Med school and law school (combined with joint research alliance of law school, Jones School, and Baker Center) would probably pull Rice up close to top ten, the way I read methodology.
A medical school is not going to happen. Rice is trying to increase its research footprint. This includes the goal of hiring 200 additional faculty.
Expect some changes in the US News Rankings this year as well.
These rankings must have been before word got out about Rice's courses on Taylor Swift. These courses will involve close readings of her immortal lyrics, such as "we are never, ever, ever, ever getting back together". The courses will cover such aspects as "American nationalism and whiteness" in her music. Hopefully they will cover how she dresses like a strip club dancer while she strums the 3 chords she knows on an acoustic guitar. Joni Mitchell should have learned to sell sex instead of music.
What is particularly impressive is that these courses will be taught by students, since one never learns as much as when one is a teacher. It's like when an 80s shooter in golf starts TEACHING golf, he immediately starts shooting in the 60s.
The more students pay for tuition, the better the courses get. You don't have to read Shakespeare anymore in college. More students at Rice now take Shakespeare in the Movies than the English courses in which you actually have to read Shakespeare.
(09-09-2023 01:42 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: That's discouraging.
Med school and law school (combined with joint research alliance of law school, Jones School, and Baker Center) would probably pull Rice up close to top ten, the way I read methodology.
A medical school is not going to happen. Rice is trying to increase its research footprint. This includes the goal of hiring 200 additional faculty.
Expect some changes in the US News Rankings this year as well.
Actually I misstated. The med school, et al, won’t really make much difference in the WSJ rankings, which appear to focus more on the undergrad experience. Given that is supposed to be Rice’s strength, the low ranking is more concerning. For some reason, Rice seems to fare poorly in rankings that focus on earnings after graduation.
The med/law schools matter more in the USN&WR rankings that put more weight on research and reputation (largely a function of research). A med school generates huge research opportunities.
(09-09-2023 03:18 PM)peanutgallery Wrote: These rankings must have been before word got out about Rice's courses on Taylor Swift. These courses will involve close readings of her immortal lyrics, such as "we are never, ever, ever, ever getting back together". The courses will cover such aspects as "American nationalism and whiteness" in her music. Hopefully they will cover how she dresses like a strip club dancer while she strums the 3 chords she knows on an acoustic guitar. Joni Mitchell should have learned to sell sex instead of music.
What is particularly impressive is that these courses will be taught by students, since one never learns as much as when one is a teacher. It's like when an 80s shooter in golf starts TEACHING golf, he immediately starts shooting in the 60s.
The more students pay for tuition, the better the courses get. You don't have to read Shakespeare anymore in college. More students at Rice now take Shakespeare in the Movies than the English courses in which you actually have to read Shakespeare.
(09-09-2023 03:18 PM)peanutgallery Wrote: These rankings must have been before word got out about Rice's courses on Taylor Swift. These courses will involve close readings of her immortal lyrics, such as "we are never, ever, ever, ever getting back together". The courses will cover such aspects as "American nationalism and whiteness" in her music. Hopefully they will cover how she dresses like a strip club dancer while she strums the 3 chords she knows on an acoustic guitar. Joni Mitchell should have learned to sell sex instead of music.
What is particularly impressive is that these courses will be taught by students, since one never learns as much as when one is a teacher. It's like when an 80s shooter in golf starts TEACHING golf, he immediately starts shooting in the 60s.
The more students pay for tuition, the better the courses get. You don't have to read Shakespeare anymore in college. More students at Rice now take Shakespeare in the Movies than the English courses in which you actually have to read Shakespeare.
Rice has been doing student-taught courses for over a decade now…
(09-09-2023 03:18 PM)peanutgallery Wrote: These rankings must have been before word got out about Rice's courses on Taylor Swift. These courses will involve close readings of her immortal lyrics, such as "we are never, ever, ever, ever getting back together". The courses will cover such aspects as "American nationalism and whiteness" in her music. Hopefully they will cover how she dresses like a strip club dancer while she strums the 3 chords she knows on an acoustic guitar. Joni Mitchell should have learned to sell sex instead of music.
What is particularly impressive is that these courses will be taught by students, since one never learns as much as when one is a teacher. It's like when an 80s shooter in golf starts TEACHING golf, he immediately starts shooting in the 60s.
The more students pay for tuition, the better the courses get. You don't have to read Shakespeare anymore in college. More students at Rice now take Shakespeare in the Movies than the English courses in which you actually have to read Shakespeare.
Rice has been doing student-taught courses for over a decade now…
(09-09-2023 01:33 PM)ausowl Wrote: WSJ switched up their methodology and ranks/tanks Rice to 64. Ouch. Out ranked by Rose-Hulman, ...
How was the methodology changed?
What was Rose-Hulman's rank? The alma mater of Baker's first master (Carl Wischmeyer Jr.) and his father have excellent professional engineering programs ... and a fabulous career prep system. But it's a tech institute, not a full university.
(09-09-2023 03:18 PM)peanutgallery Wrote: These rankings must have been before word got out about Rice's courses on Taylor Swift. ...
I wonder how Harvey Mudd fared, then, as a couple of its students organized to win a contest to host a Taylor Swift concert when by daughter was a student there. (https://www.hmc.edu/about/2012/10/04/hmc...t-concert/)
(09-09-2023 03:18 PM)peanutgallery Wrote: These rankings must have been before word got out about Rice's courses on Taylor Swift. These courses will involve close readings of her immortal lyrics, such as "we are never, ever, ever, ever getting back together". The courses will cover such aspects as "American nationalism and whiteness" in her music. Hopefully they will cover how she dresses like a strip club dancer while she strums the 3 chords she knows on an acoustic guitar. Joni Mitchell should have learned to sell sex instead of music.
What is particularly impressive is that these courses will be taught by students, since one never learns as much as when one is a teacher. It's like when an 80s shooter in golf starts TEACHING golf, he immediately starts shooting in the 60s.
The more students pay for tuition, the better the courses get. You don't have to read Shakespeare anymore in college. More students at Rice now take Shakespeare in the Movies than the English courses in which you actually have to read Shakespeare.
Rice has been doing student-taught courses for over a decade now…
At least 20. Oh how time flies…
I remember them starting while I was on campus between 2007 and 2011. Turns out it was 2006 (per Rice’s website).
(09-09-2023 01:33 PM)ausowl Wrote: WSJ switched up their methodology and ranks/tanks Rice to 64. Ouch. Out ranked by Rose-Hulman, ...
How was the methodology changed?
What was Rose-Hulman's rank? The alma mater of Baker's first master (Carl Wischmeyer Jr.) and his father have excellent professional engineering programs ... and a fabulous career prep system. But it's a tech institute, not a full university.
(09-09-2023 03:18 PM)peanutgallery Wrote: These rankings must have been before word got out about Rice's courses on Taylor Swift. ...
I wonder how Harvey Mudd fared, then, as a couple of its students organized to win a contest to host a Taylor Swift concert when by daughter was a student there. (https://www.hmc.edu/about/2012/10/04/hmc...t-concert/)
WSJ walks you through the methodology. IIRC R-H was in the top twenty. It's definitely thought provoking! Lot's of STEM heavy schools in the top 100. Davidson at 30 is an outlier.
(09-09-2023 01:33 PM)ausowl Wrote: WSJ switched up their methodology and ranks/tanks Rice to 64. Ouch. Out ranked by Rose-Hulman, UI, WPI, Babson, Davidson, . . .
Has aTm at 38, UT 118, Tulane 354 and Trinity U out altogether.
Talk about
Apparently the WSJ doesn’t know much about college football, to have UT ranked at 118 after whipping Alabama. Or obviously it wasn’t about football at all.
(This post was last modified: 09-11-2023 10:02 AM by WFO.)
(09-09-2023 01:33 PM)ausowl Wrote: WSJ switched up their methodology and ranks/tanks Rice to 64. Ouch. Out ranked by Rose-Hulman, UI, WPI, Babson, Davidson, . . .
Has aTm at 38, UT 118, Tulane 354 and Trinity U out altogether.
Talk about
Apparently the WSJ doesn’t know much about college football, to have UT ranked at 118 after whipping Alabama. Or obviously it wasn’t about football at all.
I don’t know about that, but ESPN’s FPI (not the one I quoted in my other thread) still has Alabama at #1 after losing.
If not, here's a couple of brief excerpts. It's an interesting change. Definitely food for thought. That Houston Christian University is included and Austin College, Southwestern, and Trinity U are excluded is odd.
Some college-ranking methodologies tend to have the effect of splitting universities into the haves and the have-nots by evaluating the resources a college has at its disposal. Working with data scientists at Statista, the new WSJ/College Pulse ranking uses the most recent available data to put colleges on a more level playing field, with a focus on comparing the outcomes of each school’s graduates to what those students were likely to achieve no matter where they went to school.
That’s at the heart of the improvements we’ve made to the methodology behind the rankings The Wall Street Journal started publishing in 2016.
and
We no longer reward colleges’ wealth or reputation in and of themselves. Gone is the survey of academics on schools’ reputations. Gone are the rewards for instructional spending and the assumption that the quality of education is largely dictated by how expensive it is to produce.
In their place we’ve expanded the importance of student outcomes: graduation rates and graduate salaries. Critically, we now put greater emphasis on measuring the value added by colleges—not simply measuring their students’ success, but focusing on the contribution the college makes to that success.
Our new ranking rebalances this. To calculate the value added by colleges, we estimate how well their students would do regardless of which college they attended, taking into account the factors that best predict student outcomes. The colleges are rewarded for their students’ success over and above that estimate. These scores are combined with raw graduation rates and graduate salaries. In other words, success in absolute terms is still taken into account, but with the value added given greater emphasis than previously.
Thanks ... but the link still gives just an offer of subscription plans.
Thanks for the excerpts. It is an interesting change ... especially for folks who are interested in the "delta" of a student's college outcome rather than its absolute value.
Quote:But more than a dozen public universities, many of them with relatively low profiles, climbed at least 50 spots in the rankings. Fresno State moved up 64 places, to No. 185, for instance, and Florida Atlantic ascended 53, to No. 209. Many other public institutions recorded smaller, if notable, gains, like Rutgers, which saw each of its three campuses rise by at least 15 places.
Private universities proved particularly vulnerable to the new formula. Small class size, which was 8 percent of a score a year ago, is a matter of pride for many elite institutions. Its disappearance from the algorithm played a role in some top schools’ rankings tumbling.
The University of Chicago, No. 6 last year, moved down to No. 12. Dartmouth declined six places to finish at No. 18. Washington University in St. Louis, which was No. 15 last year, slipped to 24th. Brandeis, now ranked 60th, fell 16 spots, almost as much as Wake Forest, which declined 18 spots to tie for No. 47. Tulane went to No. 73 from No. 44.
Quote:But more than a dozen public universities, many of them with relatively low profiles, climbed at least 50 spots in the rankings. Fresno State moved up 64 places, to No. 185, for instance, and Florida Atlantic ascended 53, to No. 209. Many other public institutions recorded smaller, if notable, gains, like Rutgers, which saw each of its three campuses rise by at least 15 places.
Private universities proved particularly vulnerable to the new formula. Small class size, which was 8 percent of a score a year ago, is a matter of pride for many elite institutions. Its disappearance from the algorithm played a role in some top schools’ rankings tumbling.
The University of Chicago, No. 6 last year, moved down to No. 12. Dartmouth declined six places to finish at No. 18. Washington University in St. Louis, which was No. 15 last year, slipped to 24th. Brandeis, now ranked 60th, fell 16 spots, almost as much as Wake Forest, which declined 18 spots to tie for No. 47. Tulane went to No. 73 from No. 44.
Woh - those are some wild swings for many peer institutions!
The ranking system has its problems, but I'm surprised that class size was completely removed. Seems like a pretty good metric to include if we're evaluating the quality of undergraduate universities. That said, a small class with a faculty who doesn't know how to teach is likely far worse for one's education than a large class with a dedicated teaching faculty who actually knows how to teach.
