<br>
<br>
<p>Doesn’t bother me that Caltech is number 1. It just proves the point that if you select and weight the ranking criteria to heavily reward research you can make a research boutique come out on top. Big deal.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Right. It’s another lever you pull to get the result you are looking for. If you want Harvard on top, measure the top 10%. If you want Caltech on to win heap all kinds of weight on research.</p>
<p>Purdue is #98, not bad but there are a few colleges above #98 that make me wonder…</p>
<p>There would be 1 Nobel Prize winner for every 1400 graduates from Caltech. And that’s amazing.</p>
<p>I saw something like that somewhere.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Interesting, why do you assume that the school that has been the perennial leader in selectivity would have a problem in doing well in a “higher ranking basis?” </p>
<p>Here are a few items for you to consider, and perhaps revisit your statement! </p>
<ol>
<li>A large number of schools do not report rankings. Most of those schools are the most competitive and selective in the country. How does the 11th percentile of Exeter compare to a 1% at Bubba High School?<br></li>
<li>The numbers reported for class ranks are usually guesstimates. See the above why.</li>
<li>The numbers reported for class ranks are often fantastic. Fantastic as in … made up!</li>
<li>There are plenty of schools whose population is almost entirely URM. Why do you assume that URM have problems in being in the top 1%. With 30,000 high schools in the country, you have a large number of high ranked students and valedictorians.</li>
<li>Why do you assume that athletes are necessarily poorly ranked? Ever heard of a valedictorian who is also MVP in three varsity sports? I do and plenty of them. Are all high level athletes dumb jocks? Tune in for Stanford Colorado tomorrow and see Andre Luck play. Listen about his future trophies and NFL career. And then check his background in Houston. Want closer to “home?” Check SoozieVT’s posts about her (skiing) daughter!</li>
<li>Why do you assume that internationals are necessarily poorly ranked? Isn’t “la creme de la creme” of applicants who applies (and gets admitted) to Harvard? Aren’t some countries even restricted the applications to their true superstars? Is there ANY school in the world that could compete with H on name recognition, and that ever-so important prestige?</li>
</ol>
<p>A hand out given at a recent college night at DS HS…academic place…kids to ‘good’ colleges…</p>
<p>Resources they do not recommend when choosing a college:</p>
<p>USNWR : “While some of the data gather is useful, the rankings themselves are deeply flawed. Year after year we are dismayed that parents of HS students use this info as a sorting tool for the college search process when rankings have little to do with the UG experience.”</p>
<p>CC : “Many contributors are well intentioned, but very few are active professionals and thus much of the advice is counter-productive and creates unsubstantiated gossip.”</p>
<p>**************/CollegeDirt/JuicyCampus .com…“All are on the ‘not recommended’ list for sexist language, shady past practice and shockingly poor editing”</p>
<p>Guess they have to add a ranking to the ‘not recommended’ list. </p>
<p>And yes, I see the irony in being on the ‘not recommended site’ contributing to the gossip ;)</p>
<p>I’d like to see the list of resources they DO recommend when choosing a college!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>For the ranking index of how many students are in the top 10% of their school, Caltech beats Harvard by 5-7%. I haven’t looked at it lately, but Harvard was at about 91% and Caltech like 97%. I assume that this gap would get wider if you were using the top 5% or top 2% as the cut-off. </p>
<p>Harvard is very selective, but academic ability is not always the first priority. Also, the stats of people who apply to Caltech are undoubtedly much higher than Harvard (i.e., self-selectivity,) due to the fact that everyone knows about Harvard (and are willing to apply) while only top students tend to have heard of Caltech.</p>
<p>“When Harvard was ranked #1, it was all ok. It was ok to have Caltech and other smaller, your so-called niche schools, ranked at a spot somewhat lower. But they can not take the #1 spot? They can not be ranked higher than Harvard or whatever school ?”
OP here
Caltech was number two in the 2010–2011 ranking.<br>
I find it ironic and funny that when Harvard was # 1 and CT #2 last year in this very same survey, there was nary a peep from anyone re "how could CT be considered #2? they dont have this or that or they are a STEM school only or bla, bla , bla…
there was also nary a peep from CT backers about the #2 position last year.
But move them up 1 notch, and all hell breaks loose!! Too funny!!</p>
<p>“Doesn’t bother me that Caltech is number 1. It just proves the point that if you select and weight the ranking criteria to heavily reward research you can make a research boutique come out on top. Big deal.”</p>
<p>the ranking criteria was not changed one bit from last year.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Is that a sequitur to what I wrote about Harvard having problems “doing well?” And, again, the numbers you are comparing are highly questionable. All you have to know is that Columbia reports 98 percent to understand that!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes, they are every bit as irrelevant and misleading as last year! :)</p>
<p>Xiggi: Resources which were recommended when choosing a college:</p>
<p>Books:
College Admissions : Mamlet and VanDeVelde
How to be a High School Superstar : Cal Newport
Less Stress, More Success : Jones and Ginsberg
Colleges that Change Lives : Loren Pope
The Hidden Ivies and the Public Ivies : Greene and Greene
Admission Matters : Springer, Reider and Franck</p>
<p>Links:
[Steps</a> to College Newsletter](<a href=“http://www.nacacnet.org/PublicationsResources/steps/Pages/default.aspx]Steps”>http://www.nacacnet.org/PublicationsResources/steps/Pages/default.aspx)
[Plan</a> for College - Study Skills - High School Action Plans](<a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>Home – BigFuture | College Board)
[Harvard</a> College Admissions § Applying: Preparing for College](<a href=“http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/apply/preparing/index.html]Harvard”>http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/apply/preparing/index.html)
[College</a> Admissions Advice - The Choice Blog - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/]College”>http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/)
[CSUMentor</a> - Financial Aid - SLOPE Calculator](<a href=“Cal State Apply | CSU”>Cal State Apply | CSU)</p>
<p>Well, if Harvard is no longer #1 and neutrinos have surpassed the speed of light…the end of times must be hear :eek:</p>
<p>menloparkmom -That was the first question I asked too!</p>
<p>Dietz - I am curious as well. What does your DS’s HS recommend as good sources? </p>
<p>Collegealum - I kind of share Xiggi’s skepticism about highschool rankings. Example from a very competitive local public high school - The ranking is based on weighted GPA where all classes with specific designation of honors, preap, advanced etc carry an extra point to take the weight from 4 to 5. However, there are some required classes with a 4.0 weight that could be taken before the kids enter high school or classes that are interesting like orchestra, band, yearbook etc. that only have 4.0 weight. So the goal of most students in high school is to take weighted classes and ignore everything else. So one extra 4.0 class drops a student by about 1% in rankings, 2 classes about 3% in rankings. Someone really interested in band or orchestra and taking 2 years of it is automatically dropped from top 1% to top 4-5%. Shouldn’t high school kids be enjoying what they love while competing for their ranks?</p>
<p>And how many angels can dance on the point of a needle? Who cares? Harvard and Cal Tech are awesome schools filled with geniuses, as are Harvey Mudd and Pomona and lots of others. Do well at any of them and a student is likely to be quite successful, unless they choose - shudder - to be an English major.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well, you can’t criticize them for the above choices. The Mamlet book is very recent and Sally Springer’s has remained one the best in the genre. </p>
<p>Some might be surprised by the Jones and Ginsberg. Yes, that is the one and only Marilee Jones.</p>
<p>And to pile on to xiggi’s post #84, my legacy son was in the top 1% of his class. (Though xiggi might define it as Bubba High School.) Most legacies have stats in the same range as the rest of the class.</p>
<p>I find this ranking no better and no worse than any of the others.</p>
<p>An even greater accomplishment for Caltech was to win its first conference basketball game in 26 years. If I was a Caltech Beaver, I would be much prouder of this than its number 1 ranking.</p>
<p>“When Harvard was ranked #1, it was all ok. It was ok to have Caltech and other smaller, your so-called niche schools, ranked at a spot somewhat lower. But they can not take the #1 spot? They can not be ranked higher than Harvard?”</p>
<p>What do I care if Harvard is rated 1,2,5,10 or 20? We’re commenting on niche schools.</p>
<p>Why would you rank a school based on the number of top 1% (or 10%) students who attend? Shouldn’t they be ranked upon what the school does to improve them when they come out? what the “value-added” is? I doubt many of the schools we are talking about could crack the top 20, and some maybe not even the top 50.</p>
<p>
Of course what you say is what they are supposed to do, in an ideal world. But then in the post Lehman Brothers world, we no longer take those words on the face value. People now know that they are more problems than solutions. That Bernie Madoff and Lehman Brothers kind problems. So, ask</p>
<p>**Are HYPS+Wharton too big to fail?? ** Let the wall street protesters occupy those five campuses and protest for years. Then lets see what happens.</p>
<p>Although we seem to have issues with how the ranks are derived, the universities don’t seem to have any problems promoting themselves using whatever ranks are provided by whichever agency. </p>
<p>Here is an email received this morning from University of Miami. It came with a nice template of top 50 universities from USNWR.</p>
<p>We wanted to share exciting news with you, Xxxxxxxxxxx!</p>
<p>In the 2012 edition of the U.S. News & World Report’s annual “Best Colleges” issue the University of Miami has risen to number 38. UM remains the highest-ranked school in the state of Florida.</p>
<p>In an impressive ascent, UM has moved up 29 slots in the last ten years, making it one of the fastest-rising institutions among national universities in recent times.</p>