<p>I don’t spend quite as much time lurking the Ivy forums (fora?) – they tend to have more sub-forums than I care to track – but I’ve noticed for a long time that among the top LACs there’s a clear correlation between their USNews rank and the types of discussions on their CC forums. The higher they rank the more “chances” threads, the more anxiety induced threads (“How Badly Must I do Before They Rescind My Acceptance?”) That’s to be expected to some extent. What’s really remarkable is the amost inverse relationship between USNews rank and participation by current students; you can really hear the helicopter propellers the higher up you go.</p>
<p>Looking at the companies that recruit on campus might be worth something. Checking out the post-graduation employment surveys is also a possible source of data.</p>
<p>Post-grad surveys are, according to the college people I speak with, very spotty and unreliable. That data, which figures into rankings, seems to be manipulated quite easily - and I suspect heavily - by schools.</p>
<p>Actually this is an extremely American-centric view of the world. As someone who now does not live in the US, I can tell you that most of the world looks at American and is in awe of their need to rank everything. Americans rank students, highschools, colleges, places to live, and any that can be ranked, is ranked. It simply isn’t a drive or interest to rank things in most other parts of the world.</p>
<p>A high ranking school is only as good as the fit for the student. A C student at Yale is still a mediocre student and probably has a bad work ethic. Give me an “A-B” student from a decent college with a good work ethic and emotional intelligence and I will hire them. Given the fact that college acceptances go to 1) great athletes, regardless of academic talent; 2) legacy kids, talent needed but not as much as for others; 3) in state students if it is a state school, 4) all others, where you go may not be as relevant as how hard you work and what kind of a person you are.</p>
<p>You can’t really find a C student at Yale anymore because they have so much grade inflation the average is probably 3.5 or more. A law school professor dug out the Latin honor breakpoints and applied a normal curve and came up with about 3.6. That was a few years ago.</p>
<p>Two points about that:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>We rely on standardized tests for grad schools like law. This system directly benefits kids who get into the Yales of this world because they scored well on the SAT and they’ll score well on the LSAT. Does this actually mean they become best lawyers? Ummm … one can’t really take the fact that a few high achievers went to Yale and then work backwards so the only answer is maybe. Yale et al use the high test scores to say their grade inflation is justified, which seems somewhat circular to me; their argument is their kids score well so if you backed into a gpa from the scores then it would be very high. What exactly the scores actually have to do with grades, with effort, etc. is beyond me but that’s the logic.</p></li>
<li><p>My feeling is that these schools - the inflation at Harvard is as bad - have inflated grades because that enables them to admit whomever they want without culling or otherwise making obvious poor students. They admit a number of rich kids and minority kids who aren’t as gifted and who often aren’t as applied at work. Grade inflation covers this up.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The general public isn’t even using USNWR for selecting colleges. They are selecting colleges based on cost, familiarity and (short) distance from home. Whether Princeton or Harvard is #1 this year is completely irrelevant information to the vast majority of families of high school seniors in this country.</p>
<p>Whoa, I’m think you haven’t ever looked in on the International forum. Those people in other countries appear to just as rank/prestige obsessed as anybody else:</p>