Yes, but there's no guarantee that reputation persists.

quote:

---

Yes, but there's no guarantee that reputation persists.

---

Yeah!!! It will go down only if you New Army people act like idiots when you get your jobs. The ones that "have gotten ours" have built it for you, so don't screw it up.

1. Bonfire needs to come back to campus.

2. Legacy needs to be re-instituted.

3. Bring back Loupot's Bookstore.

4. ????

5. Rankings!

quote:

---

What Ivy League Engineering school is above A&M? MIT, Stanford, Cal Tech, Carnegie aren't IVY league to me. The closest one is Cornell and they are one spot below A&M in the latest ranking, Columbia is 3 spots below?

---

Thought those were Ivy. Regardless, those were the ones I was talking about. To me, those educations weren't worth the $150k they would've cost when A&M was sitting at $40k for 4 years and their rankings were within 10 spots of each other.

Edit: To go along with Zombie, only two stats I really care about in terms of my ideal rankings: Percent of kids with jobs lined up at graduation and average salary adjusted for cost-of-living.

Substitute "elite" for "Ivy". Most people use them interchangeably.

The big hole on the USNWR rankings is that they don't measure outputs. They focus on university inputs (quality of students accepted, resources, etc.) but fail to consider the most relevant measures of a school, what it produces. Nowhere does USNWR consider job placement, salary, reputation with employers, grad school acceptance, research expenditures, scholarly publications, patent awards, or any other metric that shows objective evidence of how a school is performing academically. By focusing on inputs and ignoring outputs, they're essentially measuring a school's potential for providing a high quality education, not the actual quality of the education.

OK. And so what? The rankings are used as they are. Perception is everything.

quote:

---

OK. And so what? The rankings are used as they are. Perception is everything.

---

You're reading something into my post that isn't there. I only pointed out why the rankings are crap, not that the university should ignore them. I've posted several times on other threads that the administration should actively work to improve our ranking and can actually do so without making any meaningful changes (yet another reason the rankings are crap).

My point is that they're not "crap". They are what they are, and are used how they are. They are no better, nor no worse, than any other methodology, including the parameters you mentioned.

And I agree that it's up to TAMU to alter the dialog to it's benefit. However, I don't think they're doing a very good job of it.

The structure of the rankings is highly subjective. They're designed specifically to rate storied institutions highly. They specifically do not address return on investment for the student or family. They do not assist in any form of meaningful transparency.

So, in summary, they're like the lottery and astrology: greatly entertaining and potentially extremely misleading.

For example:

Who chose these scattergories and weighted them?

Given the source of much of A&M's "endowment" (which can be changed without notice by the Lege via both constitutional amendment and directed to specific expenditures in manifold ways), why specifically are endowments indicative of quality? And will younger schools or older ones have larger endowments?

Etc.

quote:

---

quote:

---

Or it illustrates that USNWR is a non-existent rag getting by on a non-transparent index that is largely meaningless.

---

This.

Here are the categories USNWR uses to rank the schools:

Undergraduate Academic Reputation (22.5%): This item is based upon the opinions by school presidents, provosts, deans of admin, and high school counselors. Highly subjective.

Retention (22.5%): Based upon how many first-year students return for another year (20%) and the 6 year graduation rate (80%)

Faculty Resources (20%): Looks at class sizes with less than 20 students (30%) and more than 50 students (10%), faculty average salary (35%), degree level of profs (15%), student to faculty ratio (5%) and how many full time profs you have (5%)

Student Selectivity (12.5%): Average SAT and ACT scores (65%), number of 1st year students who were top 10% in class (25%), acceptance rate (10%)

Financial Resources (10%): Spending/student. The more the better.

Graduation Rate Performance (7.5%): Compares actual grad rate to a US News prediction of what is should have been.

Alumni Giving Rate (5%): Average percent of grads with bachelor degrees who give to the school. (Not amount given, just percentage of number who gave)

---

The rankings are based on what goes into a college/university. I'm more concerned with what comes out.

As an example LSU used to have open admissions. Any graduate of a Louisiana high school was eligible for enrollment. As such, LSU got minimal scores for Student Selectivity because it couldn't deny a qualified applicant, and its Retention was pathetic because freshman classes were used to eliminate those who had no business being on a college campus. Those who did not earn degrees bore no reflection on those who did.

quote:

---

, they're like the lottery and astrology: greatly entertaining and potentially extremely misleading.

---

Only if a great number of people and institutions bought lottery tickets and used astrology for important decisions. Once again, they're not everything, but they're not nothing either. And they're not "extremely misleading." If they are, then ttu and it's ilk should be able to claim the same sort of "meaninglessness" and equate themselves to US, right?

I'm not a big fan of "some comparison" is better than nothing. I did compare schools extensively in the USN&WR lists of my day and as an high school junior and senior quickly reached the conclusion that their metrics weren't very well thought out and not specifically helpful especially for me. And my opinion hasn't improved through the years. I'm big on saying exactly what I think when the Emperor is showing off his nudity. USN&WR is conducting a racket and the fact that A&M has gone up and down the list rapidly over the years pretty much condemns the list as helpful. The school is essentially the same and its character is essentially the same. It's main change is legacy apps really struggle if they don't have the academics to get in. And it doesn't matter if you get into the College of Engineering if you can't sustain the academic work that is required. I don't see the problem here. The school is fine.

Those complaining about our rankings generally think they deserve something from A&M and they're about to lose that something. I came to A&M when it wasn't ranked highly instead of going to Caltech. And I chose well and against the recommendation of USN&WR at the time. I suspect there are many of my contemporaries that felt the same way including ones that did doctoral and professional degrees around the country. The Former Students are the representation of the character of the University. And we represent it well. Perhaps USN&WR is simply wrong.

Brilliant column on the topic (and I don't care for the columnist.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/30/opinion/college-admissions-shocker.html

Regarding undergraduate engineering programs, I can't access A&M's ranking without a subscription, but UT is the highest in Texas with a PhD program. Purdue, GaTech and Illinois are other Top 10 publics.

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/engineering-doctorate

quote:

---

The school is essentially the same and its character is essentially the same.

---

We'll just have to agree to disagree on that.

Those who think the the sky is falling over the ranking are over reacting.

Those who think the fall in ranking is meaningless are under reacting.

So how has the character of the school changed?

quote:

---

I'm not a big fan of "some comparison" is better than nothing. I did compare schools extensively in the USN&WR lists of my day and as an high school junior and senior quickly reached the conclusion that their metrics weren't very well thought out and not specifically helpful especially for me. And my opinion hasn't improved through the years. I'm big on saying exactly what I think when the Emperor is showing off his nudity. USN&WR is conducting a racket and the fact that A&M has gone up and down the list rapidly over the years pretty much condemns the list as helpful. The school is essentially the same and its character is essentially the same. It's main change is legacy apps really struggle if they don't have the academics to get in. And it doesn't matter if you get into the College of Engineering if you can't sustain the academic work that is required. I don't see the problem here. The school is fine.

Those complaining about our rankings generally think they deserve something from A&M and they're about to lose that something. I came to A&M when it wasn't ranked highly instead of going to Caltech. And I chose well and against the recommendation of USN&WR at the time. I suspect there are many of my contemporaries that felt the same way including ones that did doctoral and professional degrees around the country. The Former Students are the representation of the character of the University. And we represent it well. Perhaps USN&WR is simply wrong.

---

This is a lot of made up old man rant bull****

The USNWR rankings are imperfect just as any other system of rankings is imperfect (e.g. college football rankings, recruiting rankings etc). That doesn't mean that they are not correlated with some general understanding of the quality of the institution.

It's a multi-factorial problem and a lot of what needs to be done is boring attention to details, like figuring out how to make sure the resources are there to teach what needs to be taught without blowing up the budget, or keeping track of the maintenance of the infrastructure. A lot of what gets in the way of improvement is a combination of politics both inside and outside the university. These are problems shared by most institutions, but around here I assume we care more about how they affect A&M.

What I do NOT want to see is A&M doing the equivalent of "teaching to the test" in order to climb the rankings. There are schools that do that (and I suspect we've done it too).

quote:

---

quote:

---

I'm not a big fan of "some comparison" is better than nothing. I did compare schools extensively in the USN&WR lists of my day and as an high school junior and senior quickly reached the conclusion that their metrics weren't very well thought out and not specifically helpful especially for me. And my opinion hasn't improved through the years. I'm big on saying exactly what I think when the Emperor is showing off his nudity. USN&WR is conducting a racket and the fact that A&M has gone up and down the list rapidly over the years pretty much condemns the list as helpful. The school is essentially the same and its character is essentially the same. It's main change is legacy apps really struggle if they don't have the academics to get in. And it doesn't matter if you get into the College of Engineering if you can't sustain the academic work that is required. I don't see the problem here. The school is fine.

Those complaining about our rankings generally think they deserve something from A&M and they're about to lose that something. I came to A&M when it wasn't ranked highly instead of going to Caltech. And I chose well and against the recommendation of USN&WR at the time. I suspect there are many of my contemporaries that felt the same way including ones that did doctoral and professional degrees around the country. The Former Students are the representation of the character of the University. And we represent it well. Perhaps USN&WR is simply wrong.

---

This is a lot of made up old man rant bull****

---

Not one detail was made up. Not one.

https://texags.com/forums/17

If not that just bump the thread started from the last time an old got an email from an office rival.

quote:

---

Not one detail was made up. Not one.

---

Other than your opinions and analysis?

quote:

---

Perhaps USN&WR is simply wrong.

---

Yeah, Texas Tech definitely should not be #168 and why is LSU #129? USNWR has it completely wrong. Those schools are definitely top 25 for sure.

quote:

---

quote:

---

Not one detail was made up. Not one.

---

Other than your opinions and analysis?

---

The opinions are informed opinions. They're based on a historical set of events. The analysis was arrived at by a younger me who reasoned through the details and I've mainly simply regurgitated his reasoning.

I say the same thing about the football and other sport polls. The fact that USN&WR sequesters the details behind a paywall should actually cause more suspicion rather than less.

But are my opinions "truth"? In that they actually occurred and are mine, yes.

A&M is losing lots of selectivity points because of the top 10 rule. The problem the lege has created with top 10% is IF A&M quits letting in so many kids without the lege changing the rule, the selectivity number goes up BUT the avg SAT goes way down. "Most people" believe avg SAT is more indicative than "selectivity".

Data from 2 years ago roughly-and it has gotten worse.

21,700 admits
1. Must take: 11000 auto (top 10%) dragging the SAT avg down....impacts on selectivity.
2. 3000 academic (top 25% and SAT above criteria) most any school wants these folks
3. 3000 full (Review) (lots of +25 percentile kids from top 100 high schools with high SAT scores)
4. 4000 Blinn Team (the last two years a higher SAT avg than the A&M avg)
5. 600 Gateway

When your 4th pot of students in selection order (Blinn Team) has a higher SAT avg than the university as a whole we are tying our hands behind our backs for rankings like USNWR. I'm hearing kids in the 1300-1400 SAT, 28-32 ACT range with good activities getting offered Blinn Team this year because we have so many top 10% kids we have to accept. That in turn gives those kids who think A&M has dissed them an opportunity to consider their partial scholarships at SMU, TCU, Bayrol, etc. We know lots of those top 10 kids will fail out.....on average they aren't prepared to compete with the 27th percentile kids from Westlake, Highland Park, etc, etc.

IF you understand numbers about the only way for A&M to increase its incoming SAT scores under the existing rules is GROW......but that impacts USNWR selectivity numbers. You have to do something to offset the lower SAT scores of the top 10% group IF you think SAT scores are more important than selectivity.

quote:

---

A&M is losing lots of selectivity points because of the top 10 rule. The problem the lege has created with top 10% is IF A&M quits letting in so many kids without the lege changing the rule, the selectivity number goes up BUT the avg SAT goes way down. "Most people" believe avg SAT is more indicative than "selectivity".

---

So, if t.u. falls under the same 10% rule (Although I believe they are currently fighting it) then why is their acceptance rate much lower than ours, SAT scores higher, and ranked #52 in USNWR?

They got their required take lowered to 7% several years ago because they "have good diversity".

Btw: my understanding is they went back to 8% this year:

"Under legislation approved in May 2009 by the Texas House as part of the 81st Regular Session (Senate Bill 175), UT-Austin (but no other state universities) was allowed to trim the number of students it accepts under the 10% rule; UT-Austin could limit those students to 75 percent of entering in-state freshmen from Texas. The University would admit the top 1 percent, the top 2 percent and so forth until the cap is reached, beginning with the 2011 entering class. UT System Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa and UT-Austin President William Powers Jr. had sought a cap of about 50 percent, but lawmakers (led by Representatives Dan Branch (R-Dallas) and Rep. Mike Villarreal (D-San Antonio)) brokered the compromise."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_House_Bill_588

Two additional things need to be noted:

1. The 10% rule is based on state law for the purpose of side-stepping race-based admissions partially in response to the 5th Circuit ruling on Hopwood v. Texas. It is properly legislated law that has passed judicial scrutiny.

2. Admission by the 10% rule is to the University not to the college or curriculum of preference. Neither Texas NOR A&M admits top 10%/10 (mitigated by 75% rule) to a college nor major as far as I am aware as of my daughter applying to (and being accepted for admission) both A&M and Texas.

So the focus on selectivity has mainly to do with freshman-year admission to the University basically to a general studies program. Additional criteria must be met for our more rigorous curricula/colleges.

It possibly serves no social or policy value to be more selective unless those who are admitted cannot find a place to complete a degree in the University. Other than, of course as Frank Bruni illustrates in his nytimes blog, for the sake of selectivity itself as a virtue.

No student gets a degree at A&M without meeting the requirements of his or her degree. YES ABSOLUTELY the top 10% rule LOWERS SAT AVERAGES. That is a matter of public policy and isn't strictly under the control of the University (though Texas has more latitude by law than A&M).

I think this and the 80,000 student thread illustrate how narrow the litmus test is of those complaining. I believe the top 10% rule (both variants) are potentially unhelpful public policy, but you have to change it at the Lege. It might be that A&M is being too accommodating of state law, but if such a thing is possible, it appears that A&M is abiding by the public policy intent of state law.

Thanks for clarifying. I still believe there are current decisions being made by the TAMU leadership, such as the increase in enrollment that are resulting in its academic decline. We have been abiding by the 10% law for a long time and were ranked in the fifties and sixties while doing so. SMU has now surpassed us academically. If the 10% rule hasn't changed then other policy decisions have, which is having an adverse effect.

It's just really annoying that certain other schools get to play by different rules.

quote:

---

quote:

---

Ranked #70. Only two spots above Baylor. t.u. sitting at #52. Weren't we in the fifties just a few years ago?

Probably the result of new policies focused on increasing enrollment and acceptance rates.

---

It's been discussed. Poorly. Admin hasn't addressed it.

Most around here like to throw out the rankings of schools. Yes USNWR has their ranking scheme and it's stupid. But wtf are people going to use as a metric? Students take it seriously, filter out colleges that are too low on the scale, and the school misses out on excellent students. I know because I used it when choosing between A&M and UT. The difference was like 10 then and the price was way better here. Sad as it is, I kick myself now for not knowing that they were gonna diploma nuke the place.

Here's the funny part. People here will say "it's about what you can do." That's certainly true. But the people who get the opportunities to do are few.

For fun, do the following exercise. You have 20 candidates. You only have time to interview 10. All of the candidates are roughly equivalent. Solid GPAs, extracurricular activities, sociable, relevant experiences, etc., etc.

8 are from Ivy League or Duke or Stanford so you give them an interview.
8 are from large colleges with poor reputations. Discard.
(For fun also, why is the university of phoenix bad? ITT Tech? Maybe because they let everybody in....)

You have 2 slots left, 4 candidates left.
Let's say the candidates are from these schools:

• Penn State
• Ohio State
• Purdue
• Texas A&M

How do you pick? Lemme know. State schools are responsible for educating the public. Flagship state schools are responsible for educating the best of the public.

Tl;dr
Everybody learns the same useless crap in undergrad. You pay for the name. Nobody needs Texas A&M to teach them digital logic or circuit analysis. A book and persistence will suffice and is a hell of a lot cheaper. That name's value is based on rankings. USNWR is one of those rankings.

---

Anybody who gives preference to Ivy League graduates needs to rethink their reasoning. At most Ivy League schools, once you get in (and yes, it's difficult) you pay your $$, go to some of your classes and graduate with a C average. (Don't believe me--just ask George W Bush.)

Back during the .com bubble, the company I worked for was bought by a couple of venture capital firms that brought in several Harvard MBAs to make us the next Amazon for the oilfield. Those folks had no idea about what we did or how we did it. They tried to change us into something our customers didn't want and were told (by the customers!) as much. I sat in many meetings that seemed to be nothing more than some sort of business school class in which everybody tried to brainstorm something that might work. In less than a year, they sold us after skimming most of our hard assets to recoup some of their losses.

During a later position as a partner in a consulting firm, a long time partner and t.u grad told me about a meeting he had with several Exxon execs who were t..u. grads. They were trying to find out why so many of their engineers were Aggies. The answer they came up with was that Aggies were better grounded, well rounded and worked better in groups, which is important in large energy projects.

quote:

---

quote:

---

quote:

---

Ranked #70. Only two spots above Baylor. t.u. sitting at #52. Weren't we in the fifties just a few years ago?

Probably the result of new policies focused on increasing enrollment and acceptance rates.

---

It's been discussed. Poorly. Admin hasn't addressed it.

Most around here like to throw out the rankings of schools. Yes USNWR has their ranking scheme and it's stupid. But wtf are people going to use as a metric? Students take it seriously, filter out colleges that are too low on the scale, and the school misses out on excellent students. I know because I used it when choosing between A&M and UT. The difference was like 10 then and the price was way better here. Sad as it is, I kick myself now for not knowing that they were gonna diploma nuke the place.

Here's the funny part. People here will say "it's about what you can do." That's certainly true. But the people who get the opportunities to do are few.

For fun, do the following exercise. You have 20 candidates. You only have time to interview 10. All of the candidates are roughly equivalent. Solid GPAs, extracurricular activities, sociable, relevant experiences, etc., etc.

8 are from Ivy League or Duke or Stanford so you give them an interview.
8 are from large colleges with poor reputations. Discard.
(For fun also, why is the university of phoenix bad? ITT Tech? Maybe because they let everybody in....)

You have 2 slots left, 4 candidates left.
Let's say the candidates are from these schools:

• Penn State
• Ohio State
• Purdue
• Texas A&M

How do you pick? Lemme know. State schools are responsible for educating the public. Flagship state schools are responsible for educating the best of the public.

Tl;dr
Everybody learns the same useless crap in undergrad. You pay for the name. Nobody needs Texas A&M to teach them digital logic or circuit analysis. A book and persistence will suffice and is a hell of a lot cheaper. That name's value is based on rankings. USNWR is one of those rankings.

---

Anybody who gives preference to Ivy League graduates needs to rethink their reasoning. At most Ivy League schools, once you get in (and yes, it's difficult) you pay your $$, go to some of your classes and graduate with a C average. (Don't believe me--just ask George W Bush.)

Back during the .com bubble, the company I worked for was bought by a couple of venture capital firms that brought in several Harvard MBAs to make us the next Amazon for the oilfield. Those folks had no idea about what we did or how we did it. They tried to change us into something our customers didn't want and were told (by the customers!) as much. I sat in many meetings that seemed to be nothing more than some sort of business school class in which everybody tried to brainstorm something that might work. In less than a year, they sold us after skimming most of our hard assets to recoup some of their losses.

During a later position as a partner in a consulting firm, a long time partner and t.u grad told me about a meeting he had with several Exxon execs who were t..u. grads. They were trying to find out why so many of their engineers were Aggies. The answer they came up with was that Aggies were better grounded, well rounded and worked better in groups, which is important in large energy projects.

---

HBS is not an undergrad program, btw. And you get in and skate by with a C average at every undergrad program

Drop in USNWR ranking is significant for us, A&M but ...


Texas also dropped significantly as well. Their ranking in in 1988 was 25th and in 47 in 2007.
A&M was in 48 in 1997 and 60 by 2007...now you know the rest. This

True or false: Usnwr rankings are highly considered by potential employers when filtering candidates for interviews.

True or false: Universities have reputations for the quality of students and their work ethic.

True or false: A recent college grad's best shot at landing a job is through resume and school name alone.