For what it is worth, my daughter chose Miami over Northwestern, Vanderbilt, and Washington University, among others. Also turned down Indiana, Elon, and a full ride to Missouri. Admitted to all. I am sure she would be happy to talk to you about her decision process which we left entirely up to her.
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I don’t think Duke because of basketball would ever be in a conference with Miami. Northwestern, Wake, Rice, Stanford, and maybe Vandy perhaps. But NW and Vandy would have to be kicked out of the B10 and SEC because they aren’t going to voluntarily give up the millions they get each year from being in those conferences respectively.
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Oh I 100% agree with you. Just a lark on my part. Although I do wonder where Duke will go when the SEC inevitably raids Clemson, UNC, FSU, and Miami. Prolly the Big Ten…NC State willl be the outlier there. Could see some wild stuff.
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That’s great. Sounds like Miami is lucky to have your daughter. That being said, one anecdotal experience doesn’t negate the overall macros. If there were other students like your daughter in anything close to large numbers, I doubt we’d be on the outside looking in at the top 100, and whether one likes or hates these rankings, they do drive perception and reputation to a large degree.
Ultimately, Miami has fallen behind on a lot of metrics involved and needs to show some real improvements. Ohio’s demographics aren’t getting better. OSU is not going anywhere, and UC seems to be on the rise. At the same time, the Chicago pipeline has largely been maximized. It’s a challenging time to be leading Miami. Let’s hope that Crawford & Co. are up to it.
Maybe the big schools or schools with better endowments are gaming the metrics. No different than the way lobbyists go to congress and do their bidding. I don’t doubt any Ivy League high on the list. Or your classic publics that have always been there (NW, Michigan). Where things get real dubious real fast is when state schools that take pretty much anyone in shoot up the rankings. That (to me) reeks of behind the scenes money and grift. These lists have a human element to them and may not be 100 % objective. And sadly, even if driven 100% by AI, I doubt that would change since you can game an algorithm.
Ps, not trying to say some schools haven’t improved or suggest we don’t need improvement. Just think it’s important to be very objective about all the data + context of what’s at stake for the schools to game it any way they can.
I don’t buy the conspiracy theory aspect. A year or two ago someone here said that an administrator told him that schools buy their ranking, and Miami wouldn’t play the game. To me, that sounds like an administrator using highly implausible conspiracy theories to make excuses rather than addressing the issue head on.
If these rankings were pay to play, it would have come out a long time ago. USNWR has been around for 40 years. Hundreds of schools and thousands (10K+?) of their administrators have been involved during this time. There’s no way that stays a secret considering that there’d be a certain Pulitzer waiting for any investigative journalists who broke the story. Hell, if Miami has the dirt why aren’t they passing it on to some journalists.
Can you elaborate on open admission state schools shooting up the rankings. Other than checking in when rankings are released and show up in my news feeds, I don’t delve too deeply into them.
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Remember two things about me before taking anything I say as expert: 1. I know nothing about this topic. 2. I know nothing about this topic. But, my spidey sense says because of how much power these lists hold, the need to game them is very important. Again, my opinion. But it sorta seems obvious to me. Those with money get what they want. Not asking for any agreement btw. It’s my honest view. Also point #2 above.
A few things can be true. While I highly doubt there’s some secret conspiracy related to USNWR college rankings, I think it’s pretty obvious that university admins make decisions to game the system for higher numbers. Imo Miami is hurt by the system as-is since I believe the calculations weigh in graduate programs (we have relatively few) and equity metrics (and we perform poorly there with a very wealthy student base). OSU becoming far more competitive in admissions the past few decades hasn’t helped either.
Today there is talk of Oregon, Washington, Cal and Stanford joining the ACC if Clemson and FSU go SEC.
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I don’t think graduate programs are part of the calculation in any formal way. I do think the peer assessment component favors big research schools though, particularly those in the AAU club.
I also think the metrics are biased towards private universities. What I found interesting in one of the links above was that in the first year, Wisconsin was top 15 and Berkeley and Michigan were top 6. It’s almost as though the powers that be said, “can’t have that fellas.” So, endowment matters, and I think it should–money buys quality. But state financing doesn’t. Take what Miami gets from the state every year (basic subsidy, bonus for high graduation and retention rates and its share of the capital appropriations bill), and multiply that by 22.5. That’s the equivalent endowment money that a private university would need to match it. But those state dollars aren’t counted.
I agree that OSU being freed from forced open admissions has not been good for Miami. Miami had a 20 year window from the mid 60s to the mid 80s where we were the only state school allowed to have selective admissions and that just happened to coincide with all the baby boomers headed to college. That period not coincidentally just happened to culminate with the public ivy book. On the other hand, I think forcing the state’s major public research university into open admissions was absolutely stupid public policy, and I can’t fathom the reasoning behind it.
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That despite the travel costs makes some sense as the schools have similar prestige. That said, I think the Big12/Pac12 merger would likely be on the table as at some point, 5 P5’s will become 4.
As a PAC 12 alum who lives in ACC country, I see a lot more in common between those two than with either of them and the Big 12. The issue would be what to name it. The Coastal Conference, maybe. Or the TransAmerican Conference?
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The APC (Atlantic Pacific Conference). Or the Amalgam Coastal Conference is fine. Just be honest about it, right?
Can’t continue the ACC letters. Maybe the other one you suggested. Or maybe just Oceans 14!
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Isn’t this about research dollars, Medical schools,Law schools?
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A & P
(The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company)
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Not really. There’s plenty of global research university rankings that do that. USNWR college rankings are indirectly influenced by grad and research prowess, but that’s not the underlying criteria. It’s about selectivity, graduation rates, faculty to student ratios, financial resources etc. We’re clearly not doing well in those things, so we need to improve.
C’mon. Notre Dame is obsessed with their connection to Stanford. They’d make sure it was at least a Thursday night game.
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I was sniffing around on the internets and now I’m starting to think I might actually be right. This article is a fascinating read. And there’s a load more about this same topic.
https://scrippsnews.com/amp/stories/why-us-colleges-are-pulling-out-of-ranking-systems/
The Annapolis Group was originally a group of highly prestigious liberal arts colleges whose Presidents pulled out of the rankings game years ago.
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