(03-24-2018 09:47 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  BTW Cal Tech is 60th, at $371M in R&D. They are a very big school in research, and so is MIT.

Contextually the question was posed in terms of the AAU. Some not particularly selective admissions schools are in the AAU. UofA, UO, CU, KU, ISU and Iowa are not going to be mistaken for highly selective and loaded with top student schools like Dartmouth, Georgetown, ND or BC.

No but all of those schools do have highly selective graduate programs in the areas of study where they are strong and produce a lot of research and those graduate programs like say Agricultural Science at Iowa State or Earth Sciences at Arizona are absolutely loaded with top students in their fields. Hard to look at AAU rankings and something like undergraduate acceptance rates because the things the attribute to AAU membership really have little to do with undergraduate education.

Can someone educate me on this.

What exactly are all of these resources actually yielding?

(03-26-2018 11:34 AM)TrojanCampaign Wrote:  Can someone educate me on this.

What exactly are all of these resources actually yielding?

Mostly it keeps several thousands of fellow busy in 6 figure jobs.

In seriousness, with some better oversight and more selective spending the Federal Grants/obligations could probably be cut in half and it would hardly be noticed. You would think the next time we have a budget deficit this would be an area looked at to cut maybe ten billion. Fortunately we don't have deficit spending by the government.

I don’t think anything will change until they’re ready to bring Dartmouth in. I’m not sure which private would be excluded (Brandeis?). When that happens, I bet a few public’s will shuffle (Buffalo and Stoney Brook seem the most tenuous).

Dartmouth is a college, not a university, and does not invest in research as other Ivies do.

Georgetown's research is almost exclusively medical and it has no engineering or applied sciences school which drives research dollars, the true value of an AAU applicant.

(03-26-2018 05:20 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  Dartmouth is a college, not a university, and does not invest in research as other Ivies do.

Georgetown's research is almost exclusively medical and it has no engineering or applied sciences school which drives research dollars, the true value of an AAU applicant.

Actually, bio and health sciences drives more research dollars, by far, than anything else in academia. 67% of all federal research funding in academia is in the life or psychological sciences.

(03-26-2018 12:26 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  

(03-26-2018 11:34 AM)TrojanCampaign Wrote:  Can someone educate me on this.

What exactly are all of these resources actually yielding?

Mostly it keeps several thousands of fellow busy in 6 figure jobs.

In seriousness, with some better oversight and more selective spending the Federal Grants/obligations could probably be cut in half and it would hardly be noticed. You would think the next time we have a budget deficit this would be an area looked at to cut maybe ten billion. Fortunately we don't have deficit spending by the government.

From NIH, less than 20% of grant applications are funded.

The average salary for professors in 2016-17...these are people with PhDs, years of post-doctoral training, and regard of being at the top of their field, especially if they have grant funding...was $69,206 for assistant professors, $79,654 for associate professors (those making tenure after about 5 years), and $102,402 for full professors (an even smaller cadre after about 5 or more additional years). Most people in the biosciences now mostly cover their own salaries with their grant funding. Research professors are 60-80 hour a week jobs typically, at least if you plan to be competitive for funding and want to make tenure.

(03-26-2018 06:38 PM)CrazyPaco Wrote:  

(03-26-2018 12:26 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  

(03-26-2018 11:34 AM)TrojanCampaign Wrote:  Can someone educate me on this.

What exactly are all of these resources actually yielding?

Mostly it keeps several thousands of fellow busy in 6 figure jobs.

In seriousness, with some better oversight and more selective spending the Federal Grants/obligations could probably be cut in half and it would hardly be noticed. You would think the next time we have a budget deficit this would be an area looked at to cut maybe ten billion. Fortunately we don't have deficit spending by the government.

From NIH, less than 20% of grant applications are funded.

The average salary for professors in 2016-17...these are people with PhDs, years of post-doctoral training, and regard of being at the top of their field, especially if they have grant funding...was $69,206 for assistant professors, $79,654 for associate professors (those making tenure after about 5 years), and $102,402 for full professors (an even smaller cadre after about 5 or more additional years). Most people in the biosciences now mostly cover their own salaries with their grant funding. Research professors are 60-80 hour a week jobs typically, at least if you plan to be competitive for funding and want to make tenure.

The key to really rake in cash in academia is to be in an area like business. It is relatively easy to find salary information for state universities.

For example at University of Arizona there are no fewer than 6 assistant professors in finance making over $200,000 and no fewer than 3 assistant professors in accounting making over $200,000.

(03-26-2018 06:30 PM)CrazyPaco Wrote:  

(03-26-2018 05:20 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  Dartmouth is a college, not a university, and does not invest in research as other Ivies do.

Georgetown's research is almost exclusively medical and it has no engineering or applied sciences school which drives research dollars, the true value of an AAU applicant.

Actually, bio and health sciences drives more research dollars, by far, than anything else in academia. 67% of all federal research funding in academia is in the life or psychological sciences.

You can see that in the rankings that emphasize research. ARWU has a lot of pure medical schools, even though they are small relative even to the Ivies. And you can see it with UAB being ranked in the top 50 in the AAU rankings.

I think the next school could be a Canadian school. University of British Columbia is the highest non-AAU listed. They are inside the top 30 of North American Continent. You have Toronto and McGill as AAU, so another Canadian school could be there. BC is right there in the leagues of the PAC 12 schools.

(04-02-2018 06:26 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  I think the next school could be a Canadian school. University of British Columbia is the highest non-AAU listed. They are inside the top 30 of North American Continent. You have Toronto and McGill as AAU, so another Canadian school could be there. BC is right there in the leagues of the PAC 12 schools.

Works for me. Bring on UBC.

(03-27-2018 08:34 AM)tcufrog86 Wrote:  The key to really rake in cash in academia is to be in an area like business. It is relatively easy to find salary information for state universities.

For example at University of Arizona there are no fewer than 6 assistant professors in finance making over $200,000 and no fewer than 3 assistant professors in accounting making over $200,000.

I mean, it makes sense that it would cost a lot of money to pull people out of fields that pay a lot of money.

I'm guessing Dartmouth won't be joining the AAU anytime soon. Props to DavidSt for finding this source. http://www.vnews.com/Dartmouth-College-s...ey-6899562

(03-24-2018 09:23 PM)bullet Wrote:  There was a document that came out in FOI when Nebraska got kicked out. It ranked the schools based on the AAU's criteria. Syracuse who left on their own was apparently ranked #105. Nebraska was #109. The next two lowest (no names given) were #94 and #87.

There were 27 schools who are not now members of the AAU ranked 86 or higher. Now some of these are specialty schools or only medical schools and not eligible. Others like UAB and Cincinnati are high because of their attached highly regarded medical schools. But here are the schools and their rank:

1. Rockefeller University
2. UC-San Francisco
31. Yeshiva University
37. Dartmouth University
40. Alabama-Birmingham
43. Tufts University
49. Utah
52. UC-Santa Cruz
55. RPI
57. Wake Forest
59. Miami-FL
61. Illinois-Chicago
62. Cincinnati
64. Colorado St.
67. Oregon St.
68. George Washington University
72. Wayne St.
73. UC-Riverside
76. Alaska-Fairbanks
78. Virginia Commonwealth University
79. Vermont
79. Hawaii
81. Connecticut
83. Georgetown University
83. Delaware
86. SUNY-Albany

Gee, where's Oklahoma? According to a good many Sooner posters at another site their supposed to be next in line so that the Big 10 snaps them up. You know when your academics place you squarely in the middle of the SEC in academic standing you probably aren't real close to being AAU material.

(03-24-2018 09:23 PM)bullet Wrote:  There was a document that came out in FOI when Nebraska got kicked out. It ranked the schools based on the AAU's criteria. Syracuse who left on their own was apparently ranked #105. Nebraska was #109. The next two lowest (no names given) were #94 and #87.

There were 27 schools who are not now members of the AAU ranked 86 or higher. Now some of these are specialty schools or only medical schools and not eligible. Others like UAB and Cincinnati are high because of their attached highly regarded medical schools. But here are the schools and their rank:

1. Rockefeller University
2. UC-San Francisco
31. Yeshiva University
37. Dartmouth University
40. Alabama-Birmingham
43. Tufts University
49. Utah
52. UC-Santa Cruz
55. RPI
57. Wake Forest
59. Miami-FL
61. Illinois-Chicago
62. Cincinnati
64. Colorado St.
67. Oregon St.
68. George Washington University
72. Wayne St.
73. UC-Riverside
76. Alaska-Fairbanks
78. Virginia Commonwealth University
79. Vermont
79. Hawaii
81. Connecticut
83. Georgetown University
83. Delaware
86. SUNY-Albany

I think a better way to look at it would be to look at whether the institution has multiple programs that are highly ranked and have competitive admissions policies.

Basically, I'd look at them this way. They should have

1) High research activity and significant non-medical research activity
2) A reasonably high endowment (lets just say a minimum of 500 million - all the schools that made my final cut are over 900 million using other criteria anyway)
3) A competitive acceptance rate, which I'll set arbitrarily at a maximum of 50 percent, that reflects a sufficiently high reputation across the institution as a whole
4) Multiple highly ranked programs
5) Large graduate school enrollment and significant Ph.D/terminal degree activity
6) Having a large enough enrollment to engage in high research activity. I'll spitball it at having 10,000 total students (grad and undergrad)

Here are the schools that might merit admission to the AAU

Tufts
Miami (FL)
George Washington U
Georgetown

Schools that don't have 10,000 total students. I suspect the reasons why these schools, all of which are great schools with good reputations aren't in the AAU already is the result of a lack of scope due to their small size.

Dartmouth
Wake Forest
RPI

Schools with weak admissions statistics. Many of these schools have acceptance rates north of 70 percent. All of them have acceptance rates north of 53 percent

Delaware
Uconn
Utah
Yeshiva
SUNY-Albany
Cincinatti
Oregon State
Hawai'i
Alaska Fairbanks
UC-Riverside
Colorado State
UC-Santa Cruz
Wayne State
UAB
Vermont
UIC
VCU
Not on bullet's list, but Oklahoma has an acceptance rate of 81% for undergrad.

Schools too heavily weighted towards medical/veterinary activity
Wayne State
Vermont
UAB
UIC
VCU
UCSF - is only for health/medicine
Rockefeller - only a medical school

----

Basically I see four schools on the list that can really claim to be high research, well funded, highly competitive admissions, largely endowed, highly ranked in multiple disciplines, and have large enough graduate and total enrollments to have the scope to be players on the national and world stage. Full disclosure.. I went to GWU. I think GW and Miami FL are tenuous, but credible candidates, but if Boston University can get in, they probably could if they really wanted to. All of the other schools on the list have issues other than Georgetown and Tufts. Tufts seems to be the best candidate of the entire list for admission (although their high research dollar amount comes from having a medical school AND a veterinary school (one used by several states as their de facto state Vet school). By the way, I think GW and Georgetown operate at a disadvantage as they're both located in an area where they have no representation in Congress for research appropriations.

(03-24-2018 09:23 PM)bullet Wrote:  There was a document that came out in FOI when Nebraska got kicked out. It ranked the schools based on the AAU's criteria. Syracuse who left on their own was apparently ranked #105. Nebraska was #109. The next two lowest (no names given) were #94 and #87.

There were 27 schools who are not now members of the AAU ranked 86 or higher. Now some of these are specialty schools or only medical schools and not eligible. Others like UAB and Cincinnati are high because of their attached highly regarded medical schools. But here are the schools and their rank:

1. Rockefeller University
2. UC-San Francisco
31. Yeshiva University
37. Dartmouth University
40. Alabama-Birmingham
43. Tufts University
49. Utah
52. UC-Santa Cruz
55. RPI
57. Wake Forest
59. Miami-FL
61. Illinois-Chicago
62. Cincinnati
64. Colorado St.
67. Oregon St.
68. George Washington University
72. Wayne St.
73. UC-Riverside
76. Alaska-Fairbanks
78. Virginia Commonwealth University
79. Vermont
79. Hawaii
81. Connecticut
83. Georgetown University
83. Delaware
86. SUNY-Albany

Someone want to explain to me why the hell UVM is on this list? Also what the hell is this mysterious list's criteria?

(04-11-2018 12:45 AM)McKinney Wrote:  

(03-24-2018 09:23 PM)bullet Wrote:  There was a document that came out in FOI when Nebraska got kicked out. It ranked the schools based on the AAU's criteria. Syracuse who left on their own was apparently ranked #105. Nebraska was #109. The next two lowest (no names given) were #94 and #87.

There were 27 schools who are not now members of the AAU ranked 86 or higher. Now some of these are specialty schools or only medical schools and not eligible. Others like UAB and Cincinnati are high because of their attached highly regarded medical schools. But here are the schools and their rank:

1. Rockefeller University
2. UC-San Francisco
31. Yeshiva University
37. Dartmouth University
40. Alabama-Birmingham
43. Tufts University
49. Utah
52. UC-Santa Cruz
55. RPI
57. Wake Forest
59. Miami-FL
61. Illinois-Chicago
62. Cincinnati
64. Colorado St.
67. Oregon St.
68. George Washington University
72. Wayne St.
73. UC-Riverside
76. Alaska-Fairbanks
78. Virginia Commonwealth University
79. Vermont
79. Hawaii
81. Connecticut
83. Georgetown University
83. Delaware
86. SUNY-Albany

Someone want to explain to me why the hell UVM is on this list? Also what the hell is this mysterious list's criteria?

It appears to be a list of research activity. UVM isn't getting in the AAU anytime soon. UVM has a medical school, and so like UAB and VCU and Wayne State and UIC, will have an outsized research number

(03-24-2018 09:28 PM)bullet Wrote:  If things haven't changed and the AAU suddenly decided to invite 10 new members, my guess is that they would be
Dartmouth
Utah
UC-Santa Cruz
RPI
Wake Forest
Miami-FL
Illinois-Chicago
Colorado St.
Oregon St.
George Washington

Now GW might be mostly medical school, so it might be UC-Riverside in such a theoretical expansion.

GW isn't mostly a medical school. It happens to have a large and highly rated medical school (and bio engineering school), but it has huge graduate schools, including highly ranked Law and International Relations schools. GW has one of the five largest on-site non-profit graduate enrollments in the nation (larger graduate enrollment than UT-Austin, Harvard, or Ohio State - the only school I could find with more on-campus graduate students was Michigan, which beats out GW by 300 grad students) The school has over 15,000 graduate students. Its business school does reasonably well.

Some metrics between GW and UC-R

Graduate enrollment: GW 15,000 UCR 3,209
Endowment: GW 1.73 billion UCR 129 million
Acceptance rate (undergrad): GW 39 percent UCR 66.2 percent

To be clear, I think GW is a credible, but tenuous candidate for AAU inclusion, but they're really much better than UCR in selectiveness, scope, endowment, and comprehensiveness

(04-10-2018 11:38 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(03-24-2018 09:23 PM)bullet Wrote:  There was a document that came out in FOI when Nebraska got kicked out. It ranked the schools based on the AAU's criteria. Syracuse who left on their own was apparently ranked #105. Nebraska was #109. The next two lowest (no names given) were #94 and #87.

There were 27 schools who are not now members of the AAU ranked 86 or higher. Now some of these are specialty schools or only medical schools and not eligible. Others like UAB and Cincinnati are high because of their attached highly regarded medical schools. But here are the schools and their rank:

1. Rockefeller University
2. UC-San Francisco
31. Yeshiva University
37. Dartmouth University
40. Alabama-Birmingham
43. Tufts University
49. Utah
52. UC-Santa Cruz
55. RPI
57. Wake Forest
59. Miami-FL
61. Illinois-Chicago
62. Cincinnati
64. Colorado St.
67. Oregon St.
68. George Washington University
72. Wayne St.
73. UC-Riverside
76. Alaska-Fairbanks
78. Virginia Commonwealth University
79. Vermont
79. Hawaii
81. Connecticut
83. Georgetown University
83. Delaware
86. SUNY-Albany

Gee, where's Oklahoma? According to a good many Sooner posters at another site their supposed to be next in line so that the Big 10 snaps them up. You know when your academics place you squarely in the middle of the SEC in academic standing you probably aren't real close to being AAU material.

We had better put OU84A on suicide watch.

(04-11-2018 04:50 AM)XLance Wrote:  

(04-10-2018 11:38 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(03-24-2018 09:23 PM)bullet Wrote:  There was a document that came out in FOI when Nebraska got kicked out. It ranked the schools based on the AAU's criteria. Syracuse who left on their own was apparently ranked #105. Nebraska was #109. The next two lowest (no names given) were #94 and #87.

There were 27 schools who are not now members of the AAU ranked 86 or higher. Now some of these are specialty schools or only medical schools and not eligible. Others like UAB and Cincinnati are high because of their attached highly regarded medical schools. But here are the schools and their rank:

1. Rockefeller University
2. UC-San Francisco
31. Yeshiva University
37. Dartmouth University
40. Alabama-Birmingham
43. Tufts University
49. Utah
52. UC-Santa Cruz
55. RPI
57. Wake Forest
59. Miami-FL
61. Illinois-Chicago
62. Cincinnati
64. Colorado St.
67. Oregon St.
68. George Washington University
72. Wayne St.
73. UC-Riverside
76. Alaska-Fairbanks
78. Virginia Commonwealth University
79. Vermont
79. Hawaii
81. Connecticut
83. Georgetown University
83. Delaware
86. SUNY-Albany

Gee, where's Oklahoma? According to a good many Sooner posters at another site their supposed to be next in line so that the Big 10 snaps them up. You know when your academics place you squarely in the middle of the SEC in academic standing you probably aren't real close to being AAU material.

We had better put OU84A on suicide watch.

For all we know he is the sock alter ego of Nebweenie.