WSU tops UD in America’s Best Colleges poll — both dissedBy Tom Archdeacon
Monday, August 10, 2009
The University of Dayton may well land a Top 25 basketball ranking this coming season, but UD didn’t fare so well in the just-released FORBES’ list of America’s best Colleges.
Dayton was ranked 567th of the 600 colleges in the poll.
Wright State was ahead of UD at 554, as was the University of Cincinnati (538), Ohio State (361), Miami University (331) , Wittenberg (301), Cedarville (284), Xavier (196) and 18 other Ohio colleges and universities.
The top school on the list was the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y. It was followed by Princeton University (2), California Institute of Technology (3) , Williams College (4) and Harvard University (5).
As writer Hana R. Alberts explained on Forbes.com:
“Our college rankings are based on five criteria: graduation rate (how good a college is at helping its students finish on time); the number of national and global awards won by students and faculty; students’ satisfaction with their instructors; average debt upon graduation; and postgraduate vocational success as measured by a recent graduate’s average salary and alumni achievement.
“We prize the undergraduate experience and how well prepared students are for the real world rather than focusing on inputs such as acceptance rates and test scores. Our data are from publicly available sources rather than surveys filled out by the schools themselves.”
She explained the rankings are compiled in conjunction with Ohio University economist Richard Vedder and his Center for College Affordability & Productivity.
West Point got the top ranking, Alberts said, because of, among other things, the intense work ethic of the cadets, their drive to succeed on all fronts and because there is no financial cost to the student.
Just as the West Point ranking can be debated — and Alberts notes the many critics of the academy — so too can be the low assessment of UD and WSU.
I’m thinking Forbes should open a branch office here. Dayton has become one of its favorite punching bags whenever its trying to fill in the back end of one of numerous polls.
As for the America’s Best Colleges list — which can be found in full at Forbes.com — it includes various data on each school, including total annual cost, percentage of applicants admitted, average range of SAT and ACT scores, student to teacher ratio and notable alumni.
I’m not sure of all their numbers, but the notable alumni section behind various schools is quite skewered in some cases and paltry in many.
UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON: Total cost $38, 210; percent of applicants admitted ,74; SAT range 1050-1260; ACT 23-28; student to faculty ratio, 16 to 1.
Notable alumni — Jon Gruden ‘86, Monday Night Football analyst; Joseph Hinrichs ‘89, vice president of Ford Motor Company; Bob Schaffer ‘84, Colorado State Board of Education Chairman and former U.S. Congressman from Colorado; Dan Patrick ‘79, current Sports Illustrated columnist and syndicated sports radio talk show host, former ESPN anchor.
WRIGHT STATE UNIVERSITY:Total cost $18, 865; percent of applicants admitted, 85; SAT range 870-1120; ACT 18-24, student to faculty ratio, 20 to 1.
Notable alumni — Gregory Lockhart, U.S. Attorney; Robert Pollard, singer and songwriter for Guided by Voices; Siva S. Banda, aerospace engineer; Anthony Shaffer, U.S. intelligence officer.
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