How Long Until We Pass UT in National Rankings?

[friarwolf]

SMU's model has been for a long time to hire the best professors money can buy but then let relative dummies into the school for a high price.

Not anymore. Students who sailed through the admissions process with 1150 to 1200 SAT's 6-8 years ago are now routinely denied admission - not wait listed, denied........The days of Daddy offering to write a check to get junior in are over........

[RednBlue11]

Why is it not sustainable? The caliber of graduates from SMU right now are the best in it's history. The caliber of students we are admitting has never been better. We have already passed A&M and Baylor. Why can't we keep it going?

1)Everyone else is working just as hard as us so it makes progress difficult

2)Low hanging fruit is gone - % improvement is going to get tougher

3)Most importantly - demographics are changing. To continue to improve, we have to get more students scoring over 1400 on the SAT who can also pay the freight. It means we are chasing white, affluent, very smart kids and this demographic is shrinking - not to mention the fact every private highly ranked school is chasing these same kids.......

+1

exactly what i was trying to get at

[RednBlue11]

SMU's model has for a long time been to hire the best professors money can buy but then let relative dummies into the school for a high price.

i feel the need to clarify something here, in the academic world the most well respected people are those who do the best research and publish the best works.

we need to seriously raise our research profile to give us an extra boost up the rankings...a significant part of ranking is peer opinion from other institutions, the way to elevate our esteem in their eyes is to expand research opportunities and resources not just narrowing admission standards and raising tuition.

[ponyboy]

To me, the goal is to give students the best possible education, not necessarily to increase our rankings and interinstitutional esteem. (Education, by the way, is not the same as vocational training). This means that professors are there first and foremost to teach, not to research.

[ponyboy]

SMU's model has been for a long time to hire the best professors money can buy but then let relative dummies into the school for a high price.

Not anymore. Students who sailed through the admissions process with 1150 to 1200 SAT's 6-8 years ago are now routinely denied admission - not wait listed, denied........The days of Daddy offering to write a check to get junior in are over........

Why is that? What has changed? Is it for the better in your opinion?

[RednBlue11]

(Education, by the way, is not the same as vocational training). This means that professors are there first and foremost to teach, not to research.

well that is the central question that many universities struggle with...do you hire professors to primarily do research or to teach?

admittedly there are schools w/ enough financial resources that can afford to do both...but almost across the board they are much larger institutions than we

unfortunately the way the rankings are currently judged, those institutions w/ the best teaching professors are not at an advantage...research is the name of the game.

[ponyboy]

Why should we care about rankings?

[RednBlue11]

Why should we care about rankings?

well, you get bragging rights and positive public exposure...which generally leads to more applications and therefore more exclusivity which is desirable for a well respected institution.

it is a measure of credibility and a higher ranking makes us all look good, even those who graduated years ago.

i haven't met many people who are willing to discuss the complexities of what makes a university good, and by how much...the rankings offer simplicity and it tends to be a fall back in any argument despite the fact that not very many people even bother to explore how the rankings are made and what kind bias that holds.

[RednBlue11]

SMU's model has been for a long time to hire the best professors money can buy but then let relative dummies into the school for a high price.

Not anymore. Students who sailed through the admissions process with 1150 to 1200 SAT's 6-8 years ago are now routinely denied admission - not wait listed, denied........The days of Daddy offering to write a check to get junior in are over........

Why is that? What has changed? Is it for the better in your opinion?

i believe the reason it changed was that in the early 90's duke and vandy did what we are doing now (narrowing admissions standards)...they shot up the rankings and we stayed put or slipped, depending on how you look at it.

however if you look at the latest rankings...they assert that our acceptance rate is above 50%...that's hardly very excelusive in my opinion.

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandrevie ... rsity-3613

i disagree that it is not longer the case that wealthy individuals can make a sizable donation to the university and their children will be admitted...i think that what you said also asserts that somehow a sizable percentage of any given class at SMU in the past was admitted on that premise (whether you intended that to be the case or not).

it is well documented that underachieving youths w/ wealthy and well connected parents have been admitted to just about every Ivy League school (especially Harvard) at the same time that a sizable donation has been made or committed.

[HB Pony Dad]

I see USC finally passed UCLA in the rankings.

Obviously our alums are contributing more to the US News coffers lately!

[ponyboy]

i disagree that it is not longer the case that wealthy individuals can make a sizable donation to the university and their children will be admitted...

When I said it took money, I mean that we are a very expensive school that tends therefore to attract the BMW crowd... I wasn't referring to the donation for acceptance thing, if such a thing really actually happens that much. The quality of education you get at SMU has always been very high compared to the intellectual ability of those who go to school here, though it sounds like it's getting tougher and tougher to get in.

[RednBlue11]

i disagree that it is not longer the case that wealthy individuals can make a sizable donation to the university and their children will be admitted...

When I said it took money, I mean that we are a very expensive school that tends therefore to attract the BMW crowd... I wasn't referring to the donation for acceptance thing, if such a thing really actually happens that much. The quality of education you get at SMU has always been very high compared to the intellectual ability of those who go to school here, though it sounds like it's getting tougher and tougher to get in.

i see your point

[friarwolf]

Why should we care about rankings?

Applications arose this year to over 13,000. Last year, it was in the 9,000's. Historically, we got around 7,000. Simplistic I know, but we move up in applications over 30% the same year we make a big move up in rankings........

[friarwolf]

SMU's model has been for a long time to hire the best professors money can buy but then let relative dummies into the school for a high price.

Not anymore. Students who sailed through the admissions process with 1150 to 1200 SAT's 6-8 years ago are now routinely denied admission - not wait listed, denied........The days of Daddy offering to write a check to get junior in are over........

Why is that? What has changed? Is it for the better in your opinion?

Simply, the quality and quantity of applicants has moved up allowing SMU to become much more selective. There are lots of reasons for this - campus capital improvements, quality of professors and staff, increase in scholarships, beauty of the campus, location, improvements in rankings, better marketing of the school has all led to better incoming classes. All of this is the long term vision of Turner and the board. We want the average SAT to be over 1300. Can't take a lot of average kids - even if Daddy can write a big check and keep that SAT score moving up. The expectations are that our average SAT score will move from 1242 to possibly as high as 1255 -1260 this year.

Are we better for this? Absolutely.......

[ponyboy]

Well said. Thanks.