Forbes Rankings - off season topic

by **matter_of_fact** » July 29th, 2013, 7:33 am

Forbes Magazine just released its list of the top colleges and universities in the US. Here is how the MVC schools fared:

162 - Drake
298 - Loyola (Chicago)
305 - Bradley
392 - Evansville
403 - Illinois State
466 - Wichita State
519 - Northern Iowa
526 - Missouri State
564 - Southern Illinois
640 - Indiana State

134 - Creighton

I know it's too subjective. Forbes probably used the wrong criteria to make those rankings, etc. Interesting nevertheless.

**Sponsor**

by **unipanther99** » July 29th, 2013, 8:21 am

Is there a link? How far down does this list go?

by **GoRamblers** » July 29th, 2013, 8:31 am

http://www.forbes.com/top-colleges/

Methodology: http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinehoward/2013/07/24/americas-top-colleges-2013/

It seems that this list relies heavily on the financial aspects of college. Not saying it is a bad way to judge which is best, but I'm not sure you can take this as the end all be all (same with US News).

by **rlh04d** » July 29th, 2013, 4:50 pm

GoRamblers wrote:http://www.forbes.com/top-colleges/

Methodology: http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinehoward/2013/07/24/americas-top-colleges-2013/

It seems that this list relies heavily on the financial aspects of college. Not saying it is a bad way to judge which is best, but I'm not sure you can take this as the end all be all (same with US News).

True, and US News might be better, but certainly has its own flaws as well. One thing with US News is that I don't believe it has any comparison between "regional" and "national" schools.

I'm surprised to see Creighton up that high. They were much lower a year or two ago. Like 100+ ranking spots, if I remember right.

There's also the "Smart Rank" from Findthebest.com, which uses a weighted average of rankings from U.S. News, Forbes Magazine, and the ARWU (Academic Ranking of World Universities):

Loyola #282
Illinois State #428
Drake #436
Evansville #446
Bradley #499
SIU #416
Northern Iowa #593
Wichita State #600
Missouri State #605
Indiana State #653

(Creighton #362)

by **AngryWheat=FTW=** » July 29th, 2013, 6:43 pm

A lot of postiive things are happening academically around WSU that should hoist their numbers higher in the coming years. For instance, they have recently become a National Merit Scholarship sponsor.

http://wheatshockers.com/showthread.php?tid=467

The new residence hall is going to positively affect campus life and activity which is a big factor in some national ranking systems.

http://wheatshockers.com/showthread.php?tid=405

by **Redbird Recon** » July 29th, 2013, 11:28 pm

We beat Wu in something!
:dance:

by **Aargh** » July 30th, 2013, 12:45 am

Boeing sold their Wichita plant. That plant now produces parts for Boeing and Airbus. It has more business than when it was owned by Boeing. We've also got Beechcraft, Cessna, and LearJet in Wichita. WSU has outstanding programs in Engineering and Business Administration. Aeronautical Engineering was the driving force behind the Engineering School.

It's pretty obvious how WSU progressed to what it is today. WSU is Business, Engineering, throw in Accounting as an offshoot of Business.

WSU played their games in the Kansas Coliseum (12K capacity) when the on-campus facility was being renovated. The former Kansas Coliseum is now the home of the National Institute for Aerospace Research, which is affiliated with WSU's Engineering program. The NIAR can test aircraft designs up to the size that will fit into a 12,000 seat arena.

Probably need to throw Criminal Justice and Linguistics (therapy and rehab (autistic, speech impaired, etc)) into the upper-tier mix. Past those, the next tier of classes seems to be Music and Teaching.

Past that, I'm not enthusiastic about some of the programs. Just as an example of something I don't understand - Computer Science is in the School Of Liberal Arts. To get a degree in Computer Science, you have to take the core curriculum from Liberal Arts.

When I got my Accounting degree, I needed 2 hours of Humanities (the Liberal Arts stuff) for 2 years before I found a 2-hour class titled "Human Sexuality". I did quite well in that class.

Hey, it's summer. There's not much basketball news, so I'll go Off topic for a moment. I wrote two papers for that class. The instructor thought they were both so good, tht I was excused from taking the final and got an A in the class.

The first paper was "The Effect of Drugs on Sex". To write that I went to several bars and let the patrons know I was writing the paper. I had long lines of people wanting to tell me their stories. I remember Alcohol - BAD. Cocaine - you can hurt yourself - BAD.

The second paper was a case study of a lifelong non-orgasmic woman who had recently been able to regularly achieve orgasm and the mechanics and mental issues involved with that.

Amazingly enough, the typical woman in that class was either planning on teaching sex ed or did not understand the mechanics of becoming pregnant. In that environment, my paper was pretty cutting-edge.

I don't understand how either of those papers would really benefit a Computer Science major. Oh, WAIT! SNAP! Computer Science types are commonly fairly nerdy and academic. With that in mind, they ALL need that class.

by **Ali** » July 30th, 2013, 8:02 am

The schools in this league have a mission that do not translate into high scores for rankings like these. End of story.

by **Bluejay09Bear06** » July 30th, 2013, 9:05 am

Average Forbes rankings by conferences of interest:

Big Ten 107.9
SEC 188.2
Big East 210.1
Big XII 262.7
AAC 332.9
Valley 427.5
C*USA 438.6*

*Marshall is unranked and not in the Forbes Top 650, so the average for C*USA should be lower than 438.6.

by **havoc** » July 30th, 2013, 9:42 am

Ali wrote:The schools in this league have a mission that do not translate into high scores for rankings like these. End of story.

That may be true for the four institutions in the bottom 25%, but I don't think you lump the rest of the league together and say the whole conference has a mission that does not translate to high rankings.