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OT: New US News undergrad rankings (2022); Pitt down one spot, still top 20 public

CrazyPaco

Athletic Director
Jul 5, 2001
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[edited to add individual program rankings]

The new US News & World Report undergraduate rankings are out.

For the National University category, Pitt was ranked tied for 59th with Syracuse, Maryland, and Washington. That is down one slot from 58th the year prior.

Pitt maintained its top 20 public university ranking coming in at 20th, also down one spot from the prior year.

Pitt was ranked as the 29th best college for veterans, up one spot from the prior year.

Undergrad business was ranked 49th, down 11 spots from 38th last year.

Undergrad engineering was ranked 56th, down 3 spots from the year prior.

Undergrad computer science was ranked 60th, down 7 spots from 53rd last year.

In a new (debut for US News) undergrad nursing ranking, Pitt was ranked 7th.

Pitt-Bradford was ranked 18th and Pitt-Johnstown was ranked 28th in the Regional Colleges North category, up 1 spot and 3 spots from the prior year, respectively.

The ACC once again easily maintained the top average and median ranking among all power athletic conferences.
ACC: mean 55.1 (median 55)
B10: mean 60.1 (median 61)
Pac-12: mean 82.7 (median 99)
SEC: mean 110.9 (median 119.5)
B12: mean 137.8 (median 124.5)

Here's Pitt's rank among the ACC:
Duke 9
Notre Dame 19
Virginia 25
North Carolina 28
Wake Forest 28
Boston College 36
Georgia Tech 38
Miami 55
Florida State 55
Pitt 59
Syracuse 59
Clemson 75
Virginia Tech 75
NC State 79
Louisville 187

Here's the rank of all power 5 schools (ACC in bold):
6 Stanford
9 Duke
9 Northwestern
14 Vanderbilt
19 Notre Dame
20 UCLA
22 Cal-Berkeley
23 Michigan
25 Virginia
27 USC
28 North Carolina
28 Wake Forest

28 Florida
36 Boston College
38 Georgia Tech

38 Texas
42 Wisconsin
47 Illinois
48 Georgia
49 Ohio State
49 Purdue
55 Miami
55 Florida State
59 PITT
59 Syracuse

59 Maryland
59 Washington
63 Penn State
63 Rutgers
68 Minnesota
68 Indiana
68 Texas A&M
75 Clemson
75 Virginia Tech

75 Baylor
79 NC State
83 Iowa
83 Michigan St
83 TCU
99 Colorado
99 Utah
99 Oregon
99 Auburn
103 Arizona
103 Tennessee
117 Arizona St
117 South Carolina
122 Missouri
122 Iowa St
122 Kansas
127 Kentucky
127 Oklahoma
136 Nebraska
148 Alabama
148 Mississippi
162 Oregon St
162 Arkansas
162 Kansas St
172 LSU
179 Washington St
187 Louisville
187 Oklahoma St
196 Mississippi St
213 Texas Tech
249 West Virginia

(incoming: BYU 83, Cincinnati 148, UCF 148, Houston 179)

Among other Pennsylvania schools (national category):
8 Penn
25 Carnegie Mellon
49 Lehigh
49 Villanova
59 Pitt
63 Penn State
103 Drexel
103 Temple
148 Duquesne
148 Thomas Jefferson
172 Chatham
187 Robert Morris
202 Misericordia
213 Widner
213 Wilkes
227 Gannon
227 Immaculata
299-391 IUP
 
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Pitt gets hammered on the affordability metrics, especially compared to the southern state schools that are significantly cheaper. They've done quite a bit over the past few years to try to overcome that, but it's ultimately the biggest impediment that Pitt faces going forward with the way that the US News calculates the rankings.

That said, you won't convince me that Pitt isn't a better school than several of the P5 schools that are ranked higher, and you won't convince me that Pitt isn't a better school than Villanova and Lehigh (which are both fine schools). These rankings are probably better viewed as "tiers" especially when you're looking at public schools. The difference in institutional quality between Texas at #38 and Indiana at #68 is functionally very small, in addition to every other school (including Pitt) that falls in between.
 
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miami has been ahead of pitt for decades at this point. this is nothing new. florida state one is weird. i don't know when that one changed.
I said it above - Florida State's annual in-state tuition is $10,000 less than Pitt's. Student debt for graduates is 5% of the ranking, and graduation rates (indirectly impacted by tuition, because cost of attendance is the #1 reason for students not finishing school) are 35% of the ranking. When the separation between individual schools is as small as it is, it matters a whole lot.
 
miami has been ahead of pitt for decades at this point. this is nothing new. florida state one is weird. i don't know when that one changed.
This is the first year FSU has been ahead of Pitt. They were tied the last three years. All the Florida schools are moving up. Personally, I find UF's ranking ridiculous.

FSU's rise since Fall 2011:
101, 97, 91, 95, 96, 92, 81, 70, 57, 58, 55

Remember, the tweak the methodology every year too.

This is Miami's lowest rank since before 2011. They've been as high as 38th (2011).

Pitt's highest ever ranking was 56th in fall 2009.
 
This is the first year FSU has been ahead of Pitt. They were tied the last three years. All the Florida schools are moving up. Personally, I find UF's ranking ridiculous.

FSU's rise since Fall 2011:
101, 97, 91, 95, 96, 92, 81, 70, 57, 58, 55

Remember, the tweak the methodology every year too.

This is Miami's lowest rank since before 2011. They've been as high as 38th (2011).

Pitt's highest ever ranking was 56th in fall 2009.
LOL - I didn't see that Florida was #28. That's a perfect example of the "tiers" thing I was talking about. In reality, Florida is probably right there in the 40-70 band with the collection of other public schools, with the difference between them being pretty small.
 
I said it above - Florida State's annual in-state tuition is $10,000 less than Pitt's. Student debt for graduates is 5% of the ranking, and graduation rates (indirectly impacted by tuition, because cost of attendance is the #1 reason for students not finishing school) are 35% of the ranking. When the separation between individual schools is as small as it is, it matters a whole lot.

Pitt's fall 2020 6-year graduate rate is 83.5%. Pell grant grad rate was 75.7%. FSU's 6-year grad rate was 84.2% with a Pell grant rate of 80.1%. Pell grant difference is 5% of the rankings and Pitt is 327th. This is for fall 2014 entering student cohort. FYI, Pitt launched its Pell grant matching program in 2019.

Also impacting tight rankings is the % of alumni that donate, which is 3% of the ranking. Last year, Pitt was 177th with only a pathetic 7% giving rate.
 
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How is Georgia ranked so high.
Georgia actually dropped one spot. They peaked at 46th in fall 2018. They been slowly rising.

I've heard so many bad things about Purdue, that is the one that doesn't seem to match the institutional reputation at all, IMO.
 
My son went to Purdue and got a fabulous education in aviation. They are strong in engineering. Not sure what other areas they are strong or weak in. Purdue and IU kind of balance one another in terms of strong and weak areas of study.
 
Pitt's fall 2020 6-year graduate rate is 83.5%. Pell grant grad rate was 75.7%. FSU's 6-year grad rate was 84.2% with a Pell grant rate of 80.1%. Pell grant difference is 5% of the rankings and Pitt is 327th. This is for fall 2014 entering student cohort. FYI, Pitt launched its Pell grant matching program in 2019.

Also impacting tight rankings is the % of alumni that donate, which is 3% of the ranking. Last year, Pitt was 177th with only a pathetic 7% giving rate.
Paco. Do you know when the Pell matching program will start helping with the ranking?
 
Sitting here in my UGA accounting class the change in UGA has been unbelievable. When I lived in Athens in the 80s you could get in with a low 900’s SAT. I think the incoming class is around a 1340. Th e change is because of the Hope scholarship where smart kids can go to UGA tuition free so that’s where mom and dad send them. UGA has spent the HOpe money wisely improving the facilities and faculty dramatically. The lAst non-us news world report I think had UGA and Pitt tied. At around 19 or so for Public universities. Im sure Paco could elaborate.
 
Sitting here in my UGA accounting class the change in UGA has been unbelievable. When I lived in Athens in the 80s you could get in with a low 900’s SAT. I think the incoming class is around a 1340. Th e change is because of the Hope scholarship where smart kids can go to UGA tuition free so that’s where mom and dad send them. UGA has spent the HOpe money wisely improving the facilities and faculty dramatically. The lAst non-us news world report I think had UGA and Pitt tied. At around 19 or so for Public universities. Im sure Paco could elaborate.

just how long have you been in college? you've got tipton beat by a mile.
 
I have a place in midtown. I am not there often so I don’t keep up with things like education or politics in the state. I had no idea about the hope scholarship. Thanks for sharing
 
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Paco. Do you know when the Pell matching program will start helping with the ranking?
If it launched in 2019, freshmen who entered after the program went into effect would be graduating in 2023. This year's 2022 US News rankings are taking the graduating classes from 2019 and 2020 into account when calculating the rankings, so the full effect won't be felt for several more years. That said, when they put the program into place, they also applied the benefit to current students, so starting next year you'll start to see more of an effect, albeit with students who didn't benefit for their entire education.

There are a few more things they're doing, too - the Panthers Forward program debuted in 2018, which basically paid $5,000 towards participants' debt at graduation, with the expectation that they'll "pay it forward" and donate to the program when they're able to and benefit future students. It also just so happens that 3% of the ranking formula is the raw average debt figure for graduating students. So basically, the Panthers Forward program helps to lower that average indebtedness, which helps the ranking.

There's also the benefit that a lot of private schools experience in the rankings in that 2% of the ranking is the proportion of graduates who took out any dollar amount of federal student loans. So some private schools are able to cut that number by leveraging their endowment to offer in-house financial aid that avoids the federal system entirely. A student could still graduate from a private school with $50k in student loan debt, but if none of it is federal, US News basically considers them debt-free. So a public school like Pitt with a large endowment could start to venture into that world - basically, if a student already has scholarships or other sources of funding and is only looking at taking out a couple thousand in student loans, it's to Pitt's advantage to be the one lending them the money versus the federal government...even if it's probably to the student's benefit to go the federal route.
 
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Do normal people really care about stuff like this??

I’m asking you guys what normal people care about lol, never mind.
 
I agree the tiers are what's most important. Just good to be ahead of PSU for now haha! Nova and Lehigh are awesome schools. Very high reputations here on the Eastern seaboard. Its a feather in Pitt's cap to be so close to both of them.
 
[edited to add individual program rankings]

The new US News & World Report undergraduate rankings are out.

For the National University category, Pitt was ranked tied for 59th with Syracuse, Maryland, and Washington. That is down one slot from 58th the year prior.

Pitt maintained its top 20 public university ranking coming in at 20th, also down one spot from the prior year.

Pitt was ranked as the 29th best college for veterans, up one spot from the prior year.

Undergrad business was ranked 49th, down 11 spots from 38th last year.

Undergrad engineering was ranked 56th, down 3 spots from the year prior.

Undergrad computer science was ranked 60th, down 7 spots from 53rd last year.

In a new (debut for US News) undergrad nursing ranking, Pitt was ranked 7th.

Pitt-Bradford was ranked 18th and Pitt-Johnstown was ranked 28th in the Regional Colleges North category, up 1 spot and 3 spots from the prior year, respectively.

The ACC once again easily maintained the top average and median ranking among all power athletic conferences.
ACC: mean 55.1 (median 55)
B10: mean 60.1 (median 61)
Pac-12: mean 82.7 (median 99)
SEC: mean 110.9 (median 119.5)
B12: mean 137.8 (median 124.5)

Here's Pitt's rank among the ACC:
Duke 9
Notre Dame 19
Virginia 25
North Carolina 28
Wake Forest 28
Boston College 36
Georgia Tech 38
Miami 55
Florida State 55
Pitt 59
Syracuse 59
Clemson 75
Virginia Tech 75
NC State 79
Louisville 187

Here's the rank of all power 5 schools (ACC in bold):
6 Stanford
9 Duke
9 Northwestern
14 Vanderbilt
19 Notre Dame
20 UCLA
22 Cal-Berkeley
23 Michigan
25 Virginia
27 USC
28 North Carolina
28 Wake Forest

28 Florida
36 Boston College
38 Georgia Tech

38 Texas
42 Wisconsin
47 Illinois
48 Georgia
49 Ohio State
49 Purdue
55 Miami
55 Florida State
59 PITT
59 Syracuse

59 Maryland
59 Washington
63 Penn State
63 Rutgers
68 Minnesota
68 Indiana
68 Texas A&M
75 Clemson
75 Virginia Tech

75 Baylor
79 NC State
83 Iowa
83 Michigan St
83 TCU
99 Colorado
99 Utah
99 Oregon
99 Auburn
103 Arizona
103 Tennessee
117 Arizona St
117 South Carolina
122 Missouri
122 Iowa St
122 Kansas
127 Kentucky
127 Oklahoma
136 Nebraska
148 Alabama
148 Mississippi
162 Oregon St
162 Arkansas
162 Kansas St
172 LSU
179 Washington St
187 Louisville
187 Oklahoma St
196 Mississippi St
213 Texas Tech
249 West Virginia

(incoming: BYU 83, Cincinnati 148, UCF 148, Houston 179)

Among other Pennsylvania schools (national category):
8 Penn
25 Carnegie Mellon
49 Lehigh
49 Villanova
59 Pitt
63 Penn State
103 Drexel
103 Temple
148 Duquesne
148 Thomas Jefferson
172 Chatham
187 Robert Morris
202 Misericordia
213 Widner
213 Wilkes
227 Gannon
227 Immaculata
299-391 IUP
Thanks Paco.

H2P
 
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