Forbes Shows SMU Some Love

[friarwolf]

Rated 13 in the nation.............


http://www.forbes.com/opinions/forbes/2 ... 030_2.html

[CalallenStang]

I was just about to post the same thing...
here's the story:

The most popular rankings use the wrong measures.

This time of year, as they make the momentous decision of where to go to college, high school seniors are turning to popular rankings compiled by magazines like U.S. News & World Report. There are competing scorecards from the Princeton Review and Kiplinger's, but U.S. News' product is way out in front in visibility; in addition to its usual circulation of 2 million, it sells 9,000 newsstand copies and some 20,000 of its college guide book.

U.S. News evaluates educational quality by looking inside colleges at measures like faculty-student ratios, admissions selectivity, financial resources and alumni giving.

I think the U.S. News rankings ought to get a D. They're roughly equivalent to evaluating a chef based on the ingredients he or she uses. At the Center for College Affordability & Productivity, a two-year-old research organization in Washington, D.C. with a free-market bent, we evaluate colleges on results. Do students like their courses? How successful are they once they graduate? In short, we review the meal.

Our measures begin with student evaluations posted on Ratemyprofessors.com, a nine-year-old site with 6.8 million student-generated evaluations. We look at college graduation rates (as does U.S. News). We also calculate the percent of students winning awards like Rhodes Scholarships and undergraduate Fulbright travel grants. For vocational success we turn to Who's Who in America. Though imperfect, it is the only comprehensive listing of professional achievement that includes undergraduate affiliations. (Our complete listing of more than 200 schools can be viewed at Forbes.com.)

The top CCAP schools rank near the top of the U.S. News list, as the accompanying table shows. But just below the top there are some surprises. Duke, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania make the top 10 list at U.S. News but not at CCAP. Duke students don't rate their professors high enough. At the University of Pennsylvania not enough grads made it into Who's Who. Brown and Northwestern, both ranked 14 by U.S. News, and Dartmouth College, ranked 11 by U.S. News, all make it onto our top 10. The University of Alabama, which got great reviews from students, came in a number 7 on our national public university ranking; it's at position 42 on U.S. News' list.

The biggest surprises come in our list of liberal arts colleges. Wabash doesn't make the top 50 on U.S. News' list but ranks tenth with CCAP because of the awards its students won and its showing in Who's Who. Several other schools not high on the U.S. News list, including Whitman, Washington & Lee, Barnard and the U.S. Military Academy (a.k.a. West Point), are in our top 10. A number of excellent smaller liberal arts colleges do poorly on the U.S. News list but fare very well on the CCAP list, including Reed (twelfth) and Knox (sixteenth). Like other consumers, students want satisfaction and results, which is what CCAP measures.

[couch 'em]

TCU coming in at a strong 81. UNT coming in at a ...... well.... you know.

[Bergermeister]

TCU coming in at a strong 81. UNT coming in at a ...... well.... you know.

Are the rankings out yet for the Spanish Departments?

[03Mustang]

Their methodology is a little strange, but hey, I'll take it. Isn't Forbes the same group that came out with the top High Schools a while back....with two DISD schools near the top?

I'm all for boosting our stature out there, but I don't know about the credibility of the ratings. I mean, ratemyprofessors.com is about as reliable as Wikipedia.

[CalallenStang]

Their methodology is a little strange, but hey, I'll take it. Isn't Forbes the same group that came out with the top High Schools a while back....with two DISD schools near the top?

I thought that was Newsweek...

[mustangnation]

TCU coming in at a strong 81. UNT coming in at a ...... well.... you know.

Yeah, wasnt there some guy on here last week yelling about how UNT was the best school in the metroplex(Great law school, business school, med school yada yada yada)??? I would love to see any credible source that has UNT anywhere near SMU in rankings.

[jkflamebo]

smu is severely underrated, glad were getting some respect

[03Mustang]

Their methodology is a little strange, but hey, I'll take it. Isn't Forbes the same group that came out with the top High Schools a while back....with two DISD schools near the top?

I thought that was Newsweek...

You are correct - my mistake.

[ponyboy]

smu is severely underrated, glad were getting some respect

Yes we are. Ratings are generally based on the quality of the institutions students, which is not NEARLY as important as the quality of its instructors. We have some very, very good professors at SMU.

[PK]

Top 25 in all we do!!!!!!!!!

[MrMustang1965]

smu is severely underrated, glad were getting some respect

We're, not were.

[jkflamebo]

smu is severely underrated, glad were getting some respect

We're, not were.

it's a message board, dont care about using apostrophes all the time. i did get B's in rhetoric 1 and 2 tho...

[MrMustang1965]

smu is severely underrated, glad were getting some respect

We're, not were.

it's a message board, dont care about using apostrophes all the time. i did get B's in rhetoric 1 and 2 tho...

Oh, I know. Just ribbin' ya. Gotta keep the Mustangs in the Top 25, ya know?

[Ponedogs]

I was recently in Boston on a business trip and I saw t-shirts with the phrase...

"Harvard...SMU of the North"