(09-09-2019 03:05 PM)mrbig Wrote:  Almadenmike - thanks for posting that. Rice has basically been in the 12-19 range since 1991, so #16 isn't really surprising or reason to be upset. This is just 1 ranking.

What you see as a 12-19 range over the last 30 years, I see as mostly a 12-15 range up until about 15 years ago, and now mostly 16-19. And I do think that is a substantive change.

Bluntly, for me, 19 was and is absolutely unacceptable. It puts a fluctuation into the 20s in play. And that is probably possible at 18 as well. 17 is the absolute lowest we should ever be. And look -- here we are again, at the lowest we should ever be. That has happened more on Leebron's watch than for any other president in this university's history.

Michael T. Nietzel, the president emeritus of Missouri State Univeristy, has several problems with the US News rankings methodology. The rankings are "based on 15 measures of 'academic quality.' It is too easy for schools to game the system and falsify data. Several of the U.S. News’s measures have become proxies for institutional wealth, and their relevance to academic quality is questionable."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnie...ng-with-it

Quote:Nearly 50% of the weighted indicators are problematic on at least one of these grounds. Here are the most glaring problems:

Alumni giving. The percentage of alumni who gave to their alma maters over the prior two years accounts for 5% of the ranking. U.S. News says that such giving indicates student satisfaction and continuing engagement with a school. But giving is a notoriously easy measure to falsify and bears little relevance to academic excellence. ...

Smaller class size, at 8%, is another dubious factor. There are two problems here. First, the evidence is equivocal at best that smaller classes produce better student learning yet U.S. News gives it more weight than first-year student retention or the graduation rates of Pell students. Second, would anyone be surprised to learn that colleges play a lot of games to jigger average class size, like capping initial class capacity only to allow more students to enroll later?

SAT and ACT scores as a measure of student quality are weighted at 7.75%. One would think U.S. News might want to forget about standardized tests as a factor, given numerous revelations about the degree to which they are subject to cheating, ...

Faculty salary gets a 7% weighting despite the fact that U.S. News cannot assure that the highest paid faculty are the ones actually teaching undergraduates or that well-paid faculty are more engaged or successful with students than those who are less well-compensated. As a proxy for simple institutional wealth, this one tops the list.

Academic reputation is valued at 20%. This is an entirely subjective measure at best and a bogus one at worst. ...

(09-09-2019 04:37 PM)Intellectual_Brutality Wrote:  Rice basically pays faculty top dollar, as expected
https://data.chronicle.com/category/ccba...-salaries/

Didn't realize we found those published online. This actually is fairly close to what I was expecting, given that the pay comparisons I've been able to make from friends/associates are with top tier universities.

We're sitting within our immediate peer group for assistant (#17) and full professors (#16). Outside of it for Associate Professors (#26). Looking at Assistant professor pay - UT Dallas ranks higher and we are barely above Notre Dame, which is situated in South Bend. But then again, Duke is in the 30s there, and just above us in full professor pay, but doing quite well in the rankings.

(09-09-2019 05:09 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(09-09-2019 04:37 PM)Intellectual_Brutality Wrote:  Rice basically pays faculty top dollar, as expected
https://data.chronicle.com/category/ccba...-salaries/

Didn't realize we found those published online. This actually is fairly close to what I was expecting, given that the pay comparisons I've been able to make from friends/associates are with top tier universities.

We're sitting within our immediate peer group for assistant (#17) and full professors (#16). Outside of it for Associate Professors (#26). Looking at Assistant professor pay - UT Dallas ranks higher and we are barely above Notre Dame, which is situated in South Bend. But then again, Duke is in the 30s there, and just above us in full professor pay, but doing quite well in the rankings.

I don't know if/whether this is normalized by discipline. I'm guessing it's not, in which case any school with a medical school will get inflated avg salaries because those happen to be huge numbers of faculty with much higher than average pay. So if comparing only arts/letters/sciences, I suspect Rice pays top dollar adjusted for COL

(09-09-2019 06:30 PM)Intellectual_Brutality Wrote:  

(09-09-2019 05:09 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(09-09-2019 04:37 PM)Intellectual_Brutality Wrote:  Rice basically pays faculty top dollar, as expected
https://data.chronicle.com/category/ccba...-salaries/

Didn't realize we found those published online. This actually is fairly close to what I was expecting, given that the pay comparisons I've been able to make from friends/associates are with top tier universities.

We're sitting within our immediate peer group for assistant (#17) and full professors (#16). Outside of it for Associate Professors (#26). Looking at Assistant professor pay - UT Dallas ranks higher and we are barely above Notre Dame, which is situated in South Bend. But then again, Duke is in the 30s there, and just above us in full professor pay, but doing quite well in the rankings.

I don't know if/whether this is normalized by discipline. I'm guessing it's not, in which case any school with a medical school will get inflated avg salaries because those happen to be huge numbers of faculty with much higher than average pay. So if comparing only arts/letters/sciences, I suspect Rice pays top dollar adjusted for COL

Yup, if the rankings don't adjust for cost of living (including state taxation) then it is clear bias toward the east and west coast schools.

(09-09-2019 01:26 PM)Hou_Lawyer Wrote:  

(09-09-2019 01:23 PM)Almadenmike Wrote:  

(09-09-2019 01:01 PM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  Maybe my memory has skipped a year, but weren't we in a four or five way tie last time? And part of a two-way-tie this time, as well as Vandy and ND just ahead of us?

That alone would indicate that the movement is little more than data noise.

Here are links to earlier Parliament threads on USNews rankings:

2019 ranking (T16): https://csnbbs.com/thread-857685.html
2018 ranking (14): https://csnbbs.com/thread-826929.html
2017 ranking (15): https://csnbbs.com/thread-790663.html
2016 ranking (T18): https://csnbbs.com/thread-748227.html
2015 ranking (19): https://csnbbs.com/thread-702530.html
2014 ranking (18): https://csnbbs.com/thread-648792.html

This last thread (the earliest I could find in a quick search on the Parliament for the USNews rankings) includes this chart of college rankings from 1983 - 2007: http://web.archive.org/web/2007090500461...iversities

Rice's positions over those years, according to that chart, are:

1988: 14
1989: _9
1990: 10
1991: 16
1992: 15
1993: 12
1994: 14
1994: 12
1996: 16
1997: 16
1998: 17
1999: 18
2000: 14
2001: 13
2002: 12
2003: 15
2004: 16
2005: 17
2006: 17
2007: 17

Discuss. :-)

Top 10! Wow. Doesn't it hurt us that we don't have a med or law school?

Greenspan ruined everything.

(09-11-2019 12:04 AM)BufflOwl Wrote:  

(09-09-2019 01:26 PM)Hou_Lawyer Wrote:  

(09-09-2019 01:23 PM)Almadenmike Wrote:  

(09-09-2019 01:01 PM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  Maybe my memory has skipped a year, but weren't we in a four or five way tie last time? And part of a two-way-tie this time, as well as Vandy and ND just ahead of us?

That alone would indicate that the movement is little more than data noise.

Here are links to earlier Parliament threads on USNews rankings:

2019 ranking (T16): https://csnbbs.com/thread-857685.html
2018 ranking (14): https://csnbbs.com/thread-826929.html
2017 ranking (15): https://csnbbs.com/thread-790663.html
2016 ranking (T18): https://csnbbs.com/thread-748227.html
2015 ranking (19): https://csnbbs.com/thread-702530.html
2014 ranking (18): https://csnbbs.com/thread-648792.html

This last thread (the earliest I could find in a quick search on the Parliament for the USNews rankings) includes this chart of college rankings from 1983 - 2007: http://web.archive.org/web/2007090500461...iversities

Rice's positions over those years, according to that chart, are:

1988: 14
1989: _9
1990: 10
1991: 16
1992: 15
1993: 12
1994: 14
1994: 12
1996: 16
1997: 16
1998: 17
1999: 18
2000: 14
2001: 13
2002: 12
2003: 15
2004: 16
2005: 17
2006: 17
2007: 17

Discuss. :-)

Top 10! Wow. Doesn't it hurt us that we don't have a med or law school?

Greenspan ruined everything.

Now that’s a scapegoat we can all get behind!

If acceptance to #22 Southern Cal is worth up to half a mil, I wonder what it would take in bribes to get into #17?

Rice needs a med school and a law school to climb into the top echelon. Otherwise, I see a continued slow but steady fall.

It is regrettable that an emphasis on undergraduate education probably hurts the ranking, but that's the system. Before USN&WR codified it, that was probably still the way people looked at it.