The US News Rankings: How We Rate

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The US News Rankings How We Rate

• Jamie Redwine
• Office of Institutional Research
• July 2005

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The Survey

• Main Survey 598 questions
• Financial Aid Survey 55 questions
• IPEDS Finance Survey 13 questions

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Why US News Ranks Colleges

• To provide a source of reliable and consistent
  datainformation so students can compare one
  college with another.
• As in the past, U.S. News recommends that its
  readers use the rankings as one tool for
  selecting a college. We recognize that
  prospective students must consider their academic
  and professional goals, financial resources,
  scholastic record, and special needs when
  choosing a school. And we recommend that students
  gather information on colleges in a number of
  waysby talking to parents, high school guidance
  counselors, and other advisers from college
  catalogs, viewbooks, and Web sites and from
  campus visits to form first-hand impressions.
• It sells.

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The Rankings

• National Universities
• Liberal Arts Colleges
• Universities Masters by region
• Comprehensive Colleges
• Etc

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Hollins Carnegie Classification

• Hollins falls into the Baccalaureate Colleges
  Liberal Arts category.
• 217 institutions (21 public)
• Primary emphasis is on baccalaureate programs.
  Award at least half of baccalaureate degrees in
  liberal arts fields.

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What They Rank

• Peer Assessment (25)
• Retention (20)
• Faculty Resources (20)
• Student Selectivity (15)
• Financial Resources (10)
• Graduation Rate (5)
• Alumni Giving Rate (5)

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How They Rank

• Peer Assessment Opinion of those in a position
  to judge a school's academic excellence. The peer
  assessment survey allows the top academics
  contacted--presidents, provosts, and deans of
  admission--to account for intangibles such as
  faculty dedication to teaching. Each individual
  is asked to rate peer schools' academic programs
  on a scale from 1 (marginal) to 5
  (distinguished). Those who don't know enough
  about a school to evaluate it fairly are asked to
  mark "don't know." Synovate, an opinion-research
  firm based near Chicago, collected the data 60
  percent of the 4,095 people who were sent
  questionnaires responded.

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Retention

• This measure has two components six-year
  graduation rate (80 percent of the retention
  score) and freshman retention rate (20 percent).
  The graduation rate indicates the average
  proportion of a graduating class who earn a
  degree in six years or less included are
  freshman classes that started from 1994 through
  1997. Freshman retention indicates the average
  proportion of freshmen entering from 1999 through
  2002 who returned the following fall.

9
Faculty Resources

• Based on six factors from the 2003-04 academic
  year to assess a school's commitment to
  instruction. Class size has two components the
  proportion of classes with fewer than 20 students
  (30 percent of the faculty resources score) and
  the proportion with 50 or more students (10
  percent of the score). Faculty salary (35
  percent) is the average faculty pay, plus
  benefits, during the 2002-03 and 2003-04 academic
  years, adjusted for regional differences in the
  cost of living (using indexes from the consulting
  firm Runzheimer International). The proportion of
  professors with the highest degree in their
  fields (15 percent), the student-faculty ratio (5
  percent), and the proportion of faculty who are
  full time (5 percent) are also weighed.

10
Student Selectivity

• Test scores of enrollees on the sat or act tests
  (50 percent of the selectivity score) the
  proportion of enrolled freshmen who graduated in
  the top 10 percent of their high school classes
  for all national universities and liberal arts
  colleges, and the top 25 percent for institutions
  in the master's and comprehensive colleges
  categories (40 percent) the acceptance rate, or
  the ratio of students admitted to applicants (10
  percent). The data are for the fall 2003 entering
  class.

11
Financial Resources

• Measures the average spending per student on
  instruction, research, student services, and
  related educational expenditures in the 2002 and
  2003 fiscal years.

12
Graduation Rate Performance

• Measures the difference between a school's
  six-year graduation rate for the class that
  entered in 1997 and the predicted rate for the
  class.
• Predicted rate is calculated using a very
  complicated formula. I have simply used the
  average of the previous 3-yrs.

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Alumni Giving Rate

• The average percentage of alumni who gave to
  their school during 2001-02 and 2002-03.

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Where Hollins Ranks

• 87 (2005), 85 (2004), Tier 2 (2003-).
• Four tiers.
• In 2004 the 1st and 2nd Tiers were merged into
  The Top 100.

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Womens Colleges
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(No Transcript)
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What the numbers tell us?