US News Academic Reputation Score Changes, 2015 vs 2023, vs National Rankings

Posted on November 21, 2022 by Honorsadmin

One of the most controversial aspects of the U.S. News national university rankings is the use of “undergraduate academic reputation” scores based on the “expert opinion” of the 43.6 percent of college presidents, deans, and provosts who actually return the peer assessment documents to U.S. News. Each response rates a university’s academic reputation on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest score.

The academic reputation category itself counts for 20 percent of the total ranking, a hefty impact indeed. Since 2015, the mean scores for 99 national universities have risen by .14, from 3.67 to 3.81, or almost 4 percent. A rise or fall of .1 or .2 seems to have minimal positive impact on a university’s ranking, while a rise or fall of .3 more likely indicates a real shift in perception and ranking..

The most likely explanation for the minimal impact, in general, of reputation score increases of less than .3 is that changes in the U.S. News rankings methodology that includes measures for “social mobility” and “graduate indebtedness” have, in many cases, overridden or undermined the impact of marginally higher scores for academic reputation.

Only one university, Northeastern, rose by .4–yet the overall ranking for Northeastern fell from 42 to 44 between 2015 and 2023. The reputation score of 11 universities rose by .3: Notre Dame, NYU, Purdue, Boston University, Virginia Tech, Georgia, UMass Amherst, UConn, Utah, UC Santa Cruz, and Florida State. For this group, the ranking for 9 or the 11 universities rose, while the other 2 fell. Only Notre Dame and UConn dropped in the rankings as their reputation scores rose.

Below is a table showing the changes in academic reputation scores and overall rankings for 99 national universities, 2015-2023, sorted by academic reputation ranking in 2023.

Copy of Rsp vs rank 2023.xlsx

University	Rep 2015	Rep 2023	change	Rank 2015	Rank 2023	change

Stanford	4.9	4.9	0	7	3	4
MIT	4.9	4.9	0	7	2	5
Princeton	4.8	4.8	0	1	1	0
Harvard	4.9	4.8	-0.1	2	3	-1
Yale	4.8	4.8	0	3	3	0
UC Berkeley	4.7	4.7	0	20	20	0
Columbia	4.6	4.7	0.1	4	18	-14
Chicago	4.6	4.7	0.1	4	6	-2
Johns Hopkins	4.5	4.7	0.2	12	7	5
Caltech	4.6	4.6	0	10	9	1
Cornell	4.5	4.6	0.1	15	17	-2
Penn	4.4	4.6	0.2	8	7	1
Duke	4.4	4.5	0.1	8	10	-2
Brown	4.4	4.5	0.1	16	13	3
Michigan	4.4	4.4	0	29	25	4
UCLA	4.2	4.4	0.2	23	20	3
Northwestern	4.3	4.4	0.1	13	10	3
Dartmouth	4.2	4.4	0.2	11	12	-1
Virginia	4.3	4.3	0	23	25	-2
Carnegie Mellon	4.2	4.3	0.1	25	22	3
Georgia Tech	4.2	4.3	0.1	36	44	-8
Vanderbilt	4.1	4.3	0.2	16	13	3
North Carolina	4.1	4.2	0.1	30	29	1
Rice	4	4.2	0.2	19	15	4
WUSTL	4	4.2	0.2	14	15	-1
Notre Dame	3.9	4.2	0.3	14	18	-4
Georgetown	4	4.2	0.2	21	22	-1
UW Madison	4.1	4.1	0	47	38	9
UT Austin	4	4.1	0.1	53	38	15
NYU	3.8	4.1	0.3	32	25	7
Emory	4	4.1	0.1	20	22	-2
Illinois	4.1	4	-0.1	42	41	1
Washington	4	4	0	48	55	-7
UC San Diego	3.8	3.9	0.1	37	34	3
Ohio St	3.7	3.9	0.2	54	49	5
UC Davis	3.8	3.9	0.1	38	38	0
USC	3.9	3.9	0	19	25	-6
Purdue	3.6	3.9	0.3	62	51	11
William & Mary	3.7	3.9	0.2	33	41	-8
Maryland	3.6	3.8	0.2	62	55	7
UC Irvine	3.6	3.8	0.2	42	34	8
Florida	3.6	3.8	0.2	48	29	19
Boston Univ	3.5	3.8	0.3	42	41	1
Boston College	3.6	3.8	0.2	31	36	-5
Tufts	3.6	3.8	0.2	27	32	-5
Minnesota	3.6	3.7	0.1	69	62	7
Penn State	3.6	3.7	0.1	48	77	-29
Indiana	3.6	3.7	0.1	76	73	3
Colorado	3.5	3.7	0.2	88	97	-9
Texas A&M	3.6	3.7	0.1	68	67	1
Virginia Tech	3.4	3.7	0.3	71	62	9
Georgia	3.4	3.7	0.3	63	49	14
Case Western	3.5	3.7	0.2	38	44	-6
Wake Forest	3.5	3.7	0.2	27	29	-2
UC Santa Barbara	3.5	3.6	0.1	40	32	8
Michigan St	3.5	3.6	0.1	85	77	8
Arizona	3.5	3.6	0.1	120	121	-1
Pitt	3.4	3.6	0.2	62	62	0
Iowa	3.5	3.6	0.1	71	83	-12
RPI	3.4	3.6	0.2	42	51	-9
Brandeis	3.5	3.6	0.1	35	44	-9
Northeastern	3.2	3.6	0.4	42	44	-2
George Washington	3.5	3.6	0.1	51	62	-11
Tulane	3.4	3.6	0.2	53	44	9
UMass Amherst	3.2	3.5	0.3	76	67	9
Oregon	3.3	3.5	0.2	106	105	1
Rochester	3.4	3.5	0.1	33	36	-3
Syracuse	3.3	3.5	0.2	58	62	-4
Rutgers	3.4	3.4	0	70	55	15
Stony Brook	3.2	3.4	0.2	88	77	11
Kansas	3.3	3.4	0.1	106	121	-15
Connecticut	3.1	3.4	0.3	58	67	-9
Col School of Mines	3.3	3.4	0.1	88	89	-1
U of Miami	3.2	3.4	0.2	48	55	-7
Clemson	3.2	3.4	0.2	62	77	-15
Arizona St	3.2	3.3	0.1	129	121	8
UC Santa Cruz	3	3.3	0.3	85	83	2
Utah	3	3.3	0.3	129	105	24
NC State	3.1	3.3	0.2	95	72	23
Florida St	3	3.3	0.3	95	56	39
Delaware	3.1	3.3	0.2	76	89	-13
Tennessee	3.1	3.3	0.2	106	115	-9
Auburn	3.1	3.3	0.2	103	97	6
Baylor	3.2	3.3	0.1	71	77	-6
American	3.1	3.3	0.2	71	72	-1
Fordham	3.2	3.3	0.1	58	72	-14
Lehigh	3.3	3.3	0	40	51	-11
Iowa St	3.2	3.2	0	106	127	-21
Nebraska	3.1	3.2	0.1	99	151	-52
Missouri	3.3	3.2	-0.1	99	121	-22
Brigham Young	3	3.2	0.2	62	89	-27
Oklahoma	3	3.2	0.2	106	127	-21
Miami Oh	3.1	3.2	0.1	76	105	-29
SMU	3	3.2	0.2	58	72	-14
Alabama	3	3.2	0.2	88	137	-49
UIC	3	3.1	0.1	149	97	52
UC Riverside	3.1	3.1	0	113	89	24
Washington St	3	3.1		138	212	-74
George Mason	3	3.1	0.1	128	137	-9

	3.66767676768	3.80707070707	0.139795918367

UGA Honors Program to Become Morehead Honors College with Large Endowment

Posted on May 12, 2021 by Honorsadmin

Editor’s note: Our thanks to the University of Georgia for much of this information.

One of the best and oldest public university honors programs in the nation is at the University of Georgia–and now it is set to become the Morehead Honors College at UGA, funded in part by an honors endowment approaching $10 million.

The new honors college will be named after President Jere Morehead, an altogether fitting move based in part on his former leadership of the honors program from 1999 to 2004. The program began in 1960, placing it among the five or six most longstanding programs in the nation. Since 2012, we have rated the program as among the very best, giving special nods to its undergraduate research emphasis and to its outstanding record of mentoring students who have won Rhodes, Marshall, Truman, and Goldwater Scholarships.

UGA President Jere Morehead and students

“Over the last quarter century, UGA became a recognized leader with regard to nationally and internationally competitive major scholarships. Consider that while UGA had only two recipients of the Rhodes Scholarship between World War II and 1995 (in 1960 and 1973), during the past 25 years UGA has produced nine Rhodes Scholars and, as a result, UGA now trails only UVA and UNC in the number of Rhodes Scholars produced by a public institution during this time period,” according to Dr. David S. Williams, who succeeded Dr. Morehead as director in 2004.

UGA Honors Director David S. Williams

“This record of success with regard to external scholarships has continued since 2014, including the following significant achievements: (1) five Schwarzman Scholars since the introduction of this prestigious new award in 2016; (2) at least one national Rhodes finalist each year, with a Rhodes Scholarship recipient in 2017; (3) one Marshall Scholar in 2016; (4) UGA’s first two Beinecke Awardees in 2017 and 2019; (5) UGA’s first Knight-Hennessy Scholar in 2019, and a second one in 2020; (6) UGA’s first Churchill Scholar in 2019; (7) three Truman recipients; (8) seven Udall recipients; and (9) 17 Goldwater recipients, including the institutional maximum of four recipients in 2019.”

The fundraising campaign has raised more than $8 million of its $10 million goal, with plans to use an endowment to fund new, permanent and robust support for academic programming, undergraduate research, study abroad and internship opportunities for Honors students.

“Upon learning of this action, it is difficult for me to adequately express my appreciation to the UGA Foundation Trustees, other donors, the chancellor and the Board of Regents for making this incredible honor possible,” said Morehead. “Working with the Honors Program—as its director and continuing as provost and president—has been one of the most rewarding and meaningful experiences of my career. I am humbled and deeply grateful.”

As honors director, Morehead help to create the Washington Semester Program that has sent more than 2,000 students to work as interns in the nation’s capital. He also created the Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities (CURO), a model for undergraduate research programs in honors programs and universities.

“What President Morehead did in his time as Honors Program director established a great precedent for our faculty and administration, and it built a springboard for all the students who have entered our program since,” said Dr. Williams, the current director. “UGA Honors is today regarded as one of the finest public university honors programs in the country—due in no small part to the accomplishments of the president’s tenure—so it is exciting to imagine where we go from here.”

Deep Shah, a 2008 alumnus and now a physician in Atlanta, said that Morehead’s “commitment to elevating both the university and the Honors Program was evident to me then. As I have come to know him more as an alumnus, that commitment has become even more clear as have the results of his efforts. I can think of no one more deserving of this honor.” Dr. Shah was named a Rhodes Scholar in 2008.

Under Morehead’s long tenure as president, UGA’s four-year completion rate rise from 61% to 71% and its six-year completion rate climbed to 87%. UGA has been rated a top 20 public university by U.S. News & World Report for five consecutive years, most recently being ranked at No. 15.

Honors Completion Rates: Leading Honors Colleges and Programs

Posted on July 15, 2020 by Honorsadmin

In previous posts, one extremely lengthy and detailed and the other explaining our formula for setting target completion rates, we have tried to explain the differences between university grad rates, honors program grad rates, and honors program completion rates.

The first two are straightforward: The university rate will always be lower than the honors program rate because of the greater selectivity and mentoring associated with honors programs. The university grad rate for honors students averages 86-88 percent, and is sometimes as high as 97 percent.

An honors completion rate goes a step beyond the honors graduation rate. The grad rate is for honors entrants, whether or not they completed all honors requirements by the time of graduation. The completion rate is the percentage of honors program entrants who not only graduated from the university but also completed all honors program requirements for at least one option. Some programs have multiple options, with the requirements for first-year entrants averaging about 30 honors credits and a threshold for transfer students of 15-18 hours or so.

In our study for 2020, we have obtained honors graduation and completion rates from 31 honors colleges and programs. Below, in Table 1, we list the programs with the highest completion rates, all above the mean of 57.2 percent. In this table we also list the honors graduation rate, the highest credit-hour completion requirement for each program, and the average 2020 SAT scores for first-year entrants.

The top six programs all had honors completion rates of 70 percent or higher. This is a remarkably high number when one considers that many of these programs require an honors thesis. Many elite private colleges no longer require a thesis for graduation or for honors recognition. The top six programs, in terms of raw ordinal completion rates, are CUNY Macaulay Honors College; UIUC’s CHP Honors Program; the UT Austin Plan II Honors Program; Penn State’s Schreyer Honors College; the South Carolina Honors College; and Arizona State’s Barrett Honors College.

TABLE 1

HONORS PROGRAMS, STRONG	Hon Program	Hon Program	Max Honors	Average SAT
COMPLETION RATES	Completion Rate	Grad Rate	Completion Req	2020 1st Yr
CUNY Macaulay	81.5	86.8	36	1410
Illinois CHP	80.3	94.7	18	1500
UT Austin Plan II	79.7	97.2	42	1466
Penn State Schreyer HC	78.0	97.3	35	1410
South Carolina HC	77.0	94.3	50	1475
Arizona St Barrett HC	72.0	88.0	36	1370
UAB HC	69.6	83.6	30	1400
Kansas UHP	69.0	95.0	31	1420
College of Charleston HC	67.9	89.3	34	1370
Oklahoma HC	67.7	88	23	1426
Washington St HC	67.6	77.1	25	1313
Clemson HC	67.0	97.0	29	1483
Delaware HC	63.0	93.0	30	1426
Houston	61.0	77.0	36	1380
AVERAGES	71.5	89.9	32.5	1417.8

In Table 2, below, we show adjusted honors completion rates for programs after the impact of university graduation and freshman retention rates are taken into account. In contrast to Table 1, the table shows the extent to which programs have exceeded expectations in light of these two factors.

We find that seven programs achieved an adjusted completion rate that exceeded the target rate by 10 or more percentage points: CUNY Macaulay Honors College; the UAB Honors College; the Kansas University Honors Program; the College of Charleston Honors College; the South Carolina Honors College; Arizona State’s Barrett Honors College; and the Washington State Honors College.

Table 2
PROGRAMS W/ COMPLETION RATES	Honors Program	University	University Fresh	TARGET
> TARGET COMPLETION RATE	Completion Rate	Grad Rate	Retention Rate	RATE	DIFF +/-
CUNY Macaulay HC	81.5	54	84	54.72	26.78
UAB HC	69.6	55	82	54.56	15.04
College of Charleston HC	67.9	56	79	54.07	13.83
Kansas UHP	69.0	63	80	57.90	11.1
South Carolina HC	77.0	74	88	66.04	10.96
Arizona St Barrett HC	72.0	66	87	61.71	10.29
Washington St HC	67.6	63	79	57.57	10.03
UT Austin Plan II Honors	79.7	82	95	72.35	7.3
Illinois CHP	80.3	85	93	73.19	7.11
Houston HC	61.0	54	85	55.05	5.95
Oklahoma HC	67.7	67	90	63.20	4.50
Penn State Schreyer HC	78.0	86	93	73.69	4.31
Oklahoma St HC	58.6	62	81	57.73	0.87
Nevada Reno HC	55.5	57	81	55.23	0.23
AVERAGES	70.4	66	85.5	61.20	9.2

Some New Honors College “Rankings” Have Appeared Elsewhere; Here’s Our Take

Posted on May 20, 2020 by Honorsadmin

By John Willingham, Editor

Recently, Google searches are listing two new sites that claim to rank public university honors programs and honors colleges. Their “rankings” in most instances bear a close resemblance to the ratings we have produced since 2012. Aside from the likelihood of extensive (unattributed) borrowing from our copyrighted work, the fact is that most of the data necessary to rank or rate these programs is not publicly available. We are the only site or organization in the country that does have access, gained only after many years of dialogue and collaboration with honors deans and directors across the nation. One wonders how these new rankings were developed. Or were they mostly “borrowed”?

Our collaborative process yields enormous amounts of data. For example, to calculate honors class sizes, we have to analyze about 10,000 honors classes for each addition. Much of the data required for this analysis is not available on honors sites or even on university-wide course schedules.

And still we do not “rank” programs. Typically, I have an opinion, based on data, about the best five to ten programs in the nation among those rated in a given edition. The data may show that one is “better” (a higher point total) than all the rest. And then I think about how I have weighted each of the 13 rating categories. If I were to change any of them, the ratings would change. All is driven by the methodology, and nobody’s methodology is perfect. It is a matter of judgment in the final analysis. It is not scientific in the truest sense, even with all the data involved. I can give you an exact figure for honors class sizes at Honors College A, but the rating proportion I assign to that exact figure is subjective.

If it’s not science, don’t present it as science. Ordinal rankings present themselves as science. But just imagine how the U.S. News rankings would change if all the institutional wealth metrics were removed or if selectivity did not count.

Thanks to the cooperation of honors deans and directors across the nation, we now receive for each rated profile 10-20 pages of documents, much of it hard data on class sections and course offerings. No one else obtains this level of unique data. Even by going online and reading every entry in the university’s course schedule one will not find the volume and specificity of data that we need for honors course analyses. That’s because honors programs offer mixed and contract sections that are not transparent in online course listings.

This brings us to the new rankings.

One lists “The 9 Best Honors Programs” in the nation. Here is the methodology:

“To put together our list, we evaluated the national honors college rankings from the past two years. We also evaluated honors colleges based on admissions requirements, curricular and extracurricular program offerings, emphasis on fostering an honors student community, financial aid opportunities, and unique or innovative approaches to the honors educational experience.” [Emphasis added.]

First, how does someone quantify “an emphasis on fostering an honors student community” or “innovative approaches to the honors educational experience”?

Second, I do not know of any “national honors college rankings,” although we announce the top 5-10 programs, in one alphabetical group, every other year. These programs are “top” only within the data set of rated programs for a given edition. No program is declared number one, or number three, or number ten for that data set, much less for the entire universe of honors programs. They are a instead placed in a group. Our refusal to anoint any program with a specific ranking number has, in fact, caused one prominent program to stop cooperating with us.

The “9 Best” site does not hesitate to do so: “Ranked #1 among honors colleges in the United States, Barrett College has a presence on ASU’s four campuses in Phoenix, Mesa, Tempe, and Glendale, Arizona.” Although Barrett, under its longstanding Dean, Mark Jacobs, achieves excellent results year in and year out, I do not know of any recent ranking that specifically lists Barrett or any other honors program or college as number 1. It is true that Barrett has been in the highest (five mortarboard) group in all of our editions. But so has the South Carolina Honors College, Penn State’s Schreyer Honors College, the Plan II Honors Program at UT Austin, the University Honors Program at Kansas, and, since 2016, the Macaulay Honors College at CUNY. These are very different programs, ranging from extremely large (Barrett) to very small (UT Plan II.)

Other strong programs are at Clemson, Delaware, Georgia, Houston, and Ole Miss. Data from Maryland, Michigan, and North Carolina is no longer available, but in one or more previous editions, all received excellent ratings.

The “9 Best” site above also lists Penn State Schreyer, Clemson, and Rutgers Honors College among the best honors colleges, and adds UT Plan II, Kansas UHP, and the Echols Scholar program at UVA. Then in a “best bang for the buck” category, it lists CUNY Macaulay and the Alabama Honors College. (We have not included Echols after the 2014 edition because the new methodology in place since 2016 requires much more class data. Echols students can take almost any class at UVA, and it’s not possible to determine which ones those are at any given time.)

Another site lists “the top 50 honors programs and colleges”-a list which bears an uncanny resemblance to programs we have rated over the years. The list includes several programs that were not prominently mentioned until they appeared in one of our books: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Temple, Colorado State, and CUNY Macaulay, among them.

Here is the methodology behind this list:

“Below, we have compiled a list of the nation’s top honors colleges/programs. The selection was based on the following indicators of program quality.

The selectivity of the college/university (overall)
The selectivity of the honors program
Average honors class size
Number of honors classes
Availability of honors housing
Whether priority registration is offered to honors students

“Schools marked with an asterisk (*) rated especially high on several indicators and were ranked among the top 20 honors programs according to our methodology.”

All of the above information is in our publications. Further, “availability” of honors housing can be calculated only if one knows both the number of honors “beds” and the number of eligible honors students. One can know the true number of honors classes only if there is access to full spreadsheets, not just online listings, especially those limited to the honors homepage. And the true average class size likewise relies on extremely detailed data not available from online sources. Finally, some of the test scores listed on the site are incorrect and misleading.

Yes, I realize that U.S. News has several competitors in ranking colleges and universities. And, often, many of these rankings roughly correspond, especially at the most elite brand level. But…these competing ranking organizations all gather their own data, even while applying different methodologies, refrain from unseemly borrowing.

Here Are Honors Programs to Be Featured in 2020 Edition of Inside Honors

Posted on January 30, 2020 by Honorsadmin

The 2020 edition of Inside Honors was to have included in-depth ratings of 33 programs and somewhat shorter reviews of an additional seven programs. The COVID-19 issues facing universities will delay the next edition until October 2020 and has reduced the original number of programs that committed to participate. Most of the top-rated programs in previous editions will likewise be rated in 2020.

One positive: The new edition will include a new narrative section that summarizes each program and each profile will be longer, averaging 3,500 words.

The 33 programs that will now receive full ratings are below:

Appalachian State
Arizona
Arizona State
Auburn
Central Florida (UCF)
Clemson
College of Charleston
Colorado State
CUNY Macaulay
Delaware
Florida Atlantic
Georgia
Georgia State
Houston
Illinois
Kansas
Kentucky
Mississippi
Nebraska
Nevada Reno
UNC Wilmington
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
Penn State
South Carolina
South Florida (USF)
UT Chattanooga
Texas Tech
UAB
UT Austin
Vermont
Virginia Commonwealth
Washington State
West Virginia

Below are the seven programs that will receive unrated reviews:

Idaho
Iowa
North Carolina Charlotte
Pitt
South Dakota St
Virginia Tech
Washington

U.S. News 2020: Dept Rank vs Academic Rep vs Overall Rank Plus Social Mobility

Posted on September 14, 2019 by Honorsadmin

The post is by editor John Willingham.

Yes, the title of this post is a mouthful. For years now, I have kept an updated list of the departmental rankings that U.S. News publishes so that I can add them to the biannual profiles I do of honors programs. When the 2020 rankings came out, I wanted to see whether there was any clear relationship between the departmental scores and the academic reputation scores. Then I compared the latest reputation scores with those published in 2015 to see how much had changed. Finally, the table below also includes changes in university rankings and the most recent rankings for social mobility.

(I would welcome comments on this post. Please email editor@publicuniversityhonors.com.)

It appears that the social mobility metric has had some impact, especially if the ranking is very strong, as in the case of many UC campuses and Florida institutions. There is no clear relationship between departmental scores and academic reputation scores. Departmental rankings do have a modest relationship to the overall U.S. News rankings, but there are many inconsistencies. Academic reputation scores do seem to show some “grade inflation” since 2015; often this is the case even when the U.S News ranking has dropped significantly.

The table below includes data for 100 public and private universities.

The cumulative rankings that I do for 15 academic disciplines requires some explanation. U.S. News only ranks graduate programs for most departments. Here are the disciplines for which I have cumulative departmental rankings, using the most recent data (2018): biological sciences; business (undergrad); chemistry, computer science; earth sciences; economics; education; engineering (undergrad);English; history; mathematics; physics; political science; psychology; and sociology.

Not every university has a ranked department in each of the 15 disciplines. I averaged departmental rankings for every university that had at least six ranked departments. For universities with, say, fewer than 12 ranked departments, the total ranking will be artificially high because only the best departments are ranked and I cannot include unranked departents. Most universities have 12-15 departments that are ranked, and so the overall average will be more useful for them. And some of the universities with a small number of ranked departments are specialized, such as Georgia Tech and Caltech. Clearly, even ranking only six or seven departments for those schools and getting a strong result is not misleading.

Universities with fewer than 10 departmental rankings: Colorado School of Mines; Georgia Tech; Miami Ohio; American; Brigham Young; Caltech; Dartmouth; Drexel; Fordham; Georgetown; and RPI.

It should be said that universities with relatively low departmental rankings can legitimately receive high rankings because of other meaningful factors, such as grad and retention rates and class size. Some excellent universities do not have an especially strong research focus or a lot of graduate programs. Dartmouth is one prominent example.

The universities below appear in rank order of their 2020 academic reputation, according to U.S. News.

UNIVERSITY	Avg Dept Rank	Dept Rank	Rep Score	Rep Rank	Rep Score	Rep Dif	US News	Rank Dif	2020 Rank
NAME	15 Disciplines 2018	Ordinal	2020	2020	2015	2020 v 2015	Rank 2020	2015-2020	Soc Mobility
Harvard	5.71	6	4.9	1	4.9	0	2	0	186
Stanford	1.93	1	4.9	1	4.9	0	6	1	241
MIT	2.73	2	4.9	1	4.9	0	3	4	241
Princeton	5.38	5	4.9	1	4.8	0.1	1	0	186
Yale	10.92	9	4.8	5	4.8	0	3	0	285
UC Berkeley	3.2	2	4.7	6	4.7	0	22	-2	70
Columbia	10.23	8	4.7	6	4.6	0.1	3	1	138
Caltech	4.71	4	4.7	6	4.6	0.1	12	-2	345
Johns Hopkins	21.93	19	4.7	6	4.5	0.2	10	2	241
Chicago	11.67	11	4.6	6	4.6	0	6	-2	335
Cornell	13.79	13	4.6	6	4.5	0.1	17	-2	224
Penn	16.73	15	4.6	6	4.4	0.2	6	2	241
Duke	20.23	17	4.5	13	4.4	0.1	10	-2	254
Brown	27.62	28	4.5	13	4.4	0.1	14	2	224
Michigan	9.4	7	4.5	13	4.4	0.1	25	4	291
Northwestern	17.86	16	4.5	13	4.3	0.2	9	4	251
Dartmouth	51.38	57	4.4	17	4.2	0.2	12	-1	303
UCLA	10.86	9	4.3	18	4.2	0.1	20	3	13
Carnegie Mellon	27.73	29	4.3	18	4.2	0.1	25	0	303
Georgia Tech	33.7	37	4.3	18	4.2	0.1	29	7	224
Vanderbilt	35.57	40	4.3	18	4.1	0.2	17	-1	291
Virginia	27.4	27	4.2	22	4.3	-0.1	28	-5	328
Rice	31.92	33	4.2	22	4	0.2	17	2	204
Georgetown	53.75	61	4.2	22	4	0.2	24	-3	241
Notre Dame	45.43	47	4.2	22	3.9	0.3	15	-1	322
North Carolina	23.79	21	4.1	26	4.1	0	29	1	165
UW Madison	12.93	12	4.1	26	4.1	0	46	1	297
WUSTL	32.29	34	4.1	26	4	0.1	19	-5	381
Emory	45.82	49	4.1	26	4	0.1	21	-1	200
UT Austin	14.47	14	4.1	26	4	0.1	48	5	134
NYU	25	23	4	31	3.8	0.2	29	3	115
Illinois	20.07	17	3.9	32	4.1	-0.2	48	-6	186
Washington	22.2	20	3.9	32	4	-1	62	-14	176
USC	35.27	39	3.9	32	3.9	0	22	-3	147
UC Davis	28.14	30	3.9	32	3.8	0.1	39	-1	9
UC San Diego	25.93	24	3.9	32	3.8	0.1	37	0	21
William & Mary	69	36	3.8	37	3.7	0.1	40	-7	354
Ohio St	26.4	25	3.8	37	3.7	0.1	54	0	254
Purdue	40.27	41	3.8	37	3.6	0.2	57	5	270
Tufts	73.8	78	3.8	37	3.6	0.2	29	-2	328
UC Irvine	32.53	35	3.8	37	3.6	0.2	36	6	3
Florida	48.67	52	3.8	37	3.6	0.2	34	14	34
Penn State	27.27	26	3.7	43	3.6	0.1	57	-9	348
Maryland	28.8	31	3.7	43	3.6	0.1	64	-2	322
Minnesota	24.2	22	3.7	43	3.6	0.1	70	-1	251
Boston College	50.27	54	3.7	43	3.6	0.1	37	-6	270
Texas A&M	41.6	42	3.7	43	3.6	0.1	70	-2	96
Indiana	29.93	32	3.7	43	3.6	0.1	79	-3	303
Case Western	72.91	77	3.7	43	3.5	0.2	40	-2	214
Boston Univ	48.67	52	3.7	43	3.5	0.2	40	2	270
Colorado	33.2	36	3.7	43	3.5	0.2	104	-16	359
Virginia Tech	52.31	60	3.7	43	3.4	0.3	74	-3	322
Wake Forest	98.75	93	3.6	53	3.5	0.1	27	0	360
Brandeis	63.92	68	3.6	53	3.5	0.1	40	-5	138
UC Santa Barbara	35.21	38	3.6	53	3.5	0.1	34	6	9
Arizona	43	44	3.6	53	3.5	0.1	117	3	195
Georgia	63	65	3.6	53	3.4	0.2	50	13	159
Tulane	90.77	89	3.6	53	3.4	0.2	40	13	365
Pitt	45.4	46	3.6	53	3.4	0.2	57	5	335
George Washington	76.92	83	3.5	60	3.5	0	70	-19	322
Iowa	50.27	54	3.5	60	3.5	0	84	-13	335
Michigan St	42.13	43	3.5	60	3.5	0	84	1	241
RPI	62	62	3.5	60	3.4	0.1	40	2	270
Rochester	52	59	3.5	60	3.4	0.1	29	4	159
Col School of Mines	74.83	79	3.5	60	3.3	0.2	84	4	303
U of Miami	85.69	87	3.5	60	3.2	0.3	57	-9	270
Northeastern	67.85	72	3.5	60	3.2	0.3	40	2	254
Rutgers	43.87	45	3.4	68	3.4	0	62	8	59
Syracuse	69.33	75	3.4	68	3.3	0.1	54	4	90
Oregon	51.43	57	3.4	68	3.3	0.1	104	2	214
Kansas	63.87	67	3.4	68	3.3	0.1	130	-24	377
UMass Amherst	48.57	51	3.4	68	3.2	0.2	64	12	186
Arizona St	45.67	48	3.4	68	3.2	0.2	117	12	147
Clemson	89.6	88	3.4	68	3.2	0.2	70	-8	348
Lehigh	106.67	98	3.3	76	3.3	0	50	-10	270
Stony Brook	46.46	50	3.3	76	3.2	0.1	91	-3	24
Iowa St	50.27	54	3.3	76	3.2	0.1	121	-15	270
Connecticut	69.47	76	3.3	76	3.1	0.2	64	-6	265
Auburn	94.36	92	3.3	76	3.1	0.2	107	-4	380
Tennessee	76.77	81	3.3	76	3.1	0.2	104	2	138
SMU	109.6	99	3.3	76	3	0.3	64	-6	360
Florida St	68.8	73	3.3	76	3	0.3	57	38	80
Missouri	76.87	81	3.2	83	3.3	-0.1	139	-40	354
Baylor	103.09	94	3.2	83	3.2	0	79	-8	297
American	105.83	96	3.2	83	3.1	0.1	77	-6	176
Delaware	76.54	80	3.2	83	3.1	0.1	91	-15	360
Miami Oh	94.11	91	3.2	83	3.1	0.1	91	-15	369
NC State	67.09	70	3.2	83	3.1	0.1	84	11	224
Nebraska	67.33	71	3.2	83	3.1	0.1	139	-40	303
Brigham Young	80.22	84	3.2	83	3	0.2	77	-15	291
Utah	60.87	63	3.2	83	3	0.2	104	25	186
Fordham	105.83	96	3.1	92	3.2	-0.1	74	-16	351
UC Riverside	64.33	69	3.1	92	3.1	0	91	22	1
Alabama	124.91	100	3.1	92	3	0.1	153	-65	377
UC Santa Cruz	59.71	62	3.1	92	3	0.1	84	1	2
Drexel	105	95	3.1	92	3	0.1	97	-2	270
Oklahoma	83.4	85	3.1	92	3	0.1	132	-26	328
Washington St	84.5	86	3.1	92	3	0.1	166	-28	176
George Mason	93.67	90	3.1	92	3	0.1	153	-25	125
UIC	63.53	66	3	100	3	0	132	17	14

MEAN SCORES/RANKS	49.9083	50	3.772	47.71	3.661	0.102	56.96	-2.51	229.38

What Are the Differences Between an Honors and a Non-Honors Undergraduate Education?

Posted on August 3, 2019 by Honorsadmin

At last, there is a major study that goes a long way toward answering this important question.

Dr. Art Spisak

Making good use of the increasing data now available on honors programs and their parent institutions, two honors researchers have recently published a major paper that compares honors students and non-honors students from 19 public research universities. Out of 119,000 total students, a total of 15,200 were or had been participants in an honors program.

The study is extremely helpful to parents and prospective honors students who rightly ask how an honors education differs from a non-honors education: How will participation in an honors program shape and differentiate an honors student? Will an honors education be the equivalent of an education at a more prestigious private college?

The authors of the study are Dr. Andrew Cognard-Black of St. Mary’s College of Maryland and Dr. Art Spisak, Director of the University of Iowa Honors Program and former president of the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC).The title of their paper, published in the Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council, is Honors and Non-Honors Students in Public Research Universities in the United States.”

Dr. Andrew Cognard-Black

Here are the major findings:

Feelings about the undergraduate experience: “In their undergraduate experience, students in the honors group reported a more positive experience, on average, than those in the non-honors group.” Both groups attended classes with similar frequency, but honors students reported greater activity in the following areas:

finding coursework so interesting that they do more work than is required;
communicating with profs outside of class;
working with faculty in activities other than coursework;
increasing effort in response to higher standards;
completing assigned reading;
attending to self care, eating, and sleeping;
spending more time studying;
performing more community service and volunteer work;
participating in student organizations;
and, while spending about the same time in employment, finding on-campus employment more frequently than non-honors students.

Participation in “high-impact” activities: These experiences contribute to undergraduate success and satisfaction as well as to higher achievement after graduation. Some of these are restricted to upperclassmen, so the study concentrated on participation by seniors in high-impact activities, including undergraduate research, senior capstone or thesis, collaborating with a professor on a project or paper, studying abroad, or serving in a position of leadership.

“Those [students] in the honors student segment of the senior sample had markedly higher cumulative college grade point averages.” The cumulative GPA of the honors group was 3.65; for the non-honors group it was 3.31. “A grade point average of 3.31 is located at the 38th percentile in the overall distribution within the study sample, and a grade point average of 3.65 is at the 69th percentile.” The authors found that the very significant difference was “particularly impressive” given that the high school GPAs of honors and non-honors students did not vary so significantly. Honors students were also 14% more likely to have served as an officer in a campus organization.

Students in the honors group were 77% more likely to have assisted faculty in research projects, 85% percent more likely to have studied abroad, and 2.5 times more likely to have conducted undergraduate research under faculty guidance.

Intellectual curiosity: Honors students expressed a statistically significant but not dramatically greater degree of intellectual curiosity; however, their intellectual curiosity was aligned with the “prestige” of an academic major. The study did not measure whether this attachment to prestige reflected a desire for greater intellectual challenge or for higher salaries associated with many such majors. (Or both.) Both groups placed similar emphasis on the importance of high pay after graduation and on career fulfillment.

Diversity: The study found that African American students were only 52% as likely to be in an honors program as they are to be in the larger university sample. Latin American students were 58% as likely. These figures may be due in part to the fact that, as a group, the 19 research universities “are located in states that are somewhat more white than the nation as a whole, but most of the discrepancy can be attributed to the fact that Research 1 universities do not, in general, have enrollments that are especially representative of ethnic and racial minorities.” On the other hand, LGBQ, transgender, and gender-questioning students “appear to be slightly over-represented among honors students.”

Low-income and first generation participation: These students “are significantly and substantially under-represented in the honors group.” Pell Grant recipients are 30% less likely to be in honors than in the non-honors group; and 40% of first-generation students are less likely to be in the honors group.

Test scores and HSGPA: There was a difference between honors and non-honors students, but it was not dramatic. “Regardless of which test score was used, the honors group had scores that were about 10% higher, on average.” (In our ratings of honors programs, we have found that honors test scores were about 17% higher, based on actual honors scores and the mid-range of test scores in U.S. News rankings.) The average high school GPA for the honors group was .11 points higher than for the non-honors group.

The study used data from the 2018 Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) survey for 2018. Although the study only used data from Research 1 universities that comprise only 3% of all colleges and universities in the nation, R1 universities enroll 28.5% of all undergraduates pursuing four-year degrees.

Research centered on honors education is increasingly important: An estimated 300,000-400,000 honors students are enrolled in American colleges and universities today.

University of South Florida Genshaft Honors College Receives a Total of $23 Million from Outgoing USF President

Posted on June 6, 2019 by Honorsadmin

Serving a major public university as president for 19 years is a strong legacy in itself, but outgoing University of South Florida President Judy Genshaft and her husband, Steven Greenbaum, also announced in May a $20 million donation to help build a new honors college building. Then, on June 1 at a retirement gala for her, they donated an additional $3 million to endow the position of Dean of the Judy Genshaft Honors College.

Together these donations should propel the university and the JGHC to even loftier status. Under Genshaft’s leadership, USF has already risen to “preeminnent” status among Florida’s universities. The status, designated and approved by the Florida Board of Governors, is based on 12 benchmarks, including graduation and retention rates. The designation leads to greater funding to attract new students, recruit faculty, and promote research. The only other preeminent universities in the state thus far are the University of Florida and Florida State University.

Artist’s rendering of new home for Judy Genshaft Honors College at USF

The major part of the donation to the JGHC will fund almost half of the total cost of a new honors building, to be built just to the north of the Muma College of Business. The five-story building will feature office, classroom, meeting, and lounge spaces for students and faculty.

JGHC Dean Charles Adams says that the gifts “will allow us to greatly enhance our programmatic and curricular offerings, and expand our enrollment,” which is planned to increase from the current level of 2,200 students to around 3,000 students in the next five years. The honors college is already known for its large number of interdisciplinary, honors-only class sections.

The New College Board ‘Adversity Score’ Explained

Posted on May 16, 2019 by Honorsadmin

The College Board has developed a new data-driven tool designed to give college admissions officers the ability to evaluate test scores in light of an applicant’s educational, social, and economic background. The effort is the Board’s latest attempt to offset criticism that its tests favor the affluent, Asian students, and white students.

The new tool could also increase Latino and African American enrollment without the specific consideration of race or ethnicity, otherwise known as affirmative action, an approach that the Supreme Court might soon disallow.

So far, 50 colleges have been using the tool; it will expand to 150 later this year and be available to all schools in 2020.

The tool utilizes 15 factors (listed below) and provides a spreadsheet for admissions officers to use in analyzing the factors in relation to scores.

The new approach is certain to draw criticism, however. Students who live in relatively affluent neighborhoods, attend strong high schools, and enroll in advanced placement courses will receive low “adversity scores” and may find themselves relatively less likely to be admitted to some colleges.

Another issue: the data is based mostly on census block and other federal data, not on individual financial information. A wealthy white student might live in a gentrified neighborhood with inaccurate data indicating that it is still a lower income area. Similarly, a disadvantaged student might live just inside a census tract with high median income stats. Students will not receive a copy of the score–another area of controversy.

Students who attend highly competitive high schools in states with automatic admission based on high school class standing, such as Texas, already find it relatively harder to graduate in the top 6th or 7th percentile of their class. They are admitted “holistically” if they are not in the top percentiles; low adversity scores might narrow their chances even more. Or help them…who knows?

On the other hand, if the new tool on its own can lead to the higher enrollment of students now benefiting from automatic admission, Texas might be able to abandon the rule altogether.

High School Information–Four Factors

Average senior class size;
Average percentage of students taking the SAT;
Average freshman SAT score at colleges attended by SAT-taking graduates of the applicant’s high school;
Percentage of students at the high school who participate in the free and reduced-price lunch program.

High School AP Opportunity–Four Factors

Number of unique AP courses taught in that high school;
Percentage of the senior class who took at least one AP exam;
Average number of AP Exams taken by graduates who sat for at least one exam;
Average AP scores across all AP Exam takers and exams.

High School Percentiles–One Factor

The 25th, 50th, and 75th old SAT percentiles on Critical Reading, Math,
and Math + Critical Reading scores for graduates.

Neighborhood and High School Context–Six Factors

Undermatch Risk–Academic undermatch occurs when a student’s academic credentials substantially exceed the credentials of students enrolled in the same postsecondary institution.
Crime Risk–The Crime Risk represents the likelihood of being a victim of a
crime–not the likelihood of committing a crime.
Family Stability–Family stability is a combined measure based on the proportion of two-parent families, single-parent families, and children living under the poverty line within each neighborhood, or across the neighborhoods of past students attending that high school.
Educational Attainment–Educational attainment is a combined measure that looks at the pattern of educational attainment demonstrated by young adults in the community. ESL participation.
Housing Stability–Housing stability is a composite measure that includes vacancy rates, rental versus home ownership, and mobility/housing turnover, again based on aggregate population statistics.
Median Family Income — Median family income is based on weighted data from the Census/ American Community Survey.

Overall context is a weighted average of the individual metrics listed above. College admissions officers receive (1) bar graphs showing the applicant’s SAT score relative to others who share the applicant’s overall percentile of neighborhood
adversity and high school adversity and (2) the average freshman SAT score of entering students at the colleges that these respective groups of students attended.

Here’s Why We Don’t Use Test Scores in Rating Honors Programs

Posted on March 31, 2019 by Honorsadmin

The following post is from site editor John Willingham.

In the aftermath of the “Varsity Blues” college admissions scandal that included cheating on entrance exams, three social scientists recently weighed in on the continued importance of those same examinations, arguing that “No one likes the SAT” but “It’s still the fairest thing about admissions.”

“It has become a mantra in some quarters to assert that standardized tests measure wealth more than intellectual ability or academic potential, but this is not actually the case. These tests clearly assess verbal and mathematical skills, which a century of psychological science shows are not mere reflections of upbringing. Research has consistently found that ability tests like the SAT and the ACT are strongly predictive of success in college and beyond, even after accounting for a student’s socioeconomic status.”

For years, U.S. News has used test scores and selection rates as ranking data for the annual “Best Colleges” report. The publication has slightly reduced the impact of test scores in recent editions.

Below I will explain why we do not include test scores as a metric and argue that, for honors and non-honors students, other factors are more important in predicting success. (High school GPA is certainly a major factor; but since almost all honors students have high GPAs, I do not discuss the impact of GPA in this post.)

In their published scholarly work, the authors argue that test scores by themselves correlate very strongly ( r= -.892) with the annual U.S. News Best Colleges rankings for national universities even though the test scores count for only 7.75 percent of the total ranking score. (The authors do not cite the impact of test scores on other ranking factors such as graduation and retention rates, which together account for 22 percent of the total ranking score.)

Our own work for the past eight years, however, shows that test scores do not have a similar correlation to quantitative assessments of honors programs. In our publications we list minimum and average admissions test scores for all programs we rate, but we do not count the scores alone as a rating factor.

Here’s why we do not use test scores as a measure: The factors that make for an excellent honors program are primarily structural. The major building blocks are the credits required for honors completion; the number of honors class sections offered, by type and academic discipline; the availability of priority registration and honors housing; the size of honors class sections; and the number of staff to assist students.

So, don’t the test scores drive the university graduation rates of honors program entrants, just as they do in elite colleges? The answer is not so much; the correlation is r= .50

Admittedly, it is probably difficult for a student with, say, a 1050 SAT score to succeed in an elite college or in most honors programs. But within a fairly large range of SAT scores (~1280-1510), the opportunities for success are more often present given a conducive structure. With every biannual review of honors data, I find great pleasure in discovering outstanding honors programs that are not housed in highly- ranked and extremely selective universities. The golden nuggets of excellence in higher education are scattered much farther and wider than many would have us believe.

I am strongly opposed to the numerical ranking of colleges or their honors programs, whether or not test scores are included in the methodology. I ranked honors program one time, in 2012, and regret doing so. Yes, I have data that allows me to numerically differentiate the total rating scores earned by honors programs. But anyone who wants to provide some kind of assessment of colleges or programs needs to do so with the assumption that their methodology is subjective and imperfect. Ordinal rankings based on distinctions of one point or fractions of a point give readers a veneer of certitude that a qualitative difference exists even if it (often) does not.

Although we do not rank honors programs, we do place them in one of five rating groups, a process that is similar to rating films on a five-star basis but based on quantitative rather than completely subjective data. The seven honors programs in the top group in 2018 (out of 41) had average SAT scores (enrolled students) ranging from 1280 to 1490, a sizable range.

Honors completion rates are something of an issue these days. An honors completion rate is the percentage of first year honors entrants who complete at least one honors program graduation requirement by the time of graduation from the university. About 42 percent of honors students do not complete honors requirements before graduation, although a very high percentage of honors entrants (87 percent) do graduate from the university.

The seven honors programs with honors completion rates of 75 percent or higher in our 2018 ratings had average SAT scores ranging from 1340 to 1510; the mean for this group was 1420. The mean SAT for the 31 (of 41) programs that provided completion rates was 1405, not much lower. And another seven programs with mean SAT scores of 1420 or higher had completion rates below 58 percent, the group mean.

The mean SAT score for all 41 rated programs was 1407; the mean SAT for the top seven programs was only one point higher at 1408.

It is clear, at least with respect to honors programs, that average SAT scores are not the best predictors of program effectiveness. What does this mean for the value of test scores nationwide, if anything?

I think it means that for students who are in the 1280 to 1500 SAT range, success depends as much or more on mentoring, smaller interdisciplinary sections, student engagement, course availability, community (including housing), and advising support than it does on test scores.

The good news here is that even for students who are not in honors programs, high levels of achievement are accessible to students who do not begin college with extremely high test scores, although non-honors students will probably have to assert themselves more in order to benefit from the strongest attributes of their university.

Public University Honors

The site for public university honors colleges and programs

Category Archives: Honors News

US News Academic Reputation Score Changes, 2015 vs 2023, vs National Rankings

Copy of Rsp vs rank 2023.xlsx

UGA Honors Program to Become Morehead Honors College with Large Endowment

Honors Completion Rates: Leading Honors Colleges and Programs

Some New Honors College “Rankings” Have Appeared Elsewhere; Here’s Our Take

Here Are Honors Programs to Be Featured in 2020 Edition of Inside Honors

What Are the Differences Between an Honors and a Non-Honors Undergraduate Education?

University of South Florida Genshaft Honors College Receives a Total of $23 Million from Outgoing USF President

The New College Board ‘Adversity Score’ Explained

Here’s Why We Don’t Use Test Scores in Rating Honors Programs

Copy of Rsp vs rank 2023.xlsx

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