The CardBoard
Northwestern and... Northern Illinois? - Printable Version

+- The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board)
+-- Forum: C-House! (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-4.html)
+--- Forum: The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-5.html)
+--- Thread: Northwestern and... Northern Illinois? (/thread-4595.html)


Northwestern and... Northern Illinois? - Nan3cy - 12-24-2012

I don't think this has been posted before. Time magazine has an article about the ranking of the college football top 25, as ranked by academics. You would think, slam dunk for Stanford, right? You would be wrong. Stanford is fourth, behind (in order), Northwestern, Northern Illinois, and Boise State. The ranking includes things like comparisons between players' grad rates and general student body grad rates. Would love to be able to give the algorithm to Terry and let him figure out why it's bogus. But at least we're ahead of the University of South Bend and -- San Jose State...

http://keepingscore.blogs.time.com/2012/12/11/the-college-football-top-25-as-ranked-by-academics/?xid=newsletter-weekly



Re: Northwestern and... Northern Illinois? - Bruce Wang - 12-24-2012

This analysis needs to be adjusted for strength of schedule.  Take any of those teams with the possible exception of Northwestern and put them through a Stanford classroom and I doubt they would be anywhere close to Stanford's graduation rate.

Re: Northwestern and... Northern Illinois? - terry - 12-24-2012

This analysis is based in part on the difference between the football team's graduation rate and the general student body's graduation rate. So, schools with low overall graduation rates have a big advantage. Boise State's overall graduation rate is 28%, compared to 95% at Stanford. So, the Boise State football team significantly out-performs the Boise State student body in grad rates. At Stanford, the football players' graduation rates are much higher than at Boise State, but the Stanford football grad rate is a little behind Stanford's overall student body graduation rate. Because Boise State's overall grad rate is so low, Boise's football players are reckoned to be far better academically than Stanford's football players. That's ridiculous, of course. It's a warped result that comes from using Boise State's very low overall graduation rate as a baseline. A mediocre grad rate by the football team looks really good by comparison. It's a silly comparison.

Re: Northwestern and... Northern Illinois? - pincemob - 12-24-2012

How does a school have a 26% graduation rate?  I can see a sports team having a result like that, but the whole school??

I could see how a SJSU could have a low graduation rate, as it (I believe) has a lot of adults enrolled who are taking a few classes to help their career and/or who are forced back into the workforce full-time for different reasons.  But even then, I would think the floor for any 4-year school would be around 50% before the state just shut it down.  Seeing Boise State that low is surprising. 

Re: Northwestern and... Northern Illinois? - 82 Card - 12-24-2012

The article says the analysis is from the New America Foundation. The result's wouldn't by any chance have anything to do with the executive chairman of the New America Foundation being a weenie?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_America_Foundation

Re: Northwestern and... Northern Illinois? - terry - 12-26-2012

Graduation rates are calculated based on the number of students who graduate within six years. So the difficulty of graduating in four years is not an issue with respect to the published graduation rates.