{"id":158,"date":"2021-01-11T22:24:59","date_gmt":"2021-01-11T22:24:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.trincoll.edu\/research-planning-strategy\/?page_id=158"},"modified":"2021-09-13T17:04:21","modified_gmt":"2021-09-13T17:04:21","slug":"rankings","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.trincoll.edu\/asic\/rankings\/","title":{"rendered":"Rankings"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the annual US News & World Report<\/em> Best Colleges rankings, Trinity appears in the National Liberal Arts Colleges category with about 225\u00a0other institutions.\u00a0 Although these rankings are among the most popular, there are still many myths and misunderstandings about how the rankings are actually determined.\u00a0 We are publishing this guide to provide our community with some insight into the inner workings of the US News<\/em> rankings.<\/p>\n

Shortly after her arrival, President Berger-Sweeney led the development of Working Goals<\/a> for the first 18 months of her administration before launching the Bicentennial Strategic Planning Commission<\/a>\u200b, which developed the Summit strategic plan\u200b<\/a>.\u00a0 Trinity began\u00a0a number of\u00a0initiatives to strengthen campus culture and ensure academic excellence, along\u00a0with a\u00a0focus on admissions to\u00a0recruit, enroll, retain, and graduate the best students.\u00a0 We believe that by focusing on the true indicators of a high quality education, the rest will follow.<\/p>\n

4 Things to Know About the Rankings:<\/h3>\n
    \n
  1. Some of the data used in the formula are delayed.<\/strong>
    \nAs described below, some of the metrics are lagging indicators and represent students who started their Trinity careers as long as 10 years ago.\u00a0 This also means that it will take several years for the impact of any new initiatives to be reflected in the rankings.\u00a0 For example, the admissions statistics of the students who applied during the fall of 2019 were not factored into the formula until the rankings released in the fall of 2021–the same ranking that included the graduation rate of students who entered in the fall of 2011.<\/li>\n
  2. The formula behind the rankings changes frequently.<\/strong>
    \nSometimes the changes are subtle tweaks to the relative weights of the components (see chart below), but occasionally entire\u00a0components are added or removed, such as the introduction of\u00a0ratings by high school guidance counselors in 2010\u00a0and\u00a0subsequent removal in 2019;\u00a0 the\u00a0addition of graduation rates of Pell Grant recipients in 2018 and graduate indebtedness in 2020; and the removal of the admissions\u00a0acceptance rate in 2018.<\/li>\n
  3. The group of schools being compared also changes.<\/strong>
    \nSince the first rankings in 1983, additional schools have been added, some have been removed, and some others have been reclassified into a different category.<\/li>\n
  4. The response rates to the reputation surveys vary.<\/strong> \u200b
    \nWith response rates about 34%, a relatively small number of individuals have a disproportionate influence on one of the largest components of the ranking formula.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The Ranking Formula<\/h4>\n

    The formula (as of fall 2020) includes the following components, weighted by the percentages shown.\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n