2015 US News Rankings

[Big D]

Took a quick glance at the rankings and I'm not a happy alum....so I've decided not to go through the more detailed analysis this year.  We dropped 21 spots from 128 to 149.  I can't imagine there is any other school in the rankings with a larger plummet.

Our score (one of the key indicators) dropped from a 42 to a 34....huge drop.  And, the only other key indicator we dropped in was our acceptance rate...from low 60's% to 71%....why did we accept so many more people?  That number seems to be out of the norm for us and it probably affected us quite a bit.

Gotta say, disappointed...once again, we find ourselves going in the wrong direction....if it's not athletically, it's academically....unfortunately, now it's both.  Again, we take these with a grain of salt, but everybody (i.e., prospective students) looks at them...so they're important for that reason.

[Big D]

And, very typical, we made the news on our decline...and ISU passed us for the 1st time.

Link

[UICJohn]

1) I hate negative press. It is bad for the school. And the fact that the headline starts with "UIC down" is not a good thing at all for the university. Additionally, to add that ISU is up doesn't help because the schools do target the same kind of student and that would definitely sway some from one school to another.

2) I have always disliked some of the categories. For example, acceptance rate. Loyola has a 91% acceptance rate which is extremely high compared to others. But why is that? Is it because it is so expensive that not many apply that cannot afford it. Same with UIUC with a 62% rate. I do know that NIU slipped badly a few years back because they decided to accept a lot more students and their acceptance rate went high which hurt them in the rankings. I am not sure if UIC had to accept more because of budget cuts and needed to make more money from tuition? Just an idea.

3) Absolutely need to improve on graduation rate. If you look at the chart on Sun Times that compares the different local universities, they basically are in order from highest to lowest. That needs to improve.

Regardless, as someone married to an ISU alum, I was not happy about this. I know that my school is superior.

[insideuic]

UIC accepted more students because the campus had a stronger applicant pool than in the past (highest ACT profile in history, to be exact).

And by the way it was a good thing the campus accepted more (independently of what USN&WR thinks), because it is significantly more difficult to yield stronger students (who receive more admission offers, and often times scholarships that UIC is rarely able to match (see alumni giving rate)). The reality is that students who are not qualified to be admitted to UIC are not applying in the numbers they have in the past.

There are other rankings out there, and while not nearly as popular as USNWR, Money Magazine as one example, listed UIC in significantly better light, naming the campus in the top 15 schools you can actually get into, as well as in the top colleges that add the most value. time.com/money/3025341/colleges-that-add-the-most-value-moneys-best-colleges/

[Big D]

Interesting insideuic. Unfortunately, your research wasn't also performed by the journalist that wrote that suntimes article. Most people reading that article are just going to run with it...."ISU is better than UIC"....."UIC is plummeting..."

I'm curious, what are the ACT numbers this year, and in the past?

[insideuic]

Sure, I love looking at this stuff.

Yr Aps ACT HSPR Admit Admit % Yield %
2014 15950 25.3 20 11600 72.7 26
2013 15306 24.5 21 10432 68.2 30
2012 14978 24.1 23 9227 61.6 33
2011 15196 23.7 25 9183 60.4 33.9

ACT shot up almost a whole point this year after a few years of incremental gains, and the average high school class rank was in the top 20%, also a high for UIC. Admissions has been recruiting nationally/globally as well, and brought in more out of state and international applications (who yield (i.e. accept the offer of admission) at a (predictably) lower rate).

The yield and admit rates are what hurt UIC this year in USN&WR - by their definition, UIC became less selective, even though academic credentials increased significantly. But, admissions achieved some of the goals set by administration: bringing in a more geographically diverse and academically prepared first year class, achieving greater ethnic diversity (along with comes a very likely federal designation as a hispanic serving institution), and increasing overall application numbers by a healthy 4% in a state that saw a decline in HS graduates: www.wiche.edu/info/knocking-8th/profiles/il.pdf