alternate college rankings

College Search & Selection
1

<p>We've all kind of accepted the US News and world report rankings as dogma when it comes to which colleges are best, but a way to do it that takes about five minutes and gives results very comparable to the USNWR with their exhaustive methods is just to take 1-((acceptance)(1-yield)). the highest score anyone can get is a 1, which makes for easy comparisons, and the list itself is comparable to the us news and world report list in a pinch. There are some head scratchers (BYU at 24 thanks to its monstrous yield), but who is REALLY to say that Penn is absolutely without a doubt 6th instead of 7th. anyways, it's interesting. the 1st number to the right of the college name is its score, 2nd is usnwr ranking, and third is the difference between the two.</p>

<p>1.Harvard .98068 1 0
2.Yale .9693 3 1
3.Stanford .96910 4 1
4.Princeton .96702 2 2
5.MIT .96125 5 0
6.Columbia .95654 8 2
7.Penn .9456 6 1
8.Brown .9384 16 8
9.Dartmouth .92656 11 2
10.Cal Tech .89522 7 3
11.Notre Dame .8922 18 7
12.Georgetown .88976 23 11
13.Washington and Lee .88582 12 1
14.Duke .8666 9 5
15.Cornell .88658 14 1
16.Berkeley .86253 21 5
17.UCLA .85368 25 8
18.UNC .8460 30 12
19.Johns Hopkins .83962 15 4
20.USC .83555 27 7
21.UVA: .832 24 3
22.Rice .83183 17 5
23.Northwestern .82312 13 10
24.BYU: .8298 113 89
25.Nebraska .8202 89 64
26.Tufts .81575 28 2
27.Emory .8096 19 8
28.Boston College .80617 34 6
29.Vanderbilt: .802 20 9
30.William and Mary: .7858 32 2
31.Carnegie Mellon .7844 22 9
32.Chicago: .776 10 22
33.Lehigh: .776 35 2
34.NYU: .7743 33 1
35.Pepperdine: .7655 56 21
36.Texas: .7654 47 11
37.Yeshiva: .7585 50 13
38.Brandeis: .7518 31 7
39.George Washington: .741 53 14
40.Wake Forest: .7354 29 11
41.UGA: .7354 58 17
42.University of Miami: .7226 51 9
43.Michigan: .715 26 17
44.Maryland: .7039 54 10
45.Northeastern: .7036 96 51
46.SUNY- Binghamton: .7036 77 31
47.FSU: .703 104 57
48.Ohio State: .6991 57 9
49.Clemson: .695 62 13
50.NC State: .694 87 37</p>

2

<p>Oh sure. Michigan is below the University of Miami. Real realistic ranking scale, only down about 20 spots. LOL.</p>

3

<p>So you’ve produced a list which uses two factors that are considered important by USNWR and you’re surprised it comes out similar to USNWR with some differences?</p>

<p>If this were alternative, I’d imagine it would use some kind of new metric, or at least have a more thorough explanation as to why particular metrics were used at a certain proportion as opposed to sticking with the current formula.</p>

4

<p>The interesting thing is that it has the potential to merge the University and LAC rankings into a single list. It appears that the OP has done this since W&L is at #13, but is it true that they’re the only LAC hat cracks the top 50? Not Williams, Amherst or Swarthmore?</p>

5

<p>^ Saw the same thing, thought that maybe the OP meant WUSTL?</p>

6

<p>These numbers don’t seem right. Can someone post the yield and acceptance numbers for Harvard (or any other example) so we can see how this works?</p>

7

<p>Good rankings IMO</p>

8

<p>kolyyu22</p>

<p>If you can incorporate the PA scores into your formula, the results would be more realistic.</p>

<p>If you’ll do so, Michigan will rise in the ranking. Brown will fall and probably be out of the top 10 where it should have been. HYPSM would firmly stay as the top 5 in the nation.</p>

9

<p>to all: </p>

<p>while there are numerous flaws with this, some of which have been pointed out (wash u of st louis, for example, is correct, not wash and lee) it was still a decent way to spend 10 minutes. a link to all stats concerning acceptance vs yield rates can be found here:</p>

<p>[Most</a> Popular Colleges: National Universities - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2009/01/26/most-popular-colleges-national-universities.html]Most”>http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2009/01/26/most-popular-colleges-national-universities.html)</p>