Read on Twitter
Thread: Why are colleges being so bullish about an in-person fall semester? @rkelchen diagnosed some of the likely variables in this piece: https://chroni.cl/315BbtN
But I've been wondering if institutional prestige may have something to do with it.
But I've been wondering if institutional prestige may have something to do with it.
Seeing places like Harvard already planning for online while nearly every state university pledges to be in-person made me wonder whether the colleges at the top of the prestige ladder feel they can afford not to play the messaging game.
Think about it in terms of competition for students: Say you're a rising freshman headed to Harvard. You'll probably still attend if it's online. It's Harvard.
But say you live in Indiana, where you got into both the flagship and Purdue. If Indiana U. were to plan for online, while Purdue went in-person, maybe you pick Purdue because you're 18 and really want to go to college.
I'd be surprised if dynamics like these weren't playing somewhat into colleges' calculations. Maybe colleges with sparklier brands — and less reason to think students will ditch them — aren't being as publicly optimistic.
To offer an unscientific test, I took the top 100 colleges in the 2019 national U.S. News rankings, ordered them by ranking and added their fall-plans classification from @chronicle's comprehensive fall tracker: https://www.chronicle.com/article/Here-s-a-List-of-Colleges-/248626
Did it support my hypothesis? See for yourself: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-P9HiOR8v3R6N7Upz6aI3iaEooJPoHHjODdwXfGK-qU/edit?usp=sharing
I color coded the categories like so:
Green: plans that don't (yet) imagine on-campus instruction ("planning for online," "waiting to decide," "considering a range of scenarios")
Orange: some in-person and some online ("proposing a hybrid model")
Red: "Planning for in-person"
Green: plans that don't (yet) imagine on-campus instruction ("planning for online," "waiting to decide," "considering a range of scenarios")
Orange: some in-person and some online ("proposing a hybrid model")
Red: "Planning for in-person"
The top 20 were much more reticent to pledge a return to campus, as compared to institutions 81-100:
Caveats Corner:
- Our tracker is extremely useful but not perfect/can't capture every plan's nuance
- Public vs. private, institutional wealth, campus size, location might be more telling variables
- U.S. News, influential as it is, isn't a perfect measure of prestige
- Our tracker is extremely useful but not perfect/can't capture every plan's nuance
- Public vs. private, institutional wealth, campus size, location might be more telling variables
- U.S. News, influential as it is, isn't a perfect measure of prestige
Here's the spreadsheet in slideshow form (1/2):
2/2
Again, this is not scientific at all — just an interesting and incomplete thought experiment. But I fully expect this moment to produce some fascinating research by real researchers down the line.
Random last notes: I filled in a couple of institutions' fall plans not listed in the tracker based on their websites. And I used the 2019, not 2020, rankings because I (more specifically, @lindsayaellis) already had them lying around in a spreadsheet.
