<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>
<p>I completely agree with you Modest. Once you're in college, rankings don't matter and don't affect your happiness.</p>
<p>But paranoid high school kids who are pressured by their rank obsessed parents to attend top ranked schools will notice Brown's drop in rank and will think twice about applying. </p>
<p>Now, in the long run, this won't have any significant effect on Brown and it will surely continue to have no trouble finding students it would love to have part of its freshman class. </p>
<p>So although it's nothing to get worked up over, it's a phenomena that may occur.</p>
<p>Dragonreborn, I will tell you that brown is very well known, in Texas before college admission i knew about brown, whereas I did not even know what Dartmouth was when they referenced it in jarhead. so dont feel bad, plenty of ppl know about Brown.</p>
<p>I didn't say that USNWR wasn't flawed. I simply was responding to someone who equivocated acceptance rates with selectivity and used that to express anger/frustation/confusion over why Brown is not ranked higher. </p>
<p>There is no debate over higher SATs and GPAs yielding better college performance. I'm sorry, this is not an issue you can win. Yes, there are exceptions, but it is preposterous to think that a single university (in this case: Brown) is at all capable of identifying all of the exceptions and bringing them to that university.</p>
<p>I'm not sure you're getting it: not giving out scholarships boosts your SATs. It means that you are not expected to compete against athletic powerhouses. If you can't land the all-state quarterback with the 1200 SAT because you can't give him a full ride, he won't hurt your average SAT. Whereas Northwestern and Duke compete athletically, they routinely give scholarships to students with below-average SATs (find me more than 5 big 10/ACC caliber football players with 1400+ SATs) and the averages suffer because of it.</p>
<p>If we want to start polling, then poll the right people. USNWR is not about student happiness. If you notice, there is no part of the equation that asks, or even measures, student satisfaction. What you should do is go into a high school and ask every student who has let USNWR affect any aspect of their college application process</p>
<p>I'm not going to debate that Brown says it looks at "soft factors". Can you find me a school that doesn't? Please, I'm extremely interested in any school in the top 100 that says "Minorities, recs, and extra-curriculars are really cool, but we're in it for the SAT/ACT scores"</p>
<p>Take that as a really, really crappy article that still manages to point out huge flaws in the formula.</p>
<p>Honestly, most top students are not so occupied with rankings. I've been encouraged that most I speak to are only somewhat aware of how that works. I've been equally discouraged at how many assume Brown is the **** because it's in the Ivy League. USNWR hasn't quite hit the point that a lot of people say it has amongst top students who easily recognize the flaws of such a system.</p>
<p>I'm not going to debate that Brown says it looks at "soft factors". Can you find me a school that doesn't? Please, I'm extremely interested in any school in the top 100 that says "Minorities, recs, and extra-curriculars are really cool, but we're in it for the SAT/ACT scores"</p>
<p>Yes, all top schools factor in ECs, personal qualities, etc but Brown does so more so than a lot of other comparable schools. One such example is Dartmouth, which from anecdotal and statistical evidence is much, much more numbers based than Brown.
For an example of anecdotal evidence, my high school's senior valedictorian two years ago was rejected at Yale, Princeton, and Brown and wait listed at Harvard, but got into Dartmouth. From what I know about his profile, he had good "hard data", but lacked in the subjective department (he told me he wrote all of his essays over Christmas break), etc.</p>
<p>Anecdotal evidence: delegitimizing arguments since 2500 BC.</p>
<p>This is pointless. No one can actually prove how important hard data is. My point is that we can't, so let's pussyfoot around and pretend that school X is more moral and just than school Y.</p>
<p>Melody, I'm going to explain this as clearly and simply as this text box will allow: I. NEVER. SAID. THAT. USNWR. IS. FAIR.</p>
<p>I did say that Brown supporters need to understand that selectivity is not necessarily the same as acceptance rate. I also said that kids with high SATs and GPAs, on the whole, do better in college.</p>
<p>So let's do this: you guys talk about how tragic it is that poor Brown is being abused by the evil tyrants and USNWR. I'll hop back over to the Northwestern group, douse my fellow Wildcats in champagne, and celebrate.</p>
<p>I don't think Brown is being abused. I think anyone who puts any weight on these rankings is getting hosed by a ****ty magazine that used to be relevant.</p>
<p>Also, high SATs and GPAs as indicator for "success" in college assumes that there is a way to accurately measure "success" in college. I have a major problem with that concept as well.</p>
<p>But, I'm an education geek who's very involved in examining these issues and you're just someone who's happy to leap frog a few spots by a set of measures that have no bearing on how an undergraduate experience will or will not transform you intellectually and socially from start to finish.</p>
<p>u.s. news actually published a second ranking this year based on high school guidance counselor perceptions of the top schools. arguably this is a more valuable measure of worth since it focuses on educationaly quality and prestige rather than research capacity.</p>
<p>
[quote]
U'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.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It seems to me like you made every possible excuse for these schools, but failed to give the same benefit to Brown. In my oppinion, Brown is misunderstood in these rankings. It has a very talented student body, great academics across the spectrum, a lot of success in employment/grad school admissions and is a place that its students love. I don't think there is any question that Brown is more prestigious than Wash U, Northwestern and Hopkins, who are all ranked above it. I will say though, with the exception of Brown and Georgetown these rankings are fairly realistic. I do not think they are awful or a travesty, like many people here do. Since they offer a pretty accurate and satisfactory ranking model (best there is) to determine which colleges are where. A lot, let me say that again, a lot of people use them and its helpful in identifying schools to apply too and deciding where to attend. Is it the end all be all, no? Yet, they are fairly accurate (yes, fairly) and impact the prestige of certain schools. Brown has always been very prestigous, that won't change. Yet, for Wash U, Duke, Northwestern and Hopkins, I would say that there consistent high rankings have been very very important in their rise in prestige. A rise in prestige, can lead to better applicants, better student bodies, better academics...ect. It feeds off each other, and USNWR plays some part in it.</p>
<p>Kind of curious, those who reject US News ranking of Brown seem to believe there is a more accurate way of ranking the education that it provides. On what basis are you claiming it should be ranked higher? Membership in the Ivy League? Prestige among guidance counselors? Are you serious? U.S. News may be flawed but citing factors such as perceived prestige etc. is absurd. What does that have to do with the actual quality of a school Frankly, the uproar over Brown's ranking and the bashing of those schools that surpass it makes me question what motivates some of the posters on this thread.</p>
<p>"Brown's avg. SAT is roughly 1430.
Duke is 1470.
Penn is also 1430.
NU is 1440
WashU is 1460."</p>
<p>And: "There is no debate over higher SATs and GPAs yielding better college performance."</p>
<p>Cerebral Assassin: Are you suggesting that Brown is an inferior school because of the SAT ranges you posted? </p>
<p>A difference in average SAT scores of 40 points (or 20 points per individual test) means practically nothing. The caliber of intellectual discussion and academic research is not going to differ significantly because of a 40 point difference. Do you really think a student with a 730/730 is that much smarter than one with a 710/710.</p>
<p>The acceptance rate will probably increase, but not the caliber of students. Anyone with the brains of an Ivy League student isn't supid enough to not apply to a great school simply due to arbitrary rankings. The only people who'll be detered by the ranking are those who don't know what the hell they're doing and just want to apply to what they consider 'the best' schools so as to seem intelligent.</p>
<p>Rollins, actually, I'm generally against any ranking of school because I don't think you an measure the quality of education at a school objectively and accurately. I don't think we have the appropriate assessment tools in place to do that and I think that many universities would be, probably correctly, adverse to any sort of universal assessment tool used to compare student learning outcomes after 4 years.</p>
<p>The truth is, the college experience is far too personal and individually driven to be able to use numbers to sum up the worth of one place versus another. It's bad enough USNWR uses largely input factors that have very little bearing on what goes on within a university (and prestige is a huge factor, hence the "peer rating" or whatever that's called where university administrators rank other schools), but to think that if you go down the list of their factors that you assume that these factors have any real meaning...</p>
<p>Modestmelody, in a way we agree. I was really responding to Bescraze (post 31) The post rejects the US News ranking of Brown and in the same post claims that Brown is more prestigious than more highly rated schools such as Wash U., NU and Hopkins. Doesn't make a lot of sense to reject U.S. News and then turn around and post your own personal ranking of schools as if it is based on fact or more legitimate or objective factors. If you are going to rank I would trust U.S. News more than personal opinions concerning prestige. In short, I agree with your comments that the rankings are kind of meaningless, but if that is the case, I don't see any argument for a claim that Brown is somehow better than higher ranked schools.</p>
<p>FWIW, I think that most people should be looking at the LAC list if they want the best undergraduate education. USNWR almost reinforces the tendency not to do that which is another huge complaint of mine.</p>
<p>"I don't see any argument for a claim that Brown is somehow better than higher ranked schools."</p>
<p>How about the simple fact the some of the schools ranked higher are schools which cater to USNEWS. That's an instant negative that Brown doesn't have.</p>
<p>Well there you are. Another example. I agree with Modestmelody's sentiments. However, if you really are hung up about school rankings, you can either look at U.S. News or choose to rely on unsubstantiated bombast like post #38. The choice is yours. If your ego really needs to have someone assure you that your school is superior to others you can just say that it is and believe it. Everyone wins.</p>