<p>Thanks for your comment. I used to live in the Pacific Northwest. Allow me to repeat myself: </p>
<p>
[quote]
If you think a particular college you know about should be listed, please contact the guidebook editors, magazine editors, or nonprofit organization committees who compiled the lists I consulted. Most lists of colleges expand over time, and I'm sure that if you write a clearly written, carefully evidenced letter that that will persuade the compilers of each list to take a second look at the college you advocate for.
<p>As a Ct resident I would think that UConn has to be on the list. USNews rank of 64 whereas University at Buffalo (my undergrad alma) is #118 and on your list.</p>
<p>Tokenadult: Thanks for putting all these sources into one place. I'm sure that over time, I'll be able to glean a lot of useful info to help S2 compile a list of colleges to visit.</p>
<p>But my gut reaction is that it's a daunting task to scroll through pages and pages of this data, write it down for each college and go on to the next, all the while interrupted about a zillion times by dogs, kids, and phone calls. Now I know why USNWR tells millions of copies of that vilified Best Colleges edition. As imperfect and incomplete as it is, a certain amount of this helpful data is all put together in one place. You can take the rankings themselves with a big grain of salt, but when looking a colleges you may never have heard of before, they do provide a rough guide for reaches, matches and safeties.</p>
<p>Tokenadult,
Let me add my voice to the chorus singing the praises of your work and effort. I can see the hours you put into this and I very much appreciate the sweat you put into it.</p>
<p>I'm not sure how much you have thought about creating sub-sections (geographic, size, selectivity, etc), but I share jazzymom's thought that 168 colleges (or however many you end up including) is a lot to wade through in a search. What else beyond just the name of the school are you thinking to add (if anything)?</p>
<p>Great List! The only thing that would make it even more helpful [ but is a lot of extra work!] is to have links to the college admissions websites after each name.</p>
<p>I'm going to look up data on one college to check whether it should have gone onto the supplemental list, as a reply has suggested, and I would like, over time, to get a full set of Web links associated with each college. A quick fix I may be able to do soon is to indicate the state for each college--after all, the majority of college students attend a college within 500 miles of their family home, so geography matters. </p>
<p>Mr Payne,
At the risk of stepping on tokenadult's toes, please may I suggest that you refer to posts #11 and 21. (Just trying to save tokenadult a minute ;).) Great, obviously time-consuming job, tokenadult!</p>
<p>Mr. Payne, did you note the methodology the OP used to compile the list? He made no representation that his list is the sine-qua-non of College Search and Selection.</p>
<p>Rather, it is a consensus list based on representation across a spectrum of widely consulted guidebooks and lists. It is a list of convenience to <em>start</em> a college search. As such, I find it to be an excellent tool. I don't know on what basis anyone could consider it "dumb."</p>
<p>
[quote]
Rather, it is a consensus list based on representation across a spectrum of widely consulted guidebooks and lists.
[/quote]
And? When a school like ASU (50K+ students) doesn't make the list - it fails pretty significantly.</p>
<p>
[quote]
It is a list of convenience to <em>start</em> a college search.
[/quote]
I'm not sure how having a list of 160 schools is convenient. Most students choose schools based on price, geography, or academic selectivity. Most students I know grabbed a US News and world report and started looking at SAT scores and GPA requirements to determine what privates they could get in. They then looked at what in-state publics they could get in. Maybe look at a few major specific lists to learn what schools were strong in their prospective major. ID like 15 target schools and send off the apps. A mere google search of 150 school names would be more effort devoted to research than what 95% of students do. That other 5% likely already know the schools they want to go to because they've grown up with colleges on their mind for the previous 4 years.</p>
<p>I have a feeling most of this data says more about how crappy the ranking systems are as opposed to how good the schools are. University of the South, University of Richmond, and every LAC gets a double star, but not places like University of Michigan or Caltech?</p>
<p>I too think you did a great job. Counselors and parents here seem to look at only extremes (Harvard or the local state U., MIT or the local state U.) Getting them to realize how many other great schools are out there is like pulling teeth. Now I can pull out a handy 2 page list and say "here, check out some of these"
Tokenadult, what is the address of your personal website?</p>
<p>I can easily find counterexamples. You can too if you look at the list again. As noted above, if you have a gripe with how guidebooks rate your favorite college, write to the editors of the guidebooks. </p>
<p>Thanks for all of the comments about what looks odd about the consensus list. I do think the treatment of U of Michigan in one source is anomalous, perhaps an omission of U of Michigan because it "goes without saying." If I didn't apply my criteria so consistently based on reporting the facts of what the guidebooks list, Michigan would be marked the same way as Minnesota and Wisconsin are marked, as it is plainly a fine Big Ten university. Caltech not being in Phi Beta Kappa may be because Caltech has never sought to be part of the club--I was surprised to see MIT in the club, as it does look like polytechnics are underrepresented (as, again, I noted above) on that list and one or two of the other lists. </p>
<p>I'll check for purely clerical errors on my part over the next day or so. My sense is actually that the consensus list is still a little overinclusive, because of reliance on source 9). Meanwhile, it might be fun for all of you following along at home to look up some of your favorite colleges in the IPEDS look-up tools provided by the Department of Education or by Education Trust, or in the Common Data Set look-up tools provided by College Board or U.S. News.</p>
<p>I'm the son of an industrial engineer. Most of my best friends from high school are in the computer or medical device industries as computer scientists, electrical engineers, or physicists. My oldest son has computer-related interests, so I especially noticed the omission of engineering colleges from some of the guidebooks.</p>
<p>This list rocks! and indicates much time, thought and the judicious use of public resources. Thanks for compiling the list and presenting such a composed and reasonable voice to both your critics and fans.</p>
<p>Tokenadult, I think you forgot to put ** next to the University of Michigan. I am pretty sure Michigan is featured in the first 9 of your 10 sources.</p>