St. Thomas not ‘gaming the system’

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St. Thomas has climbed 22 places in the U.S. News National Research University rankings since 2009. However Michael Cogan, associate vice president for institutional effectiveness, said the university places a higher value on fulfilling its mission statement than its numerical success.

“We talk about access, excellence and Catholic identity,” Cogan said. “In order to have access, you have to be willing to admit students that might not have the 30 ACT.”

Although St. Thomas is concerned about carrying out its mission, other U.S. colleges seem to have a different agenda. A recent New York Times article exposed some universities that have been “gaming the system,” or in other words, manipulating graduation rates, student-faculty ratios and test scores to achieve higher rankings.

The article said that some schools like Iona College in New Rochelle, N.Y., have lied for years about its test scores, graduation rates, freshman retention, student-faculty ratio, acceptance rates and alumni giving. The article also said that Baylor University offered its students financial rewards to retake the SAT in 2008 to improve the university’s average score.

Cogan said “gaming the system” has not been an issue at St. Thomas because, “we don’t take the rankings as seriously as maybe some others do.”

“We’re not trying to go for the 32 ACT. That’s not our mission, that’s not what we are,” Cogan said.

He said the university places a higher value on its mission statement because, “we understand we’re not going to be Harvard.”

“We’re going to admit students with a 23, 22 (ACT score),” Cogan said. “What we know throughout the country, that if you admit students (with a lower ACT score), they’re more likely to not finish (college)… and that negatively affects your U.S. News ranking. So, we can’t allow the U.S. News ranking to drive us, we have to let our mission drive us.”

Cogan also added that chasing the rankings could be dangerous for St. Thomas financially.

“If we were chasing the rankings and trying to get a 7:1 (student-faculty ratio), you’d be paying $60, $70, $80,000 a year to go to school here, and that makes no sense,” Cogan said. “It could drive us out of business.”

While some colleges manipulate their data to attract more prospective students, some St. Thomas students believe the university’s appeal comes from its core programs and overall reputation, not its rankings.

Sophomore Hannah Steward said that she “didn’t really know a lot” about St. Thomas’ rankings when she was choosing a school but added that its reputation helped her decision.

“I just knew that people had called it a really prestigious school,” Steward said.

Other students, like sophomore Taylor Clements, based their decision on St. Thomas’ other features like location and scholarship offer. Even though Clements didn’t know any exact numbers, she said that she was aware of the school’s rankings.

“I knew it was a really good school,” Clements said.

In order to create a sense of transparency for prospective students and their families, Cogan said that a large amount of St. Thomas’ data is available online.

“I think if you take a look at our website, we really try to be as transparent as possible,” Cogan said. “We make 95 percent of what we do … accessible to the entire UST community.”

A document called the Common Data Set creates a standardized definition for university data nationally and helps create a sense of transparency because it can be sent out to any organization issuing rankings.

St. Thomas publishes this document on its website and updates it every fall on the 10th day of the semester.

“We put out a picture to say here’s what we look like,” Cogan said. “This is our enrollment, this is our graduation rate. These are our ACT scores. So everybody is calculating from the same exact way. That’s where we actually get the data that we would then send to U.S. News, so they can then do the rankings.”

Cogan said that this document also provides the university with a system of checks and balances.

“People are watching, and they’re checking numbers,” Cogan said. “If we make a mistake, and we do, people will let us know quickly. It’s very important for us to get the data right… and knowing how things work around here, being wrong is a bad idea.”

Briggs LeSavage can be reached at lesa4364@stthomas.edu.

Graphic was created by Lynn Nguyen.

2 Replies to “St. Thomas not ‘gaming the system’”

  1. As an alumnus it’s disheartening to hear an administrator like Michael Cogan talk this way.  I understand the mission of UST is built on three pillars—access, excellence, and Catholic identity.  However, it seems definitions for the first two pillars need to be further sussed out.  Does access mean that nearly everyone, regardless of merit (his example of acceptable though somewhat lacking merit is someone with a 22/23 ACT), can gain admittance to UST?  Mr. Cogan says that in order to fulfill its mission of providing access UST is willing to admit those applicants with an ACT score below 30.  That’s all well and good because test scores aren’t a complete indicator of merit and some people have overwhelming qualities that aren’t captured in the ACT.  However, Mr. Cogan doesn’t frame it that way.  He seems to be saying that access is really about just getting people in the door, not enabling the best students to come to UST.  Can UST maintain excellence if it resigns itself to targeting less than stellar students and not investing in faculty?  Mr. Cogan says UST will never be able to compete with Harvard, but then goes on to argue that we therefore shouldn’t try to recruit the best students…

  2. …Perhaps UST will never be Harvard, but there’s a lot of territory between number 1 and 115; when did UST shy away from competition?  Many alumni donors are under the impression that UST is striving for academic excellence across a number of subjective and objective indicators; access to this academic excellence will be provided by scholarship dollars given to the most capable students attracted to UST.  Mr. Cogan seems to hold a different view.  He’s right that a lower student to faculty ratio would cost more, but excellence costs money and that’s why the endowment is so important.  People are likely not going to pay the high sums he cites and donors will forgo contributing to a UST that isn’t driven toward excellence.  My take away from this article is that enabling access for those of merit won’t really mean all that much in the future unless there is a serious effort to promote excellence at UST.  And there’s the rub: talented students and faithful donors want to be part of the best universities.  In the future, what will happen to a UST that ignores this reality and eschews excellence while its competitors move forward?

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