Composite Ranking of USNews Top 20

College Search & Selection
1

I have taken 6 US college rankings (USNews, WSJ/THE, College Factual, Forbes, Niche, UniversityBenchmarks) and averaged out the ranking position for all the USNews top 20 universities. In rankings where LACS and service academies are ranked together with national universities, i removed LACS and service academies and adjusted the ranking position of the subsequent universities accordingly. I gave each of the 6 rankings equal weight.

Here are the results: (average position of each school in parentheses)

  1. Harvard (3.2)
  2. Yale (3.5)
  3. Stanford (3.7)
  4. Princeton (4.5)
  5. MIT (5.2)
  6. Penn (7.0) 7.Columbia (9.2) 8.Duke (10)
  7. Caltech (12.2) 10.Brown (13.2) 11.Dartmouth (13.3) 11.Northwestern (13.3) 13.Chicago (14) 14.Cornell (14.8) 15.WUSTL (15.5) 16.Rice (16.8)
  8. Notre Dame (17)
  9. Vanderbilt (17.2)
  10. JHU (25)
  11. Emory (28.3)
2

Edit: I think it would be more appropriate to give the USNews ranking more weight than the others, since it is the most established one. So if I give USNews 30% and the other 5 rankings 14% each I get:

(average position in parentheses)

  1. Harvard (2.98)
  2. Yale (3.42)
  3. Stanford (3.88)
  4. Princeton (3.94)
  5. MIT (5.46)
  6. Penn (7.16) 7.Columbia (8.5) 8.Duke (9.68)
  7. Caltech (12.14) 10.Chicago (12.24) 11.Dartmouth (12.96) 11.Northwestern (13.28) 13.Brown (13.3) 14.Cornell (14.86) 15.WUSTL (16.06) 16.Rice (16.54)
  8. Notre Dame (16.68)
  9. Vanderbilt (16.82)
  10. JHU (22.6)
  11. Emory (27)

So essentially Chicago and Brown have switched spots which I think is more accurate.

3

Why do you think it’s more accurate (or appropriate) for Brown and Chicago to switch spots? You must either have access to yet another ranking you believe is better than any of these, or else have a preconceived notion in your head that Brown is better than Chicago in some ways that are important to you.

One can muster plenty of evidence that Chicago is “better” than Brown.
Chicago has a bigger endowment per student, smaller average class sizes, more than double the instructional spending per student, a much bigger library system (> double the volumes), higher average SAT scores, more alumni PhDs per capita, and > 10X more affiliated (alumni/faculty/etc.) Nobel laureates.

I’m sure one could muster different evidence that Brown is “better”, maybe by looking at non-academic alumni outcomes for example. The ranking results will reflect the criteria and weights you chose. How appropriate are those choices for whatever you’re trying to assess? This is at least as important as the accuracy of the metrics you use for each criterion. I don’t think averaging multiple rankings necessarily results in a better ranking than the individual ones alone. Use the metrics that are most appropriate to what you’re trying to measure.

4

@tk21769 huh? Chicago and Brown switched spots and Chicago went up and Brown went down. Originally I had Chicago at 14, now I put it at 10. I do have a preconceived notion that Chicago should be higher than Brown, and as you said yourself there are many reasons to believe so.

Of I didn’t claim that this ranking is super accurate but the results do make sense in my opinion. Depending on how much emphasis you put on USNews there is slightly variation in relative positions within the Penn, Columbia, Duke, Chicago, Caltech cluster but the HYPSM cluster and the schools below do not really change positions.

5

Washington Post did something like this yesterday: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/10/20/heres-a-new-college-ranking-based-entirely-on-other-college-rankings/

6

@OHMomof2 Yeah and the results are quite similar for the top 10.

7

My coffee must not have kicked in yet. Oops.

8

So, the problem with aggregating rankings is that aggregating can actually blur distinctions and hide blemishes. Here are some examples, from my two alma maters:

For UChicago, if you look at traditional “academic prestige/brainy-ness” rankings, here’s what you have:

US News: #3
Times World Rankings (that emphasize nobel prize wins): #10
Business Insider “Smartest” Colleges: #2

Average rank for academic prestige/smarts: #3

For UChicago OUTCOMES:

Washington Monthly (emphasizes outcomes for students lower on socioeconomic scale): #92
WSJ/THE Ranking (mixes outcomes with academic prestige): #13
Forbes Ranking (outcome based): #20
Money College Rankings (emphasizes good education AND good outcomes): #83

Average rank for outcomes: #52

For U. of Penn, if you look at traditional “academic prestige/brainy-ness” rankings, here’s what you have:

US News: #8
Times World Rankings (emphasizing nobel prize wins): #16
Business Insider “Smartest” Colleges: #17

Average rank for academic prestige/smarts: #14

For UPenn OUTCOMES:

Washington Monthly (emphasizes outcomes for students lower on socioeconomic scale): #5
WSJ/THE Ranking (mixes outcomes with academic prestige): #4
Forbes Ranking (outcome based): #11
Money College Rankings (emphasizes good education AND good outcomes): #26

Average rank for outcomes: #12

So, as seen in the above, it’s important to separate rankings - NOT aggregate them together. If you aggregate Chicago’s rank, it comes out as #19. That does NOT show you just how pointy the school is - it’s at the tippy top for academic prestige/smarts, but actually quite poor for monetary outcomes, elevating those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, etc.

Similarly, while Penn is less pointy than Chicago, looking at the full range of rankings paints a good picture of the school. It attracts smart students (but perhaps not students as “pointy” as the ones you’d find at Chicago or MIT), and it provides excellent monetary outcomes.

If you aggregate rankings, you wouldn’t see those contours of each school. An aggregate rank in the teens for Chicago doesn’t show you just how pointy it is - and, similarly, for Penn, it’s interesting to note that it’s at the tippy top for monetary outcomes, and very good (but not at the tippy top) for smarts/academic prestige. For those interested in the brainiest school, Penn95’s aggregate ranking of Penn at #6 might be a bit misleading. Similarly, @Penn95 had Chicago at either #13 or #10 on the aggregate rank. That doesn’t accurately emphasize how the monetary outcomes at Chicago are lacking.

Having gone to both schools, I think looking at the full array of rankings actually can paint a decent picture of school atmosphere. It’s not perfect, of course, but also not as obfuscating as aggregating rankings.

9

Yeah, (kudos to @OHMomof2.) The Washington Post has done the same thing for LACs:

Amherst College 1
Pomona College 2
Williams College 3
Wellesley College 4
Bowdoin College 5
Middlebury College 6
Wesleyan University 7
Swarthmore College 8
Davidson College 9
Colgate University 10
Washington and Lee University 11
Claremont McKenna College 12
Hamilton College 13
Colby College 14
Vassar College 15
College of the Holy Cross 16
Bates College 17
Lafayette College 18
Carleton College 19
Bucknell University 20

10

@Cue7 I understand what you are saying, but I think rankings measure different things and have different biases thus it is valuable to aggregate the rankings to get an overall, aggregate measure of how the university does in various different areas and balance out the biases and flaws that each ranking has. Of course it is far from perfect but I think to a certain degree is useful to give you an overall standing of the school, not give you specific deep insights about the specific strengths of each school.

I think the results that come out of this, another aggregate ranking posted on CC and the Washington post most recent rankings do yield rather intuitive results. The intuitive results here are not that Penn is #6 and Chicago is #10. For me the intuitive result is that for most reasonable variations of the weights i assign to each of the 6 rankings, HYPSM remains the top 5 no matter what, then the next cluster Penn, Columbia, Duke, Chicago Caltech also remain the next top 5 pretty consistently, and the other schools remain outside the top 10 for most variations of the weights I give to each of the rankings. The relative positions within each cluster do change though. For example if i give USNews as much as 60% weight and 8% weight to the other 5 rankings, Chicago jumps to number 8 right after HYPSM Penn Columbia.

A ll in all I think these are more intuitive results than looking just at USNews. UChicago ranked anywhere between #6-#10 is a more accurate position than the #3 USNews gives it. Same goes for Penn and Columbia. Penn was ranked for any years #4 which admittedly is a bit too high and same goes for Columbia in my opinion.

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@Penn95 - I think actually having Chicago at #10 (or #13) for aggregate rankings does a disservice for those assessing the school. Such a ranking implies (by being an aggregate ranking) that Chicago does “a pretty good job across the board.” If you look at a school ranked #10 in an aggregate ranking, that’s what you think.

Such aggregation, then, completely ignores how pointy Chicago is - and that comes out when you see the other rankings.

Having Penn at #6 is obfuscating too (although not as much as having Chicago #10 overall in almost any ranking that incorporates outcomes). A student seeing that might think, wow, it’s just behind MIT and ahead of Caltech or Chicago (or Hopkins or whatever), it must have a really brainy student body. And that’s not necessarily the case either. Yes, Penn gets high-powered intellects, but having MIT at #5 and Penn at #6 doesn’t quite show the gap between the two schools on this front.

The key here, then, for a really educated consumer, isn’t to aggregate the rankings - it’s to lay out all the rankings and see where U’s fall. Aggregation only blurs - it doesn’t create useful new insight.

I should note, your aggregate ranking doesn’t include others that would (justifiably) blur what you have - look at the Economist’s college rankings (which ranked Penn 1264 and Chicago 674, and would throw off what you have here).

The NY Times just had an article on the oversupply of rankings, seen here: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/21/business/how-much-graduates-earn-drives-more-college-rankings.html?_r=0

And, interestingly, a Georgetown U study just came out on outcomes, with Georgetown in the top 5: https://cew.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/College-Scorecard-Web.pdf

Finally, the emphasis on outcomes is misleading, and somewhat immaterial. For high-achieving students, prestige typically is sought, and U.S. News probably does the best job of the bunch to measure that (with some slight anomalies, perhaps - but nothing like having a school be #8 in one rank and #1264 in another).

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So basically you copied what I did but subtracted Money and added College Factual.

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@ClarinetDad16 yeah but completely by chance haha! hadnt looked at your version until today! great minds think alike haha.

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@Cue7 There is no evidence that Chicago undergrads are smarter than Penn undergrads. Bookish is not the same as smart. On the other hand everyone can agree that MIT students are on average smarter than Penn and Chicago students. The size of the gap between MIT and Penn and MIT and Chicago depends on the criteria you are using. But everyone can say that there is a gap between MIT vs Penn and Chicago. All schools do well at some areas and not so well at others. A few schools do well in all areas. Outcomes is important nowadays, to say no it just not realistic. But that is why it makes sense to use many different rankings to balance out all the biases. Also the other rankings other than USNews used other metrics outside of outcomes too.

Also in many cases when making a college decision most people try to balance out many different criteria and considerations and find the optimal balance.

I ll say again what i found interesting and insightful about this is that assigning various combinations of weights to 6 different established rankings there are patterns that emerge pretty consistently for every combination, i.e. clusters of schools that consistently rank at certain positions. So this doesn’t mean Penn is #6 and Chicago is #10 and this is rigid, to me it means more that both Penn and Chicago are somewhere in the lower 5 of the top 10, which to me is very reasonable.

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@Cue7 Also the Economist ranking ranked Harvard #4, Penn#15, and Chicago #1151 so if I had used it Chicago would be way further down on my list. Obviously #1151 for Chicago is beyond absurd, and that is why I did not use rankings that seemed too absurd even by looking at them.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/10/value-university

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Some of us have been saying the same thing for years.

@Penn95

That would make “high-achieving students” either complete idiots or self-delusional, neither of which I think is true. I think families wealthy enough to live in the best school districts, perhaps more than most families, appreciate verifiable results (they didn’t get rich by chasing prestige.) It’s good that the two approaches (imputs vs. outputs) overlap to the extent that they do, otherwise we’d have bigger problems.

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Easy @circuitrider - I should have clarified my comment from earlier - I think the emphasis on outcomes is misleading between similarly situated schools.

What you didn’t pick up on - and what I should have made more clear - is that prestige oftentimes is simply a proxy for wealth. That’s why, amongst schools that are similarly situated (or, read, similarly prestigious) considering differences in monetary outcomes is immaterial. If you go to one school or its peers, your outcome would be similar, if that’s what you want. (So, Penn has better monetary outcomes than Brown, but that certainly should NOT be the reason a student picks one over the other - same goes for Chicago v. Columbia or whatever.)

Relatedly, my problem with US News isn’t the order - it’s the usage of numerical ranking. If we had a tiered system (as others like Penn95 have suggested), you’d see what I’m arguing - amongst peer schools, monetary outcomes shouldn’t be a material differentiating point.

These outcome-based rankings are sometimes almost worse than US News, because it doesn’t show how close certain schools are.

You want to know what a good “ranking” of schools probably is? What colleges actually think their peers are: http://www.chronicle.com/interactives/peers-network

This is the best metric of which schools are similarly situated. If you get into a certain school and any of its peers, you know you should go by fit, not outcome (or other) rankings.

If you went on outcome based rankings, however, you might think there is some big gap between Duke and Brown, for example, which is misleading.

18

Of course, measuring “outcomes” almost always presumes that average salary ten years out (or something similar) is a proxy for successful outcomes. In reality, at the highest level schools, this figure primarily measures what career fields people choose to go into.

Let me give an extreme example. A Goldman Sachs partner makes more than 10 million dollars a year, a hundred times more money than a person who chose to get a PhD and became a tenured professor and the world’s leading expert on ancient Hittite archaeology. Which one of them has a better outcome?

UPenn generally is regarded as the most “pre-professional” of all the elite national universities, perhaps along with Dartmouth. A larger percentage of Penn students will choose to go into money fields like finance and law than at any other similar school. In contrast, UChicago generally is considered the most “intellectual” of all the elite national universities, perhaps along with Yale. On average, Chicago students go on to get PhDs in academic fields more than any other similar place.

This is not to say that Penn students have trouble going for PhDs if they want to. Of course they can and do - it’s a great university. Likewise, Chicago students who choose to go into money fields have every opportunity to do so and do quite well. But the averages for the schools will reflect the choices the typical student makes, rather than the opportunities available to the typical student. Those are very different things.

I don’t know if there is a good way to measure outcomes, but using average salary as a proxy has this obvious flaw.

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@circuitrider Did you mean to tag @Cue7? that is his quote above haha.
I completely agree with what you are saying. Both student inputs and outputs are important and while USNews does a good job, as a standalone ranking is probably better than everything else, but it does fail to consider certain important metrics and this is why its results are a bit weird and risks getting out of touch.

20

@Penn95 - Just curious, how would you measure smarts? This is a loaded question, sure, but if SAT scores give some guidance, Chicago and MIT have about a 1500 avg., and Penn has a 1450 avg.

That of course doesn’t parse as finely as I’d like - there are many more students at MIT who are at the way end of the right tail (intellectually) than at Chicago and Penn, but i think it gives a rough measure of incoming student intellectual horsepower. It shows that, generally, MIT (and, to a lesser extent, Chicago) are valuing different measures than Penn.

Could Penn make their SAT average a 1600? Probably, but they couldn’t meet their other demands (sports, legacies, developmental cases, etc.). On the other hand, it looks like Chicago and MIT are a bit more focused on the brainpower.

At least anecdotally, I found this to be the case too. There were lots of “right tail” folks at Chicago - kids who just had a lot of processing/brain power. At Penn, interestingly, that seemed valued a little less - students tended to be smart and ____ (something else - be it a singer or athlete or whatever). From what I know about MIT, it reminds me much more of Chicago than Penn, just with even more, well, geniuses, walking around.