A new rating to answer the question of what University is the best for tennis athletes.

[OZ88]

Tennis student-athletes face as teenagers, one of the most important decisions in their life: which university to choose. Making this decision, the first major one in their life will affect their future.
With this new ranking, crunching numbers into an Index that includes 372 programs, it answers the question of what University is the best for tennis athletes.
The data team used the Universal Tennis Rating (UTR) as a base statistic, adding other important and publicly available data to rate the Universities for both female and male student tennis athletes.
Each university in the ranking is rated based on four important parameters with clear data. The already mentioned UTR, separating programs in female and male, Forbes Top Colleges Ranking, College Niche Grading, and College Student Admission Rate.
The index puts value into each category according to how important they should be to consider. Most value is given to Forbes Ranking, followed by UTR, Admission Rate and College Niche.

BTW, Stanford is first in men and women!!

Here

 

[Deacon Drive]

Interesting approach, and I appreciate the data-driven nature of it! A few questions - why Forbes instead of the more widely used US News rankings? How much value is given to the Forbes ranking compared to the other rankings? It seems if this is driven by tennis, then the tennis ratings should be most important factors. Good stuff though - keep it up!

 

[OZ88]

Interesting approach, and I appreciate the data-driven nature of it! A few questions - why Forbes instead of the more widely used US News rankings? How much value is given to the Forbes ranking compared to the other rankings? It seems if this is driven by tennis, then the tennis ratings should be most important factors. Good stuff though - keep it up!

Hi thanks for the post. To answer the questions, the idea of the ranking was to put into numbers how would a player (female or male) will rank every school if he was to be offered a scholarship (of the same amount obviously) That is why you see academics being given the most weight into the calculation.

About Forbes ranking compared to the most popular US News is mainly due to US News, having different rankings. They do not do an apples to apples ranking. Instead, rank schools into National Universities, Liberal Arts Schools, Regional Universities and Regional Colleges. In our experience that makes it difficult to do something like this. Its a flaw that we think US news at some point will work on. Forbes seems to be a bit more reliable, plus it ranks 650 schools while US News at most just does 200.
Good to know you liked it. I am working on adding a scholarship calculator into it, so you can input your scholarship offer and see how much it varies each one in the ranking, hopefully we have it for the future.

 

[Mrs.Weasley]

Hi thanks for the post. To answer the questions, the idea of the ranking was to put into numbers how would a player (female or male) will rank every school if he was to be offered a scholarship (of the same amount obviously) That is why you see academics being given the most weight into the calculation.

About Forbes ranking compared to the most popular US News is mainly due to US News, having different rankings. They do not do an apples to apples ranking. Instead, rank schools into National Universities, Liberal Arts Schools, Regional Universities and Regional Colleges. In our experience that makes it difficult to do something like this. Its a flaw that we think US news at some point will work on. Forbes seems to be a bit more reliable, plus it ranks 650 schools while US News at most just does 200.
Good to know you liked it. I am working on adding a scholarship calculator into it, so you can input your scholarship offer and see how much it varies each one in the ranking, hopefully we have it for the future.

I also think this is an interesting approach. However, some of the highest ranked academic schools do not offer athletic or merit scholarships, such as MIT, schools in the NESCAC, Ivy League,etc. How will you address this issue when calculating your rankings?

 

[Johnny_forehand]

I would think the quality of the coaches would be in there somewhere as well.

 

[OZ88]

I also think this is an interesting approach. However, some of the highest ranked academic schools do not offer athletic or merit scholarships, such as MIT, schools in the NESCAC, Ivy League,etc. How will you address this issue when calculating your rankings?

The idea is to make the rating (not the ranking itself) customizable where the student can input what the school is going to cost him/her and it will provide an index to compare the options. I have been using this for over 5 years (not as organized) that is the reason to make it like this.

 

[OZ88]

I would think the quality of the coaches would be in there somewhere as well.

Unfortunately that is something that is not measurable

 

[Deacon Drive]

Hi thanks for the post. To answer the questions, the idea of the ranking was to put into numbers how would a player (female or male) will rank every school if he was to be offered a scholarship (of the same amount obviously) That is why you see academics being given the most weight into the calculation.

About Forbes ranking compared to the most popular US News is mainly due to US News, having different rankings. They do not do an apples to apples ranking. Instead, rank schools into National Universities, Liberal Arts Schools, Regional Universities and Regional Colleges. In our experience that makes it difficult to do something like this. Its a flaw that we think US news at some point will work on. Forbes seems to be a bit more reliable, plus it ranks 650 schools while US News at most just does 200.
Good to know you liked it. I am working on adding a scholarship calculator into it, so you can input your scholarship offer and see how much it varies each one in the ranking, hopefully we have it for the future.

That makes sense regarding the challenge of using the US News rankings, though US News carries a lot more weight than other college ranking systems.

I think that since this is a formula to choose a school for tennis, that the tennis aspect should be heavily emphasized. Otherwise, you end up with a flawed system. For example, in your men's rankings 8 of the 10 schools do not offer athletic scholarships, so top notch players are much more likely to go to a D1 school that offers scholarships and competes at the top level. UVA, Wake, UNC, etc. are just much, much better tennis options than Claremont-Mudd-Scripts.

 

[OZ88]

That makes sense regarding the challenge of using the US News rankings, though US News carries a lot more weight than other college ranking systems.

I think that since this is a formula to choose a school for tennis, that the tennis aspect should be heavily emphasized. Otherwise, you end up with a flawed system. For example, in your men's rankings 8 of the 10 schools do not offer athletic scholarships, so top notch players are much more likely to go to a D1 school that offers scholarships and competes at the top level. UVA, Wake, UNC, etc. are just much, much better tennis options than Claremont-Mudd-Scripts.

Thanks again for the message. That is why I am going to add the net cost to figure out the system.

This rating looks at schools having the same cost, after scholarships (tennis, academic or financial aid) This rating explains how many US students rather go to an Ivy league that going to a school as Wake Forest, that academically (and long term as a graduate) may not have the same impact in your degree as graduating from Williams or Emory.

D3 may not offer athletic scholarship but you pay out of pocket almost nothing if you are admissible. I have had students receive in Ivy's full scholarship from financial aid.

Thanks for the input. Looking to improve upon it.

 

[Deacon Drive]

This rating looks at schools having the same cost, after scholarships (tennis, academic or financial aid) This rating explains how many US students rather go to an Ivy league that going to a school as Wake Forest, that academically (and long term as a graduate) may not have the same impact in your degree as graduating from Williams or Emory.

Very interesting stuff, thanks for posting it.

I'm not sure the part I quoted above is correct, on a few levels. First, I think if US students were offered tennis scholarships at Wake (or UNC, UVA, etc.) they would almost certainly take them ahead of D3 or Ivy schools, it's just that Wake, UVA, etc. are only offering the very best players in the world (that are interested in college), so there are not many US seniors offered by those schools. Second, I think the impact of graduating from Wake, especially as a scholarship athlete, is much higher than it is at Williams, Emory, etc. Wake athletes (Tim Duncan, Chris Paul, Arnold Palmer, etc.) have name recognition that just isn't there for D3 schools (same for UNC, UVA, etc.).

Great discussion. Keep up the good work!

 

[Mrs.Weasley]

Thanks again for the message. That is why I am going to add the net cost to figure out the system.

This rating looks at schools having the same cost, after scholarships (tennis, academic or financial aid) This rating explains how many US students rather go to an Ivy league that going to a school as Wake Forest, that academically (and long term as a graduate) may not have the same impact in your degree as graduating from Williams or Emory.

D3 may not offer athletic scholarship but you pay out of pocket almost nothing if you are admissible. I have had students receive in Ivy's full scholarship from financial aid.

Thanks for the input. Looking to improve upon it.

The statement that, "you pay out of pocket almost nothing if you are admissible" to a D3 school has not been the case for any of the D3 tennis families that I know. The D3 schools at the top of your list all meet full-financial need, but these schools still have around 50% of their populations paying full-freight.

 

[Nacho]

Tennis student-athletes face as teenagers, one of the most important decisions in their life: which university to choose. Making this decision, the first major one in their life will affect their future.
With this new ranking, crunching numbers into an Index that includes 372 programs, it answers the question of what University is the best for tennis athletes.
The data team used the Universal Tennis Rating (UTR) as a base statistic, adding other important and publicly available data to rate the Universities for both female and male student tennis athletes.
Each university in the ranking is rated based on four important parameters with clear data. The already mentioned UTR, separating programs in female and male, Forbes Top Colleges Ranking, College Niche Grading, and College Student Admission Rate.
The index puts value into each category according to how important they should be to consider. Most value is given to Forbes Ranking, followed by UTR, Admission Rate and College Niche.

BTW, Stanford is first in men and women!!

Here

Thanks for posting. I think any list is a good starting point for some students and cool to see something focused on tennis. The Forbes college ranking favors upper echelon schools naturally, and not many public ones. Of course Stanford would be up there, it has one of the top tennis teams in the country, and checks the boxes on Forbes list: Alumni Salary, Americas Leaders, Student Experiences, Academic success, etc...So, truly this is just a reincarnation of the Forbes list and not something that feels different or specific to tennis. As pointed out many don't offer scholarships, and a few have ok facilities and coaches, but not the top tier ones. Without the list these schools are ones high on many players lists naturally, as most of the players are from the US at these schools so clearly with limited or no scholarships the best student tennis players are shooting for these colleges. I don't think any of these schools have problems recruiting or need to attract many international players.

Making decisions about what dreams you want to pursue and how you do it have many factors that can't be measured in a list. There are some terrific tennis universities out there that most students would value over any of the schools presented. Most students would get as much benefit going to Wake, Furman, USC, Illinois, NW, UCLA, UNC, UGA, Virginia, OSU, TCU, Texas, Baylor, Tulane, SMU or Rice, just to name a few (I am leaving off a bunch sorry). I think a deeper dive can be done then whats on here, and could possibly present some good options (not reach ones) that parents and students can achieve while benefitting a wider swath of colleges. Maybe tennis success after college? Or success of the team? Maybe measuring GPA average of the team, tennis facility ranking? Opportunities to play high level tournaments while going to school? How about giving grades to coaches, coaching turnover, and student body support? Since it is sport focused those would be a few of my adds off the top of my head.

 

[illinoisportsfan]

Your list basically produces Stanford and all of the Ivy League schools. It's pretty much, "What are the most elite academic schools that also have tennis teams." That is not really that useful for kids wanting to have the best college tennis experience.

One metric you could use is a recruit's high school ranking vs. their final college ranking to see which programs do the best at developing players. You could also look at the success of a university's alumni on the pro circuit. For academics, you could look at a program's graduation rate and the average G.P.A. for its tennis players.

 

[OZ88]

Your list basically produces Stanford and all of the Ivy League schools. It's pretty much, "What are the most elite academic schools that also have tennis teams." That is not really that useful for kids wanting to have the best college tennis experience.

One metric you could use is a recruit's high school ranking vs. their final college ranking to see which programs do the best at developing players. You could also look at the success of a university's alumni on the pro circuit. For academics, you could look at a program's graduation rate and the average G.P.A. for its tennis players.

Understand your point, but this is not a "list" is a metric to calculate, as I have done for the past year, how does offers from each school compare and which one should be the best option to consider. Obviously there are factors that should be considered, but since they are not quantifiable, it is impossible to add it as an input for this.

 

[Deacon Drive]

Understand your point, but this is not a "list" is a metric to calculate, as I have done for the past year, how does offers from each school compare and which one should be the best option to consider. Obviously there are factors that should be considered, but since they are not quantifiable, it is impossible to add it as an input for this.

I agree with others, that this is essentially the Forbes list, regurgitated. More weight should be given to the tennis aspect, since that is the point of the rankings.

 

[Nostradamus]

Tennis student-athletes face as teenagers, one of the most important decisions in their life: which university to choose. Making this decision, the first major one in their life will affect their future.
With this new ranking, crunching numbers into an Index that includes 372 programs, it answers the question of what University is the best for tennis athletes.
The data team used the Universal Tennis Rating (UTR) as a base statistic, adding other important and publicly available data to rate the Universities for both female and male student tennis athletes.
Each university in the ranking is rated based on four important parameters with clear data. The already mentioned UTR, separating programs in female and male, Forbes Top Colleges Ranking, College Niche Grading, and College Student Admission Rate.
The index puts value into each category according to how important they should be to consider. Most value is given to Forbes Ranking, followed by UTR, Admission Rate and College Niche.

BTW, Stanford is first in men and women!!

Here

No wonder every tennis athlete wants to go to Stanford and nowhere else.