<p>It really is messed up. Brown ranked behind Hopkins, Wash U, Northwestern and Cornell. I feel this affects Brown, because so many kids use these rankings and I really am at a loss for why it gets this rank? It is selective and has great academics. Any feelings on this?</p>
<p>I feel Brown absolutely deserves to be ranked higher as well. But there is a brightside to this. A lower ranking theoretically means fewer applicants and in turn a higher accepance rate! </p>
<p>Well now I'm just grasping straws...</p>
<p>Well yes it will affect how many ppl apply. I myself gave a second thought about Brown when I saw it had slipped, that with a low endowment (i need financial aid) is making Brown seem less appealing. But the rep Brown has seems to be incongrous to its ranking.</p>
<p>Brown's "lower endowment" is all relevant -- it has a higher endowment than the vast majority of colleges out there.</p>
<p>US News should not dictate where you apply to college. </p>
<p>And Brown will probably see an increase in applicants because it went to the common ap this year.</p>
<p>
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US News should not dictate where you apply to college.
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</p>
<p>But the sad truth is that, like the op mentioned, thousands of kids do use the US News Ranking to decide where they will apply to college.</p>
<p>This is not going to hurt Brown. Anyone who knows anything at all about American academic institutions will know it's one of the very best.</p>
<p>and pshhh would we have wanted the kind of kids who would be turned off because of a ranking?</p>
<p>myself gave a second thought about Brown when I saw it had slipped, that with a low endowment (i need financial aid) is making Brown seem less appealing.</p>
<p>Brown has a higher endowment per student than Penn, Columbia and Cornell. So you you are more likely to get better financial aid at Brown then at those three.</p>
<p>can anyone answer as to why its ranking gets shafted each year?
if it has a higher endowment than those schools mentioned previously, and the site also shows selectivity which is much higher than alot of the schools ranked higher than it.</p>
<p>uchicago: 35
duke: 23
upeen: 16
cornell: 21
northwestern: 27
washu: 17
johns hopkins: 20-something</p>
<p>and brown- 14 percent.</p>
<p>its almost like you're applying to a tougher school to get into but its not ranked as high....why?</p>
<p>So what? Rankings are b s. Also, I'm pretty sure last year U.S. News purposely made Princeton top Harvard so they could see if the people at Harvard freak out.</p>
<p>^Princeton had been ranked number one for 8 years, so it wasn't just a one time fluke. </p>
<p>Also, people here on CC may realize that college rankings don't really mean much, but you can't expect the greater American populous to understand that concept.
Yes, rankings are stupid but the fact still remains that plenty of uninformed high schoolers apply to college based on USNWR. Because of this, Brown may experience less applicants. However, the saving grace for Brown may be that since it has finally switched over to the common app, more people will be willing to apply there, effectively cancelling out any negative effect US News may have had. </p>
<p>People follow rankings very religiously, it's pathetic at best and sickening at worst.</p>
<p>"But the sad truth is that, like the op mentioned, thousands of kids do use the US News Ranking to decide where they will apply to college"</p>
<p>Unfortunately, lots of kids and parents alike. I was pretty ****ed when my uncle seemed unimpressed when he learned that I got into Brown. He was all onto Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford and told me Brown's not in the top 5 therefore it's unimportant. Same with my aunts and other relatives. To them, how great a college is for an individual is all shown in the rankings and they don't even look at colleges beyond number 10. It's fustrating to learn how ignorant they are. My uncle said Brown is only well known in MY state, meaning only in RI.</p>
<p>^ that's pretty lame.</p>
<p>I read somewhere earlier today that, among counselors reporting to US News, Brown and Cornell tied for 5th. There's a lot of subjectivity here (starting with choosing what counts for what). Harvard, great, awesome, creme de la creme -- but I would have rather jumped in the proverbial lake than go there. (Of courser, I'm not assuming I would have been accepted). Brown was a much better choice for me. Bowdoin is a much better choice for someone else, etc., etc.</p>
<p>Brown will have that wow factor down the road, no matter what US News says...</p>
<p>The many issues with USNWR has long been discussed. Brown's pretty over it, and the 20k people who are vying for spots here don't care either. It's not really our problem until we can't find 1500-1600 people who want to be here each year that we consider best suited for Brown. That's not close to happening so who cares?</p>
<p>"But the sad truth is that, like the op mentioned, thousands of kids do use the US News Ranking to decide where they will apply to college."</p>
<p>And if any of them decide not to apply to Brown just because of US News, that's fine with me. Ditto what modestmelody said.</p>
<p>Umm I think you're confusing "selectivity" with "acceptance rate". Brown might have a low acceptance rate, but that doesn't mean much. If the students you do accept don't matriculate or if they have lower SATs, it does you no good.
NU's acceptance rate is so relatively high because it is a bigger school (7800 undergrads) and needs to fill each incoming class of roughly 2000 seats. UChicago has a high acceptance rate because the only students who apply are those who are serious about attending, given the rigorous academics and "studious" social culture. No one who isn't a match for U of C would even dream of applying.
Brown's avg. SAT is roughly 1430.
Duke is 1470.
Penn is also 1430.
NU is 1440
WashU is 1460.</p>
<p>Does that explain it?</p>
<p>I'm glad that you feel you can discuss college rankings with authority by falling prey to perhaps the most fatal flaw in all of these ranking systems:</p>
<p>Input variables do not, and will never, measure outcomes.</p>
<p>We can also have the whole, the SATs are flawed discussion or the Brown devalues SATs compared to many peers and is more likely to take development cases or the Brown is a Division 1 NCAA school discussion as well if you'd like.</p>
<p>Wash U's manipulation of the USNWR rankings is well documented and a great example of the failures of these rankings to measure the quality of a university.</p>
<p>Umm let's run down your arguments, shall we?
1. If input doesn't yield output, then why have admissions at all? Hell, if schools can't say that high SATs and GPAs yield better students (and they can, that's statistically proven and not up for debate), then why not have a lottery? Better yet, let's use Hogwarts' Sorting Hat!
2. Brown devalues SATs?
A. Prove it.
B. Prove that other schools don't.
3. Brown is a D-1 school. Interesting, because I'm pretty sure Northwestern and Duke are, too. Riddle me this, how is it that Northwestern and Duke field entire football teams of students who, generally, are well below the median SATs? How is it that those schools have successful athletic departments in conferences vastly more competitive than the Ivy League?
4. Fine, let's take WashU out. You still are looking up at quite a few schools.</p>
<p>All of the things I wrote are well documented both on other sites and on this forum.</p>
<p>Brown's devaluation of the SAT relative to most universities is a long standing part of our reputation and is confirmed by our self-reported importance of standardized tests which many schools submitted. Being a D1 school is something that can potentially lower SAT. Our inability to give scholarships for athletics fundamentally changes our choice of athletes both in terms of athletic ability and academics. It doesn't mean they're any worse, but it does mean sometimes the kid with 20 more points on their SAT and 3" more on their shot put goes to another school for free instead of coming to Brown.</p>
<p>I really don't have the strength in me, however, to recount countless academic studies on the USNWR and it's problems and countless threads on this very site.</p>
<p>The point is, as long as a school attracts a freshman class which is of their own choosing, which Brown does quite well-- we have a very high yield and excellent cross-admit rates etc-- than all of this crap doesn't matter.</p>
<p>Go into a room at any of these schools and ask for a show of hands, who thinks the USNWR ranking has effected them for one moment since they've been on campus and you'll see no hands. There is a good reason for that.</p>