Penn State ranked (for Academics) number 66 out of the 132 schools that have D1 (FBS) Football

Nitt1300

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Nov 2, 2008
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Midnighter

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Jan 22, 2021
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Crazy wide discrepancy between the two rankings . Which PSU person p o’ed Forbes ?

Forbes’ criteria for their ranking system:

How We Rank America's Best Colleges
  • Alumni Salary (20%) We used earnings data from Payscale and College Scorecard to determine which colleges produced the highest-paid graduates. ...
  • Debt (15%) ...
  • Graduation Rate (15%) ...
  • Forbes American Leaders List (15%) ...
  • Return On Investment (15%) ...
  • Retention Rate (10%) ...
  • Academic Success (10%)
 

Catch1lion

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Oct 12, 2021
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Forbes’ criteria for their ranking system:

How We Rank America's Best Colleges
  • Alumni Salary (20%) We used earnings data from Payscale and College Scorecard to determine which colleges produced the highest-paid graduates. ...
  • Debt (15%) ...
  • Graduation Rate (15%) ...
  • Forbes American Leaders List (15%) ...
  • Return On Investment (15%) ...
  • Retention Rate (10%) ...
  • Academic Success (10%)
Seems like PSU tends to suffer on ROI comparisons . I would guess debt is higher . . Not sure on the other metrics .
 

BobPSU92

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Aug 22, 2001
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Which she will earn if PSU gets into the top 65. Improvement is the goal. Nobody will be complaining when PSU is ranked 64 of 132. OTOH, it's kind of cool to be one of the two schools whose sum constitute the dividend in the median calculation.

You obviously didn’t go to PSU. Smarty pants.
 

doctornick

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Sep 4, 2007
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Crazy wide discrepancy between the two rankings . Which PSU person p o’ed Forbes ?

Forbes' methodology is tilted towards cost and return on investment. Which do seem like some reasonable criteria, but the fact that a lot of smaller privates (not just Ivy League schools but less well known ones) rank highly on the list makes me wonder how much it is skewed by having some schools getting mostly students from wealthier families (and from private high school pipelines) where they are more likely to have the family cover the college costs (reducing loan debt) and more likely to get higher paying jobs out of school due to connections (increasing the post-gradation median salary).

I mean places like Franklin & Marshall and Bucknell (to use some PA examples) have tuition over $60,000 way higher than even PSU's bloated costs for out of state. But they are ranked well above PSU in the Forbes metric.
 

Midnighter

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Jan 22, 2021
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US News & World Report ranking criteria (super ridiculous/contrived):


Indicator

(1st Number) - 2024 National Universities Weight for Schools With Usable SAT/ACT

(2nd Number) - 2024 National Universities Weight for Schools Without Usable SAT/ACT

(3rd Number) - 2022-2023 Weight

Graduation rates

16%

21%

17.6%

First-year retention rates

5%

5%

4.4%

Graduation rate performance

10%

10%

8%

Pell graduation rates

3%

3%

2.5%

Pell graduation performance

3%

3%

2.5%

First generation graduation rates

2.5%

2.5%

0%

First generation graduation rate performance

2.5%

2.5%

0%

Borrower debt

5%

5%

3%

College grads earning more than a high school grad

5%

5%

0%

Peer assessment

20%

20%

20%

Faculty salaries

6%

6%

7%

Student-faculty ratio

3%

3%

1%

Full-time faculty

2%

2%

1%

Financial resources per student

8%

8%

10%

Standardized tests

5%

0%

5%

Citations per publication

1.25%

1.25%

0%

Field weighted citation impact

1.25%

1.25%

0%

Publications cited in top 5% of journals

1%

1%

0%

Publications cited in top 25% of journals

0.5%

0.5%

0%

Class size

0%

0%

8%

Terminal degree faculty

0%

0%

3%

Alumni giving average

0%

0%

3%

Graduate debt proportion borrowing

0%

0%

2%

High school class standing

0%

0%

2%

TOTAL

100%

100%

100%
 
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leinbacker

Well-known member
May 29, 2001
2,115
3,398
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US News & World Report ranking criteria (super ridiculous/contrived):


Indicator

(1st Number) - 2024 National Universities Weight for Schools With Usable SAT/ACT

(2nd Number) - 2024 National Universities Weight for Schools Without Usable SAT/ACT

(3rd Number) - 2022-2023 Weight

Graduation rates

16%

21%

17.6%

First-year retention rates

5%

5%

4.4%

Graduation rate performance

10%

10%

8%

Pell graduation rates

3%

3%

2.5%

Pell graduation performance

3%

3%

2.5%

First generation graduation rates

2.5%

2.5%

0%

First generation graduation rate performance

2.5%

2.5%

0%

Borrower debt

5%

5%

3%

College grads earning more than a high school grad

5%

5%

0%

Peer assessment

20%

20%

20%

Faculty salaries

6%

6%

7%

Student-faculty ratio

3%

3%

1%

Full-time faculty

2%

2%

1%

Financial resources per student

8%

8%

10%

Standardized tests

5%

0%

5%

Citations per publication

1.25%

1.25%

0%

Field weighted citation impact

1.25%

1.25%

0%

Publications cited in top 5% of journals

1%

1%

0%

Publications cited in top 25% of journals

0.5%

0.5%

0%

Class size

0%

0%

8%

Terminal degree faculty

0%

0%

3%

Alumni giving average

0%

0%

3%

Graduate debt proportion borrowing

0%

0%

2%

High school class standing

0%

0%

2%

TOTAL

100%

100%

100%
What, no DEIB score included?
 

Jackiebrown

Well-known member
Apr 15, 2022
4,277
12,969
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Nobody cares about what College Football News has to say about a school’s academics. USNEWS is the only ranking people even remotely care about.
 
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