1.
Student Satisfaction (25%)
- Student Evaluations from RateMyProfessor.com (15%)

lol: A website that literally anyone can use including non-students and that even under the best of circumstances draws a sample that is self-selecting rather than either randomized samples or samples that include anonymous surveys of all students in any given class. Further, it's subject to easy manipulation by professors, colleges, universities, and regular people with either an axe to grind or agenda (both good and bad) and it counts as 15 percent!
- Actual Freshman-to-Sophomore Retention Rates(5%)
Because the University of Tennessee is the most affordable major school and has a mission to educate as many students from the state as possible it draws a lot of students who eventually find it's not for them, can't afford it without the HOPE scholarships (and you do have to maintain a certain GPA to keep one), or otherwise fail (freshmen year is typically the most difficult at UT). Further, UT is a system and UTK is merely the flagship campus.
- Predicted vs. Actual Freshman-to-Sophomore Retention Rates(5%)
Are you kidding me? A school that predicts it's own retention rates better gets a higher score?! Gee, that's accurate and not subject to manipulation at all.

lol:
Also, a dirty little secret of so-called highly selective schools, expensive private schools, as well as virtually all graduate programs regardless of college or university (including medical and law schools) is that while it's hard to get in it's virtually impossible to flunk out. Since this involves undergrads it's a methodology that favors expensive, private, and/or selective schools over others. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy as well.
2.
Post-Graduate Success (35%)
- Salary of Alumni from Payscale.com (15%)
Again with websites that lack rigorous methods and provide flawed samples... However, beyond that Tennessee lags behind most states in pay and in proportion many more of UT's students are Tennesseans. To add to the absurdity, the study's authors admit that payscale.com looks at pay for people in similar jobs across regions -- it doesn't measure post-graduation pay.
- American Leaders List (20%)
Just another way of using a flawed payment methodology with an added bonus of including areas like fortune 500 CEOs and membership in the Big Five Orchestras (all found in cities outside the South) that students who come from less working and middle-class backgrounds are unlikely to pursue. The same criticisms noted on 'pay' also apply in biasing rankings against UT and other public schools, particularly public schools located in the South that draw from a student pool that is less likely to move out of state.