Brown's ranking

[Spawater]

I noticed that Brown is ranked quite ‘low’ compared to other Ivy League schools.
How come it is such a selective university? Just after it comes KU Leuven, a Belgian school that is barely selective.

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2014-15/world-ranking

[fenwaypark]

How come it is such a selective university?

Brown is a selective university for the same reason other universities are selective. There are significantly more extremely qualified applicants who want to study there than there are spaces available.

There is a thread on this, just four or so below yours. At last count, 98 posts. Upon perusal, if you still have some unanswered questions maybe you can post them there.

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/brown-university/1725236-brown-rankings-p1.html

[Spawater]

Well, my question then would be: why is it such a wanted school?
I’ll read through it.

[fenwaypark]

That is a big question, and the few snippets I will post here surely can not do the subject justice. I hope others will pick up my slack and that you will do research on your own…starting with the Brown website.

1. Quality of the student body. This is the major factor that distinguishes Brown in my opinion. The Office of Admission has done a wonderful job assembling a group of self-motivated, independent, scholarly, creative, athletic....and nice....students. OK, that gets to your question of why all these wonderful people apply to Brown. Here are some possible answers.
2. Quality of teaching and undergraduate focus.
3. Special characteristics, reputation, and programs in specific concentrations of interest
4. Open curriculum
5. Ivy League prestige
6. Post-graduate alumni networking opportunities
7. Social life
8. Collaborative (as opposed to "cut-throat") academic environment
9. Beauty of the campus
10. Feel of the surrounding neighborhood and the city of Providence down the hill.

Many of these attributes can be found at other schools as well. Nothing said here is intended to denigrate other schools or “rank” Brown in relation to its peers.

Again, this is only scratching the surface. As potential Brown material, you will surely extend your research on such an important matter beyond the natural limitations of a message board.

[uesmomof2]

Great undergraduate education. More flexibility in course selection than other Ivy League schools. Good location (if you want to be in the Northeast snowbelt). A relatively low key Greek scene that does not dominate campus life/many other options for social life.

[arwarw]

The rankings linked are interesting. The criteria is based 1/3 on teaching and learning environment, where I would have thought Brown would perform well, but Brown was scored poorly - 55.5/100.

The learning environment criteria is partially explained here:

We believe that institutions with a high density of research students are more knowledge-intensive and that the presence of an active postgraduate community is a marker of a research-led teaching environment valued by undergraduates and postgraduates alike.

As well as giving a sense of how committed an institution is to nurturing the next generation of academics, a high proportion of postgraduate research students also suggests the provision of teaching at the highest level that is thus attractive to graduates and effective at developing them.

So for comparison UCLA, a large public university, scored 82/100 for learning environment and
Dartmouth, an undegraduate-focused private College scored a paltry 38/100.

What kept Brown even in the mix, was their “Research Influence”

According to the ranking organization:

Citations: Research influence (30%)
Our research influence indicator is the flagship. Weighted at 30 per cent of the overall score, it is the single most influential of the 13 indicators, and looks at the role of universities in spreading new knowledge and ideas.

We examine research influence by capturing the number of times a university’s published work is cited by scholars globally.

Brown scored a 92/100 in this category.

[gonfaloniere]

This ranking system seems rather flawed.

[Spawater]

Why would it seem flawed?

[T26E4]

Sigh – your fixation on this “ranking” thing is like considering which UEFA team is the easiest to join. You’re seriously mistaken about how much these superfluous “rankings” even matter.

[arwarw]

Why would it seem flawed?

It seems Ok if you’re looking for universities ranked by International name recognition.

However, if you’re seeking American schools with the most enriching and intellectually challenging undergraduate experiences like, say, Williams, Harvey Mudd, Deep Springs, Reed, Swathmore etc… then this list is probably not so good.

I mean University of Florida is a great school and all, but most Americans would not rank it well above Dartmouth College.

[Spawater]

@T26E4 I wouldn’t dismiss a school because of its ranking, so no, they don’t matter that much.

[i_wanna_be_Brown]

pretty much every ranking system is flawed. @arwarw points out some obvious ones that exist in many (research output says little about the quality of undergraduate education at an institution)

[NapoleonInRags]

I’m assuming you’re referring to the US News rankings. Their metrics include a lot of stuff that frankly doesn’t dictate the quality of undergraduate education. That’s why Brown’s ranking is lower than one would expect.

[LoremIpsum]

It seems to me that the only objective ways to rank elite colleges are by the number of applicants and the acceptance rate. Each application is a crowd-sourced vote, the time and application fee tending to weed out the marginally interested.

Any editorially-designed ranking system is subject to author bias: pick whatever combination of attribute values will rank YOUR favorite schools near the top; if your method fails to place Harvard in the top 5, tweak your formula until it does, otherwise no one will take your list seriously. Make sure some famous school gets the shaft because the associated controversy will attract readers; on the Internet such articles are called click-bait.

[arwarw]

I just wanted to add that Brown is a leader in the recruitment of bright ‘first gen’ students, and this unfortunately works against them in the USNWR ranking game, because these students typically are not the groomed Ivy applicants who drive up standardized test score averages.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/education/edlife/first-generation-students-unite.html?_r=0

The proportion of freshmen at elite campuses who are first generation — 11 percent at Dartmouth, 12 percent at Princeton, 14 percent at Yale, 15 percent at Amherst, 16 percent at Cornell, 17 percent at Brown — nearly matches that of their low-income Pell grant recipients.

By contrast, Washington University in St. Louis only has 8% Pell recipients.

Admissions offices have made efforts to find these students. Data compiled for the 1vyG conference by Dr. Mortenson shows that from 2000 to 2013, Amherst, Harvard, Brown and Princeton doubled or almost doubled Pell recipients. Yale’s growth was modest, while Cornell numbers declined slightly.

The bright children of janitors and nail salon workers, bus drivers and fast-food cooks may not have grown up with the edifying vacations, museum excursions, daily doses of NPR and prep schools that groom Ivy applicants, but they are coveted candidates for elite campuses.

As the nation’s racial and ethnic makeup has grown more mixed and socioeconomically varied, “first gen” has become a way to identify and talk about class diversity. The incentive for top colleges is obvious: Leaders come from these schools’ ranks. It matters that campuses reflect the nation, said Rakesh Khurana, dean of Harvard College. “We see our obligation as preparing citizens and citizen leaders.”

[CaliCash]

You cannot dictate the quality of a school based on selectivity. Yale just built some extra undergraduate dorms so now, they can admit more students. Are they less impressive if they are able to accept more, extremely qualified students?

[bud123]

The students that get the short stick when it comes to top private U’s are the upper middle class. The bright children of a RN and police officer, or a social worker and a pharmacist, or a paramedic and a high school teacher, a paralegal and a manager. The bright students in this group can’t afford top privates U’s and don’t get enough aid to make it work. These students end up at their state flagship honors program. Most of the top privates are full of full pay and no pay students. T

As much as people don’t like the full pay students they are needed to make the numbers work. It’s not an accident most top privates have 40-50% full pay students. No margin…no mission. No full pay students=no need aid for first gen students. It’s cost shifting as occurs in health care. As costs go up, up, and away the loss of upper middle class bright students at top privates will continue. State flagships know this are target these excellent students for their honors programs.

[lostaccount]

Rankings do mean something Of course they do. But they don’t mean everything. They are certainly more reliable than Aunt Jenny’s opinion. You have to look at what factors are considered in the rankings and decide if those same factors are important to you. Also look for convergence of evidence. If different ranking schemes always result in certain schools coming up on top, that should tell you something. Even so, read about what factors are included and how they are weighed. I don’t buy the notion that they are not important but they are only helpful if they include variables the student thinks are important and if they weight those variables in a way consistent with the student’s values.