Pitt drops for 4th year in a row in US News rankings

[CrazyPaco]

Interestingly as you say....."Individual rankings were not broken down above #50" 24 years ago when Pitt was in the 52 - 116 group. US News hasn't done much to refine things 24 years later. Here are the rankings now above #50. For schools rated 51 to 70 (Pitt's current ranking).....

• 3 schools tied at 51
• 4 schools tied at 54
• 5 schools tied at 58
• 7 schools tied at 63
• 3 schools tied at 70 (one of which is Pitt)

So there we have it....23 schools bunched into 5 rankings. If we can leapfrog the 7 schools grouped at 63....we come in at 58 with 5 other schools....and maybe none of us are wringing our hands about Pitt's rating. But I get it.....just like NIL in sports....the US News rankings are what we have to deal with. Incidentally....that group of 7 includes Penn State, Michigan State, Tulane, and Miami....good schools but I'll keep my degree from Pitt....thank you very much! One last thing....I did have one WTF moment at looking at these rankings....University of Georgia at 46 🤣. That's all.

Texas and UF at #30...Rutgers...yes Rutgers which recently has been in the 60s and 70s...at #41..uh, no. Wake has dropped down to #46 ...usually in the top 30.

Texas, Florida, California, Virginia, Georgia: large growing states, often with pre-paid tuition programs and substantially more affordable in-state tuition where there aren't significant privates to draw top in-state students. These state flagship schools are top or near drop draws for their in-state students and comparative really good values. These states have a huge advantage over schools in PA. Pitt is in danger of continuing to be passed by other schools from such states, like it has been passed by Texas A&M, Virginia Tech, and FSU, if it doesn't work to address these rankings.

 

[AllegeneeGenacGenac]

I think PA is way stronger. The poster listed:
PENN,
Carnegie Mellon
Drexel
Villanova
Dickinson
Gettysburg
Bucknell
Scranton (Scranton, really?)

But also:
Swarthmore
Lehigh
Lafayette
Bryn Mawr is one of the Seven Sisters colleges (think Wellsley, Vassar, Smith etc..)
Even Allegheny and W&J

Right, it's not even close. UVA and W&M are great public schools. VT is also good.

After that, you have a bunch of publics that are basically party schools or commuter schools and a bunch of small private schools that serve no real purpose today. Basically the same as the private schools in PA, after you remove all the ones on the list above (other than Scranton of course, and probably Gettysburg and Dickinson).

North Carolina is about the same, with a weaker public system than VA overall.

 

[accindc]

Right, it's not even close. UVA and W&M are great public schools. VT is also good.

After that, you have a bunch of publics that are basically party schools or commuter schools and a bunch of small private schools that serve no real purpose today. Basically the same as the private schools in PA, after you remove all the ones on the list above (other than Scranton of course, and probably Gettysburg and Dickinson).

North Carolina is about the same, with a weaker public system than VA overall.

So Washington & Lee and Richmond are irrelevant? Interesting...

 

[CrazyPaco]

In the meaningless stats department, but sure to been as a bragging point, as far as average conference ranking, the ACC maintains its long-standing place at the top.

Average US News member ranking among Power 4 conferences:
ACC: 51.6
Big Ten: 53.9
SEC: 114.2
B12: 140.9

 

[vantheman1976]

Texas and UF at #30...Rutgers...yes Rutgers which recently has been in the 60s and 70s...at #41..uh, no. Wake has dropped down to #46 ...usually in the top 30.

Texas, Florida, California, Virginia, Georgia: large growing states, often with pre-paid tuition programs and substantially more affordable in-state tuition where there aren't significant privates to draw top in-state students. These state flagship schools are top or near drop draws for their in-state students and comparative really good values. These states have a huge advantage over schools in PA. Pitt is in danger of continuing to be passed by other schools from such states, like it has been passed by Texas A&M, Virginia Tech, and FSU, if it doesn't work to address these rankings.

OK....that helps explain the low rating of LSU (179) and the University of Mississippi (171) and University of Alabama (171) to some extent but wouldn't Arizona State at 121 and the University of Arizona at 109 fit your growing state hypothesis? Also...shouldn't membership in the Association of American Universities have weight in the ratings......been wondering about that?

 

[CrazyPaco]

OK....that helps explain the low rating of LSU (179) and the University of Mississippi (171) and University of Alabama (171) to some extent but wouldn't Arizona State at 121 and the University of Arizona at 109 fit your growing state hypothesis? Also...shouldn't membership in the Association of American Universities have weight in the ratings......been wondering about that?

The AAU has zero to do with any rankings. Zero.

ASU is a huge...giant...diploma mill when it comes to undergrad enrollment. It is the largest school in the country. When you are that large, I don't know how much quality control goes on. But I haven't looked into their stats to know why they are where they are. They've haven't really moved a ton. I don't know much about Arizona as an institution either. I imagine a lot of top achieving Arizona students look to go to school in CA.

 

[AllegeneeGenacGenac]

So Washington & Lee and Richmond are irrelevant? Interesting...

What about them makes them relevant, let alone competitive with Penn, CMU, Lehigh, and Swarthmore?

They're above average private schools in VA, but perform no meaningful research and have no noteworthy undergraduate or graduate specialties. If both went away tomorrow no one other than the employees, students, alumni, and people in close proximity to the campus would notice, which to be clear is true for all of their many peers (by definition I suppose).

 

[caleco's]

Here is what is out-of-whack for Pitt and this ranking...and always has been.

A list of the top 25 universities (which have undergrad components) in terms of research expenditures with their corresponding US News undergrad rankings in (_):

1. Johns Hopkins (6)
2. Penn (10)
3. Michigan (21)
4. Washington (46)
5. UCLA (15)
6 UCSD (29)
7. Wisconsin (39)
8. Duke (6)
9. Stanford (4)
10. Ohio State (41)
11. UNC (27)
12. Harvard (3)
13. Cornell (11)
14. NYU (30)
15. Pitt (70)
16. Georgia Tech (33)
17. Columbia (13)
18. Maryland (44)
19. Minnesota (54)
20. Yale (5)
21. Texas A&M (51)
22. Vanderbilt (18)
23. Florida (30)
24. Washington U St. Louis (21)
25. USC (27)

Pitt is the only top 25 research university outside the top 54 of US News. By far the largest disparity. You see the same thing with med school rankings. By its research and graduate characteristics, Pitt should be ranked in US News between 40-50. No matter what you think about it, US News is huge for perception and student/parent decision making. Pitt is definitely doing something wrong and has been for a long time. This slide is a trend that Gabel needs to address.

If we would just tarp the upper deck all of this would change

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

If we would just tarp the upper deck all of this would change

So we should tarp the top 10 or 15 floors of the Cathedral?

 

[Pitt_Boss]

In years past, I have worked with a lot of students going through college application and choice. Many students don’t care about academic rankings, they care about cost (mostly), location, major/program, etc.

However for the ones that DO care about academic stature, they would say "I want to go to a 10 school” or a Top 25 or Top 50, 100. The exact number would vary, but when they said that , they ALWAYS meant by the US News ranking. So as Paco said, it doesn’t matter if the methodology is total garbage, it’s the metric that matters.

And worse, the students that do care about rankings are EXACTLY the students you need to be applying/ accepting to support your ranking. So there is a spiral effect as you drop where it becomes harder to get the students you need to move back up.

 

[TIGER-PAUL]

Aren’t applications at a record high though?

 

[pittchagg]

Aren’t applications at a record high though?

they are, but mostly because kids are applying to more colleges than they used to. Everyone is setting application records.

 

[Pitt_Boss]

Aren’t applications at a record high though?

It's not just the number of applicants, but the quality of applicants. You need people with high GPAs and test scores applying.

I hate to say this but...

I have 5 kids, 3 of whom are off to college already (1 in college now and 2 graduated college). One of those three of age, matriculated to Pitt. The other 2 didn't go to Pitt and probably never were going to Pitt: they both went to Top 25 schools, one was HS valedictorian and one was #3 in class, both very high GPA and test scores. I had those other 2 apply to Pitt though, just boost to our applicant profile. Not sure one student in two different classes makes much of a difference, but was doing my little part to boost Pitt's profile