5 ms·

US colleges foresee a future where they are under attack for being absurdly selective, what some are now calling being "highly rejective". I think they want to

US colleges foresee a future where they are under attack for being absurdly selective, what some are now calling being "highly rejective". I think they want to avoid being targeted by the fairness wonks anymore than they already are. Also, US News and World Report rankings have major problems, for instance, the ranking algorithm considers campus aesthetics and food quality, but doesn't account for price, giving schools incentive to raise prices to fund campus improvements that boost rank, in turn boosting applications, in turn reducing % acceptance (the principal indicator of "quality" in US schools). This was how TCU went from a meh christian school to a "selective private college" in just a couple of years. World Report now publishes a "best dollar value" report to account for this, but few read it.

duk 4y ago
"the fairness wonks"
peanuty1 4y ago
> the ranking algorithm considers campus aesthetics and food quality. wtf
- Fomite 4y ago
  Having eaten some absolutely miserable dorm food in my time, I get it.
- WillPostForFood 4y ago
  It is not true. https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/ranking-criteria-and-weights https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/rank...
jseliger 4y ago
The gap between the schools' rhetoric and reality is pretty funny; I was just writing about it the other day: https://seliger.com/2022/07/06/nonprofit-boards-of-directors-usually-exist-to-be-controlled-by-the-organizations-executive-director/ https://seliger.com/2022/07/06/nonprofit-boards-of-directors...: You can see a lot of hypocrisy that’s uncritically accepted by a lot of organizations, including nonprofits. Exclusionary higher education is a particular notable example, given the soaring rhetoric of “inclusion” spouted by some people involved with higher ed, versus the reality of those same schools seeking to reject as many applicants as possible. Princeton University’s president, Chris Eisgruber, has, for example, blathered extensively about the school’s efforts to “combat systemic racism.” Princeton has a $37 billion endowment. The school’s undergrad acceptance rate is 5.6% and it charges a sticker price of $73,000 a year (yes, the school does accept a handful of token low-income students every year, but that the school’s overall demographics reflect its target: the wealthy). Does that sound like a school devoted to combating systemic racism to you? How can people make these kinds of arguments with a straight face? Colleges and universities are run largely for the benefit of their administrators. The other exclusionary schools are doing the same things, as are their private-school feeders, despite their vigorous marketing to the contrary. Regarding the above paragraph, let me be clear: describing how something is, is not the same thing as approving of it.
- rayiner 4y ago
  It's truly mind-boggling. The Ivies were always bastions for maintaining the position of WASP elites. They still serve that function. Maybe there is a bit more wiggle room about skin color, but they still function to socialize the next generation of people to run WASP institutions like "JP Morgan Chase."
  - selimthegrim 4y ago
    I guess I must have hallucinated reading all those Stewart Alsop articles about the decline of the WASP Elite then.
  - lmm 4y ago
    There's nothing inherently white, anglo-saxon or protestant about the oligarchy that these institutions preserve; they will very happily pass on to a new generation of westernised, college-educated liberals of all races and genders but no more variation in thought than the one they replaced. The cultural focus on such ephemera gives them a very useful fig leaf for excluding the demographic that it actually matters to exclude: the working class.
    - rayiner 4y ago
      In this context, “WASP” refers to social status and cultural norms derived from northeastern British and Dutch colonists, but not limited to them. Working class southerners or Appalachians have never been “WASPs” in that sense despite fitting the definition literally.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
pyuser583 4y ago
A big problem: admitting too many students actually decrease the number who apply.
kart23 4y ago
Is that really so wrong though? I'd like to go to a college where the food doesn't suck and the campus is nice. Those are definitely factors that went into my choice. Value was definitely the overwhelming factor in my decision though, I went to a UC. Also, even the value rankings are mostly just Ivies at the top. Funny enough, my school is in the ~30s for overall rankings, but in the low 100s for value, since they're looking at the out-of-state cost (which for UCs is around 50k vs. 15k in-state), and they include grants, which is extremely variable by individual student. If they looked at the in-state tuition, UCs would dominate the value rankings. https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/best-value https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-unive...
WillPostForFood 4y ago
US News rankings considers neither food nor campus aesthetics. https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/ranking-criteria-and-weights https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/rank...

duk 4y ago

"the fairness wonks"

peanuty1 4y ago

> the ranking algorithm considers campus aesthetics and food quality. wtf

Fomite 4y ago
Having eaten some absolutely miserable dorm food in my time, I get it.
WillPostForFood 4y ago
It is not true. https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/ranking-criteria-and-weights https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/rank...

jseliger 4y ago

The gap between the schools' rhetoric and reality is pretty funny; I was just writing about it the other day: https://seliger.com/2022/07/06/nonprofit-boards-of-directors-usually-exist-to-be-controlled-by-the-organizations-executive-director/ https://seliger.com/2022/07/06/nonprofit-boards-of-directors...: You can see a lot of hypocrisy that’s uncritically accepted by a lot of organizations, including nonprofits. Exclusionary higher education is a particular notable example, given the soaring rhetoric of “inclusion” spouted by some people involved with higher ed, versus the reality of those same schools seeking to reject as many applicants as possible. Princeton University’s president, Chris Eisgruber, has, for example, blathered extensively about the school’s efforts to “combat systemic racism.” Princeton has a $37 billion endowment. The school’s undergrad acceptance rate is 5.6% and it charges a sticker price of $73,000 a year (yes, the school does accept a handful of token low-income students every year, but that the school’s overall demographics reflect its target: the wealthy). Does that sound like a school devoted to combating systemic racism to you? How can people make these kinds of arguments with a straight face? Colleges and universities are run largely for the benefit of their administrators. The other exclusionary schools are doing the same things, as are their private-school feeders, despite their vigorous marketing to the contrary. Regarding the above paragraph, let me be clear: describing how something is, is not the same thing as approving of it.

rayiner 4y ago
It's truly mind-boggling. The Ivies were always bastions for maintaining the position of WASP elites. They still serve that function. Maybe there is a bit more wiggle room about skin color, but they still function to socialize the next generation of people to run WASP institutions like "JP Morgan Chase."
- selimthegrim 4y ago
  I guess I must have hallucinated reading all those Stewart Alsop articles about the decline of the WASP Elite then.
- lmm 4y ago
  There's nothing inherently white, anglo-saxon or protestant about the oligarchy that these institutions preserve; they will very happily pass on to a new generation of westernised, college-educated liberals of all races and genders but no more variation in thought than the one they replaced. The cultural focus on such ephemera gives them a very useful fig leaf for excluding the demographic that it actually matters to exclude: the working class.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    In this context, “WASP” refers to social status and cultural norms derived from northeastern British and Dutch colonists, but not limited to them. Working class southerners or Appalachians have never been “WASPs” in that sense despite fitting the definition literally.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]

pyuser583 4y ago

A big problem: admitting too many students actually decrease the number who apply.

kart23 4y ago

Is that really so wrong though? I'd like to go to a college where the food doesn't suck and the campus is nice. Those are definitely factors that went into my choice. Value was definitely the overwhelming factor in my decision though, I went to a UC. Also, even the value rankings are mostly just Ivies at the top. Funny enough, my school is in the ~30s for overall rankings, but in the low 100s for value, since they're looking at the out-of-state cost (which for UCs is around 50k vs. 15k in-state), and they include grants, which is extremely variable by individual student. If they looked at the in-state tuition, UCs would dominate the value rankings. https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/best-value https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-unive...

WillPostForFood 4y ago

US News rankings considers neither food nor campus aesthetics. https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/ranking-criteria-and-weights https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/rank...