SMU: Latest USN&WR Ranking

[Cheesesteak]

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/colleg ... _brief.php

[Water Pony]

#71, if you are looking for it on the list. Excellent. One of the best ranking that I can recall for SMU.

[ponyte]

I feel so much better. Now when all my buddies are bragging about which bowl their team will be playing in, I can proudly and loudly profess that SMU is #71!

Gosh this sucks!

[PK]

Well, if it's any consolation to you guys, TCU is at #98.

Shows what having strict recruiting academic requirements can do for you...seeing as both Texas and A&M are ranked higher...and you know they have really high academic standards for their football players. What a crock.

[gostangs]

It definately does not suck - it would be great to be higher - but there are many great schools in the U.S. - we are 73 by the way - and TCU is 100.

Feels about right to me when you consider Rice and UT are seperated out above us - - and we are basically with A&M. Also confirms what most of us know - TCU and Baylor are a few notches below us - Now if we can get his football thing turned around......

[Greenwich Pony]

No, this does bite. The ostensible reason we suck athletically is that we are supposed to be an "academic" school. We have spent money and endured a great deal of garbage because SMU was supposed to become a premiere national university. The 70's is definitely NOT good enough for the sacrifices we as a community have made financially and athletically. Perhaps if we were floating around the top 40 to 50, I'd buy it. But that apparently is not the case. I do understand that this is one rating poll, and that these polls don't mean a great deal, but it is a visible measure of the reputation of the university. Much as I would like to like this administration, they have NOT delivered on their promises for improving, well, anything. I can live with the "academic" excuse, if it were true. But it's plainly not.

[PK]

It definately does not suck - it would be great to be higher - but there are many great schools in the U.S. - we are 73 by the way - and TCU is 100.

FWIW...the way I read it, we are tied with two other schools at 71 and TCU is tied with a group at 98. Other than that, I think the schools within the tied brackets are listed alphabetically.

[gostangs]

No, I think if you count on down you will see they only have the numbers next to certain schools, but they are definately ranked, and we are 73.

Also - these are pretty objective criteria - which is why you get the wonkish tech schools kicking up there evey now and then - (Rensselar Polytech!!??). The one category that keeps us from bumping up 15-20 points on this list is our acceptance rate - we accept too many of the applicants to be considered "elite" (because there are not enough applicants). An example of that would be Notre Dame, which nobody would expect at number 18 - above Vanderbilt! - but they have a huge applicant pool (all those Rudys donchaknow) therefore they come out as selective.

One way to increase applicants might be to have a higher profile on our sports programs - which might happen if we start winning a bit, etc., etc....

If you take out the nerd-only schools we bump up a dozen spots, and our applicant pool would need to double to get much higher then that. Its hard to argue that we should be in the top thirty at this point.

[PK]

Not to beat a dead horse, but it's Friday. When you have a tie, the next team not in the tie is not given the next number. For instance, if SMU, Tulsa and La Tech are tied for 2nd place, the next team is not in 3rd place, it's in 5th place. That does not mean that La Tech is in 4th place, they are tied for 2nd place.

[OldPony]

The probelm is that they let Yankees vote.

[Boston Pony]

The placing of SMU in around the 70th position is good - there are plenty of colleges out there that do worse (& many that do better). Many of the issues on the ranking is peer perception, endowment, acceptance percentages, etc. SMU has a nice endowment, however not even close to the Ivy's, Stanford, or Notre Dame. We have had a high acceptance rate which is bad for rankings. I assume our peer perception (other college profs feedback) has traditionally been pretty good. Also I believe student acceptance into grad schools. We aren't ever as good as some of our 'Academics' think we are, yet we can keep our rankings and still compete athletically given reasonable expectations - never a Harvard academically nor USC athletically

[DiamondM]

I believe alumni giving also counts toward rankings, and we are very low percentage wise of alumni giving back to the university.

[SoCal_Pony]

While I respect USN, it is only one rating service.

The Princeton Review gave the following ratings: UCLA 85, UT 83, SMU 82, A&M 81, USC 80, TTech 75 and Baylor 73.

And by the way, USN clearly rates us #71, tied with Indiana and Michigan State (whenever there is a tie, the schools are placed in alphabetical order).

[Diehard Pony]

This also takes the school as a whole. The business school was rated #9 by the Wall Street Journal in their last published section on the business schools of America (Texas was #10).

Also, the business school is always rated in the Top 20 by Business Week in their annual rating.

I don't know which departments are dragging down the ratings, but it is not the Business School that is extremely well funded by the Dallas business community.

[NavyCrimson]

as for me - personally - the b-school is our true crown-jewel !!!!!!!

nothing else @ the school comes even close -

& its only going to get better & better!