<p>Surprised that no one has posted a thread about this already (maybe they have and I need to get my eyes checked). US News released their 2014 rankings a short while ago (was supposed to come out tomorrow morning) Well, 'SC was ranked #23 this year, a spot ahead from last year. </p>
<p>National</a> University Rankings | Top National Universities | US News Best Colleges</p>
<p>I checked at a little before 9pm Pacific Time (i.e. midnight East Coast Time) and they were up. Yes, we’re #23 tied with a couple other schools. What you’re neglecting to mention in saying that we’re up one spot from last year is that we were #23 2 years ago. So we were 23 then 24 and now 23. I think the thing that’s frustrating is that the school had been on a meteoric rise which has stalled somewhat now. The school needs to keep growing and improving and while it gets harder the higher you climb, I think we all still want the university to keep growing and expanding. As has been said countless times by countless people on this board, USC easily has the most potential of any school in the country to climb and become truly, truly great.</p>
<p>How come nobody’s updated Wikipedia yet?</p>
<p>The Marshall School of Business has areas of study. There was an upward trend in these.</p>
<p>Entrepreneurship #2</p>
<p>International Business #3</p>
<p>Accounting #4</p>
<p>Real Estate #5</p>
<p>Marketing #10</p>
<p>Management #12</p>
<p>Finance #19</p>
<p>USCAlum05,</p>
<p>Keep in mind there are few areas U.S. News ranks. SC has some of the most selective art schools in the world. These are not ranked by U.S. News. The university has been adding more top notch professors each semester. New buildings are all over campus. A school of dance will open in the spring which will be another superb cultural addition. The libraries continue to gain valuable collections and rare documents… Major landscaping projects are taking place on the medical campus and also at University Park. The financial aid budget has increased. </p>
<p>The applicant pool has risen to over 47,000+. Scores and grades of incoming students have risen. The number of students receiving top international fellowships rises each year.
International Arts Fellowships and the World Bachelor of Business have caught the attention of students across Europe and the Pacific Rim.</p>
<p>The student faculty ratio for such a large university is excellent at 1/9. There are no impacted majors. Students have huge choices of study abroad programs. Freshmen dorms now all have a faculty “master” following the Oxford plan. There are now more dining choices on campus than ever before. </p>
<p>The Festival of Books and the Piatigorsky International Cello Festival (Not held yearly) have added even more cultural events on the campus. Over 600 clubs and 80 religious organizations offer after class choices.</p>
<p>Plans are already made for more buildings, labs and the major addition of University Village. I just do not see SC as being “stalled” as it continue to move forward.</p>
<p>When SC was founded there was no enormous endowment to launch the university. It has had to grow along with the city that surrounds the campus. The success of the Campaign for USC will add to the academic standing and continued improvement of the entire university.</p>
<p>In order for SC to move up, someone else has to move down. Looking at the list it’s hard to find any ‘weaklings’. Who’s ‘lousy’? Vandy? WashU? Emory? The Ivies, Stanford, CalTech, MIT, Duke & Chicago aren’t going anywhere, so you’re talking about being 14th. From here on out that’s about as useful as rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.</p>
<p>I know - it’s an epic tragedy that SC is tied with that vocational school in Westwood and one slot behind UCB. The reality is that SC is one of the ‘big boys’; most students would give a limb to be at any of the schools in the top 25. It’s hard to see the value of getting worked up about being ‘one better’ or ‘one worse’ than last year.</p>
<p>It’s understandably much harder taking down top25
schools to keep moving up,<br>
vs taking down top25-50s schools in the last 20 years…</p>
<p>If SC keeps improving academic research and faculty,
can keep in Top25 spot for long term, even if stalling at current
20s, is already quite positive. At least the haters won’t get more chance to start bashing again that U$C manipulated (i.e. cheat on!) whatever numbers to skyrocket up before, if once SC falls back any out of 25 in the future…</p>
<p>I think SC could take Emory</p>
<p>@langunal</p>
<p>Im sorry but why? </p>
<p>Emory and USC are both fantastic schools so ranking them in number is meaningless. Plus, Emory has never dropped out of top 20 in USNEWS, so if you really want to argue, Emory deserves to be in top 20 more than USC (Im not criticizing USC here)</p>
<p>Selectivity wise, Berkeley, Gtown, Emory, USC, UCLA and more have similar statistics for admission. One who got into USC would not get into Emory automatically and one who got into Emory would not get into USC automatically.</p>
<p>USNews favors privates which is why it’s at 23. Every other ranking has it pretty low compared to the top UCs.</p>
<p>USNews is by far the most accurate. These “other” rankings put colleges that you’ve never heard of ahead of USC and other top schools.</p>
<p>Lets just take Forbes 2013 ([America’s</a> Top Colleges List - Forbes](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/top-colleges/list/]America’s”>Forbes America’s Top Colleges List 2022)) as an example. It lists John Hopkins at 46 and USC at 63. Schools ahead of those two include Carleton College, Colgate U, and Bryn Mawr College.</p>
<p>Really?</p>
<p>@akbaby21</p>
<p>Wait… Carleton College, Colgate U, and Bryn Mawr College are great schools. USNews ranks them separately from the big Us while Forbes puts them in the same list, which is debatable. But still, school like Carleton is ranked 7th by USNews.</p>
<p>Agree as everyone knows USNews methodology is biased on private schools.
At least SC is currently still higher than privates of Tufts(#28),
BostonC(#31), NYU(#32), Rochester(#32), BostonU(#41), Syracuse(#62), etc.</p>
<p>But then funny none of above $private schools(or even any in Top100…),
though all ranked lower than SC, have
such perennial household names of Spoiled Children and Second Choice, thanks
to a too-storied SC football team that always much eclipse any
academic side of school?</p>
<p>Check this ARWU link on worldwide rankings:</p>
<p><a href=“Academic Ranking of World Universities - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_Ranking_of_World_Universities</a></p>
<p>ARWU is a ranking that often is cited by many prestigious universities. Like the US News rankings, there are criticisms of rankings. The criticism of the ARWU ranking is that it is a little more focused on research and the natural sciences. For 2013, USC is ranked #47 worldwide, which is good for world ranking. UCI and UCD are ranked similarly. At least this ranking does not have US schools, you have never heard of, ahead of USC. I use both the ARWU and the US News rankings together.</p>
<p>ARWU weights research and much of this is completed at the graduate level. This will favor the large state universities because of their numbers. The USNWR places weight on reputation and wealth and favors the privates. However, it is worth noting that many state universities are abandoning their original mission and chasing revenue and rankings and behaving more like privates.<br>
Two areas that will hold USC out of the top 20. First only 39% of its students come from the US outside of CA. If you want to be a national university and increase name recognition & prestige you need 60-75% of your students from out of state. To much of the mid-west, south, and east USC is a public U with top business, fine art and football programs (yes, I know it’s private). Instead USC is moving and growing more with international students which will help its reputation abroad but not with US educations and high school guidance teachers (22% of the methodology for the USNWR rank).
Nex,t the top 20’s aren’t going anywhere. Maybe Emory is vulnerable but NDU, Rice, Vanderbilt, WASH.SL are all hot universities and Brown and Cornell will not drop out of the top 20 as long as they are in the Ivy League.</p>
<p>^ I think you have your numbers flipped…39% of students come from CA. The other 61% are a combination of out of state & international.</p>
<p>Edit</p>
<p>Oh I see what you mean. I think international students enhance the vibrancy of the student body, though, with different cultural perspectives. Personally, I value that more than reputation.</p>
<p>For US schools in the ARWU ranking, there are quite a few private universities ranked ahead of USC. They are generally the Ivies, John Hopkins, Northwestern, Univ. of Chicago, MIT, Cal Tech, Stanford, Wsshington Univ. in StL., and NYU. Possibly, except for maybe NYU, these are all the most elite and prestigious universities in the world, Ranked behind USC are Vanderbilt, Rice, Emory and Carnegie Mellon, all excellent universities. In my opinion and that of many in the academic world, in order for USC to get into the top 10 to 20, see my discussions in the “Haden for USC president” posting. In that posting, the main points I mentioned were Nobel Prize Laureates, USC PhDs, the natural sciences, other liberal arts programs and to many people, USC’s image as a football school.</p>
<p>Yes, I agree with @UCBUSCalum. Right now USC is seen as a party school and a huge football program with up and coming academic programs. In order for USC to move up in the rankings, it needs to lose its football program, Greek life (most of it but not necessarily all of it), and the alcohol. Picking it up and moving it out of center LA would also be nice (jk). Then they need to focus on academics. However, if USC did this, then it wouldn’t be USC anymore.</p>
<p>USC without football is like a day without sunshine. Rankings shmankings, you can get a great education, degree and connections and a great future from USC just the way it is. So you move up a few spots, what does that do, really?Why strive to be like somebody else and something you are not? An all academic focus at any school - ah what a boring life that would be. Robot world is not one I want my students to be part of. Well rounded, yes, which I think USC excels at. Of course they can raise things, any school can, but I would not want that at the expense of who they are.</p>
<p>USC isn’t going much higher than where they are now. Those top 20 schools (esp the top 10) haven’t changed since I went to college 30 yrs ago. Minor shuffling of spots, but not many new schools are going to break the top 20, and none will break the top 10. That said, USC has done an amazing job to get where they are now from 20-30 yrs ago. The big question as it relates to rankings of some of these schools that have vaulted 20-50 spots over the past couple of decades is whether or not the education has actually gotten better, or have they gamed the rankings system? The big benefit of USC is its alumni network, which was helping Trojans succeed in life long before they were a top-ranked school. There are many facets to the value of a college education, and a high ranking does not necessarily make for a good education, or success in life.</p>