A very small sample but very interesting data. I see that 7 of the 15 former students reported that they would not go here again.

Look up your own school and weep www.StudentsReview.com

 

StillAnEagle wrote:

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Try to be objective.  When someone mentions RateMyProfessor.com, everyone jumps up and down about the unreliability of the ratings, how there is no accountability for providing false ratings/comments, etc.  But if they are slamming USM, and I hate USM, it must be accurate

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I don't think anybody reading this board takes these things seriously. Certainly the faculty doesn't. One flaw, the small sample, has already been identified. I can't even determine how that small sample was taken, or anything else about the methodology. Nobody is slamming USM. Viewing the rating site is probably no more than a source of amusement for most of us. And, by the way, other Mississippi schools did no better than USM on the question would you return to this school.

WouldBeEagle wrote:

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Viewing the rating site is probably no more than a source of amusement for most of us.

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Being amused by the ratings speaks volumes. I would be concerned.  If you are a faculty member at an institution and your alumni say they would not go to your institution, is that an indictment of the administration, faculty, or both?  I just get tired of pot shots at every corner.  I sympathize with USM faculty.  It sounds like a terrible place to work due to a lot of different circumstances.  But I hate to see people take joy in USM's struggles.  If I come off a little too strong, I'm sorry.  I just care about USM. 

Is USM's average SAT really 876 as reported in the link above? 

The web site says that this is estimated from survey data and may vary from the actual average.  I wouldn't worry about it since a small percentage of USM students take that SAT anyway. 

I checked out Winthrop University's (where I work) ratings and they list the actual average ACT & SAT scores in parentheses and the estimate in the column to the right.  See link. 

 

http://www.studentsreview.com/SC/WU.html

USM SAT/ACT Information
Average SAT Score: 500
Average ACT Score: 21
Average High School GPA: 3.23

http://www.a2zcolleges.com/misc/college_Details.asp?ID=1439

ADMISSIONS REQUIREMENTS

Application fee: $0.00
Required admissions tests: SAT Reasoning Test or ACT

ADMISSIONS FACTORS

Difficulty level: moderately difficult

Average freshman high school GPA: 3.02
Average freshman SAT verbal score: 535
Average freshman SAT math score: 523
Average freshman ACT score: 21

Number of applicants: 5,185
Number of applicants accepted: 2,961
Acceptance rate: 57%

http://college.sparknotes.com/school/admissions.epl?inun_id=9396 

and USM peers on students admitted

http://apps.collegeboard.com/search/qs_likefind.jsp?collegeId=4359

also interesting

http://workingpapers.org/writings/us_news_rankings.htm

 

 

I wish he would write a paper on the phantom enrollment increase situation at USM a couple of years ago.  I would like to understand how that really never happened, and why it is that USM actually does not have 20,000.  I bet he can tell us that there are 6,000 students actually enrolled at H'burg, but a "handful of faculty" are keeping the public from finding out about them in order to make enrollment stay at 14,000.

Just the Facts wrote:

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. . . Acceptance rate: 57% . . .

 

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Does anyone believe we reject 43% of our applicants?

Note that Fagan's article was dated Oct. 2004. It applies to the initial drop of USM into Tier 4. It doesn't account for the persistence of USM at that level.

Also note that USM does not collect data on the number of students who graduate in the top 10% of their high school class. Thus, can't report.

Also note that his juxtapositioning of Tulsa and USM data doesn't help his case. Look at the differences in the chart. Amazing! Sure, they may play each other in sports. But Tulsa and USM ain't peers.

StillAnEagle wrote:

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 I graduated with a degree in Psychology from USM in 1991 and a MA in I/O Psychology from TU in 1993... I found that the quality of education was roughly similar.  Now that is comparing UG to graduate classes, but I will say that USM was comparable when I was there.  I was very well prepared for graduate school.... perhaps USM has deteriorated more seriously than I would like to believe

StillAnEagle, you seem to be saying that your 1991 USM undergraduate degree in psychology was roughly comparable to your 1993 graduate degree in psychology at Tulane.  Interesting comparision. That was about 13 years ago. Let's hope its still that way.

Looking at acceptance rates at Mississippi state schools can be very misleading because of the system wide admission requirements set by the Ayers case. The minimum standards at all the state schools are the same -- basically a C average in high school and an ACT of 16. Actually, there is a sliding scale on those two variables, but those are the minimums on the two variables. The 2005 "U.S. News Best Colleges" guidei lists the Ole Miss acceptance rate as 80% and the USM rate as 49%. State is at 75%.  Given that the standards are the same at all three schools, the large difference between USM and the other two comprehensive universities reveals a vast difference in the kind of students who apply to USM. The high rejection rate at USM reflects the applicant pool, not high standards.

StillAnEagle wrote:

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 Its a weird thing but the University of Tulsa is know as TU not UT.  And I did not mean that the two degrees were equivalent.  Just the quality of education at that time which was 13 years ago. 

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Thirteen years ago was a golden age in USM's history. Not just in your department but in many departments. Thereafter, things began to crash.