<p>My son has been admitted to schools that are ranked 40-50 by US News and World Report. However, his first choice is rated closer to the 100th ranked school. He is basing his decision on location, weather and the surrounding college town. Do you think it will make a difference when he graduates where his diploma comes from? He has not decided on a major, so I can't factor that in.</p>
<p>If he's doing any grad school, it won't matter.</p>
<p>Otherwise...top 100 out of the 3 or 4,000 schools is till pretty good. :) </p>
<p>It will, of course, depend on his major. But I wouldn't worry too much. Not every occupation is Ivy-obsessed.</p>
<p>Here's my pretty uninformed decision. I don't think it will make a big difference. Looking at the USNWR list I think it makes less difference for the National University list than it does for the LAC list. I've heard of all the Universities, but some of the LACs start getting a bit obscure. Many colleges I haven't heard of have good regional reputations. If he's planning on staying in the area, it will make even less difference, it may even be helpful to go to a state university over a higher ranked but less well known school. As long as the place he chooses is likely to offer majors he'll like, in addition to all those other things, I think he'll be fine.</p>
<p>Location and weather are the main criteria which put schools on my D's list. They were National Universities and regional Masters Universities.
How she felt on campus visits determined her ranking of them.
She is an undecided major at HER #1.</p>
<p>PS I would have chosen a different school on her list, but still not the highest by US News' system.</p>
<p>I wouldn't rate the USNWR rankings too much. If the school is appropriate for what he wants to study, affordable for you, and he thinks he'll be happy there... then it's the top ranked school in the SR (Son's Rankings) which is really all that matters.</p>
<p>My kids never looked at the US news rankings. To be honest, they didn't matter as much as what the school had to offer them. As it happened, one attended a major university that is ranked about 60ish, and the other is attending a masters university that is rated top in their region. However, these rankings had NO BEARING on the school selection. For the kid at the masters university, weather and location, and a strong science program were at the top of her list. She is in seventh heaven there.</p>
<p>IMO, schools ranked 40-50 and schools ranked lower but in the top 100 - de minimis difference in name recognition/prestige and so on. Sometimes the "lower" ranked school has more of a valued reputation regionally, which can be quite important for job hunt and networking of various kinds, if those are among your concerns.</p>
<p>Fine for the kid to choose based on his stated criteria.</p>
<p>Top 100 schools, as HGFM have said, are all VERY highly ranked and regarded schools.</p>
<p>Just as an exercise, without looking it up, can you state which of these top 100 are ranked higher than which others?</p>
<p>Brigham Young
Fordham
Marquette
NC State
Penn State
Pepperdine
Rutgers
SUNY Stonybrook
Texas A&M
Tulane
UC Davis
UFlorida
UC Irvine
UConn
UDelaware
UKansas
UMaryland College Park</p>
<p>^^^^ nope, couldn't tell you. I suspect each has its own strengths in different areas.</p>
<p>LOL, There are several schools on your list that I wouldn't have thought would even be in the top 100....</p>
<p>Shows how ignorant I am.</p>
<p>jmmom, there is quite a large difference between schools like Tulane, Penn St, UFlorida, and ,say, Marquette. The common person is not being well educated about the rankings should not be a validation of a point. The people making the job hirings and grad school admission decisions will know the difference between a UFlorida education and one from Suny Stonybrook. This is not an attack on the lesser ranked schools, but it sounds like the people so far in this thread believe every school out of the ivy league is basically lumped together, which is far from the truth. UWashington(42), UTexas (44), Penn State UPark (48), UFlorida (49), Syrcacuse (50).....University of the Pacific (96), Illinois Institute of Technology (96), Northeastern (96), and University of San Diego (107). I am not sure if a student from Case Western (41) would agree that Illinois Institute of Technology offers just as of a education as their own. There is a large difference between the academic quality and name recognition of schools in the top 50, and those around/outside of the top 100. I am not saying that 5 spots make a difference, but I think 50 does. Just my opinion.</p>
<p>Look at the middle 50% test scores for the school of choice- is he somewhere in or near that? If so, he is probably in his academic peer group. If he is for the higher ranked schools and way above the choice school's 75th percentile you may want to encourage him to choose a school with a better academic fit so he doesn't get bored with his fellow students. Flagship public U's are perhaps an exception as they attract top students who can't afford OOS or private schools...</p>
<p>As jmmom points out, prospective employers do not run to USNews to determine the best candidate and they would have no idea how to reorganize her list in ranking order. And many employers focus their recruiting within their geographic region. </p>
<p>I suggest that your student forget the rankings and choose that college which he determines is best for him. </p>
<p>I have always viewed rankings as a contrivance to sell a magazine issue and as having very little use in determining where a student will recieve the best education and have the greatest impact on post graduate success.</p>
<p>U. of Florida may rank well above SUNY Stonybrook, but I suspect that for a student who continues to live and work in the NY area after graduation, a SUNY degree may still be more useful. I don't think business recruiters scrutinized the USNWR list nearly as carefully as high school students. Don't forget also that USNWR doesn't even take into account whether the student is part of an honors program at the college on the list. That's another thing that might make a difference.</p>
<p>I think the list is useful, but with lots of reservations. Mathson applied to colleges ranked from #2 to #62 and ended up choosing #22 even though he got into #2.</p>
<p>I hesitate to post this because it disturbs one particular poster, but the courses at my daughter's LAC, #30, are every bit a rigorous as those at my S's LAC, #1. And she has to take five courses, he four. And although the SAT scores are not quite as high, the % in the top 10% are the same. Kids seem just as bright and even more ambitious. They have a very different campus culture, but D's school certainly doesn't lose by comparison.</p>
<p>And as a plug for Stony Brook (my alma mater I admit) the two smartest kids in S's class attend. Both in top three in class, one NMF. Both study physics and have done intel research projects. Doubt you actually could tell a call they were in from any of the above schools.</p>
<p>mythmom: great post and could probably apply to many,many schools that are not supposedly highly ranked.....your two kids are a perfect example of the stupidity of ranking....</p>
<p>One other thing to consider for ALL schools of this caliber...Many of them have departments/schools/majors that are not part of their ranking in the USNWR......Just one example is Newhouse @ Syracuse.....you can't look at an education there and not understand that a #50 ranking means absolutely nothing.....I'm sure you guys can point out many more......(like Stony Brook)</p>
<p>I don't have a POV for the OP's son but recruiters are not as detached from colleges reputations as you think.</p>
<p>I've been recruiting college graduates, MBA's, engineers, and a bunch more for two decades. The mix of how we decide who to recruit and why is a complex one.... and I won't bore you with the details, but when schools like Wash U have a jump in ratings, or a school like U MD College Park starts to get higher median SAT scores we notice that and track it.</p>
<p>The place that reputation really makes a difference is in the technical departments. U Missouri at Rolla has had a top program in Mechanical Engineering for decades. People "in the know" have looked at their grads to be in the same caliber as those from some colleges which are much higher ranked overall. Colleagues who recruit entry level actuaries, statisticians, aero/astro engineers, etc. report the same phenomenon.... our "top ten" list won't look like the generic USNWR top ten list, but we are not immune to the overall reputation and perceived quality of an institution, particularly as it changes over time.</p>
<p>I think looking at the overall placement record of any individual college is an instructive exercise. What percentage go on to professional school and which schools are those? What percentage are PhD bound, and which departments in which U's? What percentage end up employed after 9 months and where do the grads work? If you're looking at a school in Georgia or Tennessee and the grads all go to work for local companies you've never heard of, that will be great if your kid wants to work regionally; less great if the school is unable to attract recruiters from national companies. Ditto on grad schools.</p>
<p>There are many places where a kid can get a fine education.... and I wouldn't pick a college based on its ranking- but to pretend that there are no differences in quality between institutions is just unrealistic. I have interviewed students coming out of mid tier schools with a degree in journalism/mass communications who could barely write a coherent cover letter. Trust me, we are happy to experiment with new source schools all the time, but we don't recruit writers and editors and media relations assistants at J-programs that don't have a rigorous writing requirement. Sadly for those of you insisting that there's no difference between the top schools and the mid-tier schools, that has not been my experience.</p>
<p>blossom: Thank you for your post; I'm not sure I completely understand what you are saying though.....</p>
<p>A top ranked program in a mid-tier school is not looked at differently by recruiters? Do you think that an applicant who is looking at communications/media relations/etc would be better served at a school like WashU than a school like Newhouse or USC Annenberg? Or an engineer at Univ of Illinois vs. a higher ranked USNWR school???</p>
<p>Once you get beyond a certain point, who cares about the rankings. HYPSM and a few others all hold a certain national reputation, but I really think that beyond these schools that regional reputation matters more than national rankings. Find a school and program that will work for your kid and family situation and go with it. A happy and challenged kid means more that 25 spots in a magazine ranking.</p>
<p>If only every 17 year old kid knew what they wanted to study and then knew where they wanted to work afterwards.... would be a lot easier making these decisions in real time, no????</p>
<p>Many kids switch majors.... most more than once. Many kids enter a major without a good idea as to the employment opportunities afterwards. Many kids like the theoretical discipline but discover they hate working in that field. So all things being equal..... I think picking the higher quality institution makes the most sense down the line- there is less risk to getting stuck in a real backwater department the higher the quality of the institution overall. However, if a kid has a strong interest in science, picking a school which has a higher ranking in USNWR but a weak program in the sciences is probably not the way to go. If a kid is interested in Art History, picking the higher ranked school which has a non-existent program in Art History is probably a mistake. Etc.</p>
<p>All I was trying to point out is that the notion that the people who make hiring decisions for companies are more attuned to quality, both overall institutional quality as well as individual departments, than is frequently asserted on CC. Just because you can get a fine education at No-name U doesn't mean that you will have as easy a time of it post-grad as someone with a degree from Famous U. In some fields it won't matter.....but in some it will. There's a reason why Wharton is famous for finance- and yes, some of it is hype, and we all know some lunatic who graduated from Wharton with a BS in finance and years later is still flipping burgers or folding sweaters at the Gap, but your typical Wharton finance grad is going to have an easier time of it than your typical Quinnipiac finance grad if both students are trying to get a job with a national employer, or even a regional employer in LA, Dallas, Chicago, or a place where not many recruiters are aware of Quinnipiac, which has a fine reputation in Connecticut.</p>