%)

Graduation rate performance: We compared each college's actual six-year graduation rate with what we predicted for its fall 2013 entering class. For the first time this year, we averaged two years of graduate rate performance data for the graduation rate performance calculations to reduce the volatility of this indicator. So this indicator contains data from the fall 2012 and fall 2013 entering classes. The predicted rates were modeled from admissions data, the proportion of undergraduates awarded Pell Grants, school financial resources, the proportion of federal financial aid recipients who are first-generation college students, and National Universities' math and science orientations.

Graduation and retention rates (22%)
Social mobility (5%)
Graduation rate performance (8%)
Undergraduate academic reputation (20%)
Faculty resources for 2019-2020 academic year (20%)
Student selectivity for the fall 2019 entering class (7%)
Financial resources per student (10%)
Average alumni giving rate (3%)
Graduate Indebtedness (5%)

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-c ... e-rankings


"Let us consider a case of a highly-regarded urban private university, George Washington University, which in 2017 was tied with SMU at #56 on USN&WR and is also a Colonial Group member. In the 2017 USN&WR rankings, George Washington University had a peer assessment score of 3.5 (SMU’s score was 3.1) and its high school counselor score was 4.4 (SMU’s was 3.9).

If SMU had peer assessment scores identical to those of George Washington University in the 2016 year (for which we have the most recent modeling data) and all of our other scores
remained the same, SMU would have been ranked #49 instead of #61 that year.


In terms of other comparisons, in 2015, Boston College, Penn State, University of Florida, Purdue University, and Texas A&M University were all rated a 3.6 by peers. Modeling of the
2015 USN&WR data showed that, if all other ranking items were equal, a change in SMU’s peer assessment score from 3.0 (the 2015 score) to 3.6 would position SMU at #50 in the ranking
that year. These results demonstrate the power of the peer assessment score alone to make a positive and significant difference in SMU’s overall USN&WR rank.
It is plausible that increasing familiarity with SMU generally, and items affecting its academic performance specifically, will have beneficial effect on our peer assessment scores. Increasing outside familiarity with SMU’s academic performance and standards will help distinguish it from the other institutions with which we are currently grouped.

https://www.smu.edu/-/media/Site/Provos ... .pdf?la=en
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Re: US News Rankings

Postby Mustangs_Maroons » Tue Sep 22, 2020 2:27 pm

AfricanMustang wrote:
AfricanMustang wrote:
tristatecoog wrote:Do you think Fall 2013 6-yr grad rates were used in the 2021 rankings or maybe 2012? With a two year on campus focus and the new UC, it expect grad rates to exceed the levels in 2010 and rankings to rise. As scholarships aid Pell Grant recipients, that figure will climb too.


Those who had graduated as of Spring 2019 (Fall 2013 entering class)

Graduation and retention rates:

This has two components.
- A four-year rolling average of the proportion of each entering class (fall 2010-2013) earning a degree in six years or less (17.6%)
- A four-year rolling average of the proportion of first-year entering students (fall 2015-fall 2018) who returned the following fall (4.4%)

Graduation rate performance: We compared each college's actual six-year graduation rate with what we predicted for its fall 2013 entering class. For the first time this year, we averaged two years of graduate rate performance data for the graduation rate performance calculations to reduce the volatility of this indicator. So this indicator contains data from the fall 2012 and fall 2013 entering classes. The predicted rates were modeled from admissions data, the proportion of undergraduates awarded Pell Grants, school financial resources, the proportion of federal financial aid recipients who are first-generation college students, and National Universities' math and science orientations.

Graduation and retention rates (22%)
Social mobility (5%)
Graduation rate performance (8%)
Undergraduate academic reputation (20%)
Faculty resources for 2019-2020 academic year (20%)
Student selectivity for the fall 2019 entering class (7%)
Financial resources per student (10%)
Average alumni giving rate (3%)
Graduate Indebtedness (5%)

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-c ... e-rankings


"Let us consider a case of a highly-regarded urban private university, George Washington University, which in 2017 was tied with SMU at #56 on USN&WR and is also a Colonial Group member. In the 2017 USN&WR rankings, George Washington University had a peer assessment score of 3.5 (SMU’s score was 3.1) and its high school counselor score was 4.4 (SMU’s was 3.9).

If SMU had peer assessment scores identical to those of George Washington University in the 2016 year (for which we have the most recent modeling data) and all of our other scores
remained the same, SMU would have been ranked #49 instead of #61 that year.


In terms of other comparisons, in 2015, Boston College, Penn State, University of Florida, Purdue University, and Texas A&M University were all rated a 3.6 by peers. Modeling of the
2015 USN&WR data showed that, if all other ranking items were equal, a change in SMU’s peer assessment score from 3.0 (the 2015 score) to 3.6 would position SMU at #50 in the ranking
that year. These results demonstrate the power of the peer assessment score alone to make a positive and significant difference in SMU’s overall USN&WR rank.
It is plausible that increasing familiarity with SMU generally, and items affecting its academic performance specifically, will have beneficial effect on our peer assessment scores. Increasing outside familiarity with SMU’s academic performance and standards will help distinguish it from the other institutions with which we are currently grouped.

https://www.smu.edu/-/media/Site/Provos ... .pdf?la=en


I agree with this. While I don't know for sure, my sense is that expanding our research will help with the peer assessment tremendously. Top of the line research means that we have top faculty, and faculty that collaborate with top faculty at other universities. This will in turn attract better students because students care about this.

We also clearly need to do a better job with the high school counselors. This should be an area that should be low hanging fruit to work to increase.
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Re: US News Rankings

Postby AfricanMustang » Tue Sep 22, 2020 4:56 pm

AfricanMustang wrote:
tristatecoog wrote:AM, that’s a troubling drop from 90% to 72% in six year graduation rates in two years. Not having course availability can push someone back a year but I’d expect SMU students are able to graduate in six years. Public urban universities like UH, UTD, UCF, etc. are going to have lots of people working PT jobs. SMU?

I noticed that Tulane had a one year jump in ranking from 54 to 41 in 2016. In the five years since then, their average has been 41.

I also note that TX Tech has fallen precipitously over the last decade to #217 while UH has moved from the 200s to 170s. Maybe a urban phenomenon? Baylor in Waco isn’t vastly different than Lubbock but much closer proximity to urban areas.


Here are the full figures;
Cohort 4 Yr Grad Rate 6 Yr Grad Rate
Fall 2010 56% 90%
Fall 2011 55% 83%
Fall 2012 50% 72%
Fall 2013 58% 80%
Fall 2014 59%

It's worth noting that the Fall 2012 cohort is when the new Curriculum (UC) was introduced and the Fall 2014 cohort is when a revised one to address the graduation rates were approved. The 6 Yr rate for the Fall 2014 cohort is not yet available.


Sorry, the above numbers were for "Rotunda Scholars" - a program for under represented minorities.

Here are the over all SMU Numbers...
Cohort 4 Yr Grad Rate 6 Yr Grad Rate
Fall 2016 75%
Fall 2015 74.7%
Fall 2014 73.1% 80.9
Fall 2013 71.6% 81.1%
Fall 2012 67.6% 78%
Fall 2011 71% 80.5%
Fall 2010 68.3% 78.8%

For Fall 2019, 2nd term retention was 97.3%, 1st Yr retention was 90.3% and 2nd Year retention was N/A
For Fall 2018, 2nd term retention was 97.6%, 1st Yr retention was 91.5% and 2nd Year retention was 86.2%
For Fall 2017, 2nd term retention was 97.5%, 1st Yr retention was 90.6% and 2nd Year retention was 85.3%
For Fall 2016, 2nd term retention was 97.4%, 1st Yr retention was 90.9% and 2nd Year retention was 85.7%
For Fall 2015, 2nd term retention was 97.5%, 1st Yr retention was 90.5% and 2nd Year retention was 86.2%
For Fall 2014, 2nd term retention was 97.4%, 1st Yr retention was 90.3% and 2nd Year retention was 84.5%
For Fall 2013, 2nd term retention was 96.7%, 1st Yr retention was 89.3% and 2nd Year retention was 84.8%
For Fall 2012, 2nd term retention was 96.9%, 1st Yr retention was 88.9% and 2nd Year retention was 82.8%
For Fall 2011, 2nd term retention was 97%, 1st Yr retention was 90.8% and 2nd Year retention was 84.5%
For Fall 2010, 2nd term retention was 97.2%, 1st Yr retention was 89.2% and 2nd Year retention was 82.7%

https://sites.smu.edu/ir/reporting/doc/ ... uation.pdf
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Re: US News Rankings

Postby mustangxc » Tue Sep 22, 2020 5:31 pm

That makes much more sense! Still not as high as it should be but not as embarrassingly low.
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Re: US News Rankings

Postby gostangs » Tue Sep 22, 2020 8:45 pm

AfricanMustang wrote:
Mustangs_Maroons wrote:I have always believed that we should target a provost or chancellor that is in place at an aspirational university, not someone that comes from the University of Missouri, Ole Miss, or Kansas, or one of these type of state schools. We need someone that is at an elite institution that will see the benefit of becoming a President at a university such as ours that is greatly positioned and primed to take us to another level. What a legacy that could be for someone. I'm sure we will pay top dollar, but we tend to go after Toyotas and Hyundais where there are top of the line Mercedes out there.


I agree, though I think a Provost at an Aspirational School (Like Pepperdine) will be looking to go to an ever higher ranking institution.

For what its worth, R. Gerald Turner was the Brad Cheves (Point man) of the Pepperdine President while there, before moving with him to the University of Oklahoma and then the Ole Miss Chancellorship.


When i think of aspirational schools i dont think of Pepperdine. Fine school but not all that different academically.
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Re: US News Rankings

Postby Mustangs_Maroons » Wed Sep 23, 2020 12:04 am

Pepperdine is certainly not an aspirational school. It’s probably very similar in many regards to SMU - sat scores, student profiles, etc.

I meant aspirational schools those that I would place into three buckets: I) elite private academic institutions that have D1 sports in P5 program: Stanford, ND, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Duke and II) elite private universities that don’t have P5 D1 programs but that we would benefit greatly from academically: Uchicago, WUSTL, Rice, and III) those Ivies that have a smaller school feel (and have the benefit of D1 sports): Brown, Dartmouth.

Pepperdine is like us - those listed about are true aspirational private universities.
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