I don’t really think it does. I think taking the average over many years is more meaningful than taking one specific year’s ranking. While a college might move up and down in a single year, there is a clear trend over many years when you take the average, and looking at averages, tells us that it is very very difficult to game the USNews ranking effectively to make huge gains in the ranking and it gets even more difficult once you get into the top 20.
@sbballer “Stanford has a highly ranked arts and humanities program and recently ranked number 1 along with MIT (lols…cue the howls from the gallery:)) by Higher times…”
Times Higher Education is a joke. Two of the four or five criteria they use are research and citation. They treat humanities and arts like STEM. It is well known that the main scholarship form in humanities and arts are monographs, books, and performance. Journals that track citations are therefore much limited in humanities and arts relative to STEM. Now let us imagine the world in which arts scholars do not make arts because their performances/exhibits would not count!
I think it is quite logical in the world of STEM, Stanford and MIT are the greatest not just in STEM, but also in humanities and arts. Congratulations!
Times Higher Education is a joke. Very true… Purely waster time and trees.
A 5 way tie at #56, 6 way at #61, 6 way tie at #69, 7 way at #103 etc. The ties in the #50 - #150 ranked schools are ridiculous. If there is not that much difference at that level, enough to make a flat out 1 place, one school ranking, I can only imagine that the measurable difference in rankings at the #1 - 50 range is miniscule. The fact that USNWR is unable or unwilling to differentiate speaks volumes about the whole process. It is like the everyone gets a trophy phenomenon. @Sbballer may well have hit the nail on the head.
lols… cue the gallery. they use objective criteria…
btw what does alumni giving have to do with undergraduate education?
what is behind the use of a USNWR “logarithmic qualifier” except to game results?
“btw what does alumni giving have to do with undergraduate education?”
It could be a measure of financial success maybe?
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btw what does alumni giving have to do with undergraduate education?
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It’s in part a measure of customer satisfaction ie; grads having great experiences with their school and expressing gratitude. Also a measure of active and engaged alumni and a strong alumni network
fund raising is a better one.
Alumni giving is an indirect measure of student “satisfaction”
Logarithmic qualifier puts a limit on scores. If they didn’t put it in place, rich, high enrollment schools would dominate the rankings (even more than they do today)
or it’s more an indication of wealthy alumni and effective marketing rather than “consumer satisfaction”
it’s a very dubious metric imo
all pointing to the fact that USNWR games its results. remove the logarithmic qualifier and you get Caltech.
Everything is a dubious metric except the metrics that favor my favorite school. And US News games its results because the formula seems nefarious to me.
Same thing every year.
There is NO possible way to precisely rank colleges in a quantitative manner. There is no way to compare what Yale does to what CalTech does to what Amherst does in any precisely measurable way. The whole thing is an empty exercise. Why get so wound up in it?
I think it is reasonable to say that there are general ranks of colleges. Let’s say (if you like), the top ten, then maybe the next ten, then maybe the next 10 or 15. Then the next 25 or something. Hell, do it however you want.
Just don’t pretend that you can quantify it to determine that Yale is 1.2 rankling points better than Columbia, and Columbia is 2.1 ranking points better than UPenn, and UPenn is 2.8 ranking points better than Northwestern, etc. That is a total waste of time. All of these attempts to precisely rank colleges according to a formula is stupid, and all you are doing is adding to the stupidity by tweaking the stupid formula.
It’s an undergrad ranking, not a grad/PhD ranking. Giving grad and PhD program rankings influence in this undergrad ranking would be ridiculous. Stanford, Harvard and MIT might have Princeton beaten at overall grad program breadth and output, but that is not the case at the undergrad level, at least according to the USNews formula.
One potential reason is that the top profs at Princeton (and other schools with a relatively low grad population) spend more time with undergrads, since there are fewer grad students and research projects with which to split their time. More face time with profs is probably a pretty good thing for most students. Maybe that is behind the alumni giving – a measure of satisfaction and capacity to donate – and maybe it is reflected in other variables of the ranking.
so when Chicago is accused of gaming the system… the biggest offenders of gaming are in fact USNWR which is my point exactly
USC #44 in 1996. T21 and 23. That’s big. +21
And then you’ve got NEU – 162 in 1996.
I guess both my kids are at the highest climbers! I got one at USC and one at NEU.
"While a college might move up and down in a single year, there is a clear trend over many years when you take the average, and looking at averages, tells us that it is very very difficult to game the USNews ranking effectively to make huge gains in the ranking and it gets even more difficult once you get into the top 20. "
So why not just compare the current trailing 3 or 5 year average to the same average from 10/20/30 years ago? That’s how you’d typically smooth out the peaks/valleys.
Comparing the average of the past five years to the average of the past 35 years (which then double counts the past five years) doesn’t make much sense to me. It misses and/or minimizes some pretty obvious, large and continuing trends. In particular, you completely lose visibility on schools that both go up and go down (i.e. Chicago) over long periods of time.
“I wonder how CC decides which colleges to put under those [Top] links. Anyone know?”
I’ve been a CC moderator for about six years, and I have no idea how the lists were made, and I don’t remember any changes to them in the 11 years I’ve been a member. I suggest not taking the CC Top lists too seriously.
“How can Verygood College be in the CC Top list but Evenbetter University isn’t?” 
Just an FYI - Northeastern s got it’s biggest boost in rankings when the grad rate metric at USNews was changed from 4 yr to 6 yr… Which is a completely fair metric for a school where the curriculum is based on a 5 year program (because of Co-op).
I find the “tie” numbering comical. If 3 schools are tied at 18, then the next school becomes #21, and out of top 20. The 3 schools have exact numbers and the next school may be off by a hair, but behind 18 by 3 rankings!
@suzyQ7 Yeh, that’s the way a lot if not most rankings work. My girls did a lot of gymnastics, and that’s how they rank all-arounds and each of the events.
CC’s top college list is the same as the USNWR top 30 or so, except for USC, Tufts, Wake and BC.