2019 US News College Rankings

78crusader · September 10, 2018, 10:12:53 AM

OK, the 2019 US News college rankings are out as of this morning:

1. Butler
1. Creighton (tie)
3. Drake
4. John Carroll
5. Valparaiso

We continue our slide down the rankings. I realize there is more to running a university than trying to please US News and World Report, but the trend in our rankings is not good and the law school is closing. This reinforces the doubts I have (and have had) about the direction the current administration is taking the school.

Paul

valpopal · September 10, 2018, 10:43:55 AM

Quote from: 78crusader on September 10, 2018, 10:12:53 AM
OK, the 2019 US News college rankings are out as of this morning:

1. Butler
1. Creighton (tie)
3. Drake
4. John Carroll
5. Valparaiso

We continue our slide down the rankings. I realize there is more to running a university than trying to please US News and World Report, but the trend in our rankings is not good and the law school is closing. This reinforces the doubts I have (and have had) about the direction the current administration is taking the school.

Paul

I agree with Paul that I would like to see Valparaiso climb up this list. I'm looking to discover what factor causes the separation from those above. However, you can look to the university emphasizing and promoting that Valpo was #1 in the Best Value category for Midwest Regional Universities: https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/regional-universities-midwest/best-value

78crusader · September 10, 2018, 11:04:12 AM

Yes, #1 in Best value but only tied for 5th in Best Undergraduate Teaching (tied with Truman State).

Paul

crusadermoe · September 10, 2018, 01:15:22 PM

Not a surprise. There may be little difference in the raw scores. My surprse was Butler over Creighton.

vu72 · September 10, 2018, 01:23:48 PM

Quote from: crusadermoe on September 10, 2018, 01:15:22 PM
Not a surprise. There may be little difference in the raw scores. My surprse was Butler over Creighton.

It was a tie.

vu72 · September 10, 2018, 01:26:02 PM

Quote from: 78crusader on September 10, 2018, 11:04:12 AM
Yes, #1 in Best value but only tied for 5th in Best Undergraduate Teaching (tied with Truman State).

Paul

My, aren't we splitting hairs. There are 172 schools in our category. I imagine the Stanford Alumni are up-in-arms after only being ranked 7th in the National Universities category.

valpopal · September 10, 2018, 01:41:08 PM

Examining the internal numbers between Valparaiso (#5) and Butler (#1) overall rankings, I see some details that stand out. Butler is perceived as more selective with an acceptance rate of 65% compared to Valpo's 84%. (This obviously could be a result of higher application numbers for Butler, but makes you wonder why they have such a high profile with applicants.)

Butler offers 52.1% of its courses with fewer than 20 students per class, while Valpo's rate of classes with less than 20 students is 45.6%. (Since Butler's enrollment numbers are higher than Valpo, that 6.5% difference includes more students.) This is usually a crucial figure when evaluating teaching.

Freshman retention rate at Butler is 90%, while Valpo's retention is 84%. (Again, due to the overall enrollment numbers, that 6% difference is more significant.)

On the issue of economics, Butler offers financial aid to 59% of its students with an average of $20,935 per package. Valparaiso offers financial aid to 76% of its students with an average of $30,100 per package. (Consequently, Valpo receives its high ranking as a value college, but Valpo's cost for attracting students is also much higher, taking funds from elsewhere.)

Butler was deemed #1 in undergraduate teaching compared to Valpo's tie for 5th. This category is apparently based solely upon a survey of college presidents, provosts and admissions deans, which would indicate it is a gauge of external impressions of the university, and Butler is viewed more prominently by that subset of individuals.

I am using Butler for comparisons only because it is #1 and Valpo is #5 in our bracket. However, I recognize Butler and Valpo cannot be deemed as the same because Butler is an urban school with many of the advantages that accompany that situation, including a larger pool of local students and a faculty salary rate that is greater due to higher cost of living in its location.

These are the results of just a quick glance for possible discussion and I recognize Valpo is among the top tier of peer schools, but the overall trend in recent years has not been positive, and I hope the university is carefully reviewing what might be done to move back in an upward direction.

vu72 · September 10, 2018, 02:11:51 PM

Quote from: valpopal on September 10, 2018, 01:41:08 PMOn the issue of economics, Butler offers financial aid to 59% of its students with an average of $20,935 per package. Valparaiso offers financial aid to 76% of its students with an average of $30,100 per package. (Consequently, Valpo receives its high ranking as a value college, but Valpo's cost for attracting students is also much higher, taking funds from elsewhere.)

I think this say much about the need for the endowment effort. The larger the endowment the less funds for scholarships come from "elsewhere".

Interesting also is that Butler's student body is now 60% female and Valpo's is at 55% and undergrad enrollment is 30% larger at Butler. While freshman retention is slightly higher at Buter, this may also be due to the areas of study. Butler's top five are:Business, Management, Marketing and related Support Services. the Communication and Journalism. At Valpo the top areas include: Registered Nursing, Mechanical Engineering, Finance, and Business Administration, followed by more engineering majors.

wh · January 17, 2019, 08:14:30 PM

Ran across this while looking at ND rankings. Best Colleges in IN. Valpo is ranked No. 24 of 25. Ranked below even IU & Purdue regional campuses. I have no idea who did the ranking or their criteria. I only know I would feel pretty humiliated if this were my alma mater. It's a kill shot from a marketing/recruiting standpoint.

https://www.bestcolleges.com/features/best-colleges-in-indiana/

BTW I hope no one thinks this is intended to be mean-spirited. Nothing could be further from the truth. I hold Valpo and all of its alums in the highest esteem.

crusader05 · January 18, 2019, 10:22:30 AM

yeah that's a completely invalid site. It's not a real ranking. there is no ranking in the world that put a college with a 33% graduation rate above colleges with 60% or more. It means nothing. They post those rankings to see if schools will pay money to get them to post them higher. You can't do anything about them cause they can rank however they want but it's inconsequential to our marketing because no site/person that actually will help people find colleges would ever utilize them. Also, even with that, there are 400 colleges in Indiana. My guess is that they took the most notable colleges in the area and then elicited money to pay to promote other colleges and stuck those in the top 25 too.

crusadermoe · January 18, 2019, 11:55:35 AM

Valpopal points out a huge stat above. Butler gives out packages of $20,000 per student and gives one to only 59% of students.

Valpo gives out a package of $30,000 per student and gives one to 76% of its students.

Do the math.

vu84v2 · January 18, 2019, 12:19:35 PM

crusader05 is likely correct. In fact, we could go create a site that lists Valparaiso as the best university in Indiana and (with some creativity and cleverness) could come up with a scale that somehow supports that position.

The question is who motivated this (or who in certain schools paid to support this bogus ranking). This brings to mind a story from several years ago (all true).

An analysis came out in a peer-reviewed journal that ranked UMKC number one in the world in innovation management research: https://info.umkc.edu/umatters/umkc-receives-top-world-ranking-in-innovation-management-research/

Additionally, they were the number one university for entrepreneurship and innovation for three years in the Princeton Review.

UMKC, as you will notice, promoted this. They also were glad that they could please their primary donor (Henry Bloch)

Yet, this would seem suspicious to pretty much anyone. Better than Stanford? Better than MIT?

It turns out that one of the tenured professors (Michael Song) in innovation at UMKC brought in two visiting scholars from China and tasked them to come up with the right criteria for a ranking method that made UMKC's innovation center look really good. They came up with a methodology that cleverly used certain research criteria and disregarded others over the right time period to lead to a result that UMKC was the best in the world. They then submitted it to a peer-reviewed journal who somehow didn't barf on it and then published it. Then, UMKC publicized it. An independent study from the State (who might have had a bit of motivation not to refute the ranking) upheld this ranking because the criteria were openly disclosed - but the journal eventually retracted the article https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jpim.12270

As for the Princeton Review ranking...

(AP, Feb, 2015) Earlier this month, the Princeton Review announced it was pulling the school's 2011 through 2014 top 25 rankings for graduate and undergraduate entrepreneurship programs. The university was stripped of its rankings after Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon requested an audit of the school's data because of a Kansas City Star article that called the Henry W. Bloch School of Management's pursuit of higher rankings for its Regnier Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation into question. The audit found the business school knowingly submitted false data when applying for rankings and awards from national organizations.

The professor resigned, though he obviously would have been fired. My point is that if anyone at any school (but especially a state school) paid or made any other efforts to create the bogus ranking in wh's post, he or she should be immediately fired.

wh · January 18, 2019, 12:52:40 PM

Quote from: crusader05 on January 18, 2019, 10:22:30 AM
yeah that's a completely invalid site. It's not a real ranking. there is no ranking in the world that put a college with a 33% graduation rate above colleges with 60% or more. It means nothing. They post those rankings to see if schools will pay money to get them to post them higher. You can't do anything about them cause they can rank however they want but it's inconsequential to our marketing because no site/person that actually will help people find colleges would ever utilize them. Also, even with that, there are 400 colleges in Indiana. My guess is that they took the most notable colleges in the area and then elicited money to pay to promote other colleges and stuck those in the top 25 too.

?

crusader05 · January 19, 2019, 01:37:16 PM

Sorry I forgot to edit that out. I was going to point out that there are around 400 colleges in the state of Indiana alone so being the top 25 would still not be a bad thing, but I found the rankings they provided so offensive that I decided that was a moot point in my argument that the list was crap.