<p>Here's an alternative ranking to USNWR:</p>
<p>I feel stupid, but I don't really understand it. I think it's nice that schools emphasize service, but how does that make a school "better" than another? Then again, who cares? Cornell beat HYPS, hells yeah!!!</p>
<p>Although this ranking is nice (for us), it will get no respect. We all know how rankings actually mean nothing, but in the eyes of students looking to go to college, and other uninformed civillians about colleges, US News will remain at the top, and what they say will be true, it is just something we can not avoid. There could be 100 other rankings that put us in the top 5 or 10, but to the majority of the public we are #13.</p>
<p>PSquared, fret not, it is better to be #13 than to be #25! LOL Seriously, very few people in the real world care about the USNWR. None of the major companies pay attention to it and academe's ranking is the Peer Assessment score, where Cornell achieved an impressive 4.6/5.0, good for 7th place. Only high school students and not-so-educated parents take the report seriously. Most people look at it out of mere curiosity, but few give it any respect.</p>
<p>Here's the Daily Sun's take on the #4 ranking:</p>
<p>
[quote]
In addition, Cornell ranked first in the "Engineering Science/Engineering Physics" category
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Hell yea baby :-D</p>
<p>job offerings, public opinion, our families will always rank colleges this way: Ivies + MIT + Stanford + Duke + Northwestern + Johns Hopkins + Georgetown + Notre Dame + UC Berkley = Good colleges all else falls below, now the order of these may mix and match as recently Notre Dame has fallen and Stanford has gone up in prestige these are the "Good" schools and if you get into one I'll buy you a soda.</p>
<p>
[quote]
job offerings, public opinion, our families will always rank colleges this way: Ivies + MIT + Stanford + Duke + Northwestern + Johns Hopkins + Georgetown + Notre Dame + UC Berkley = Good colleges all else falls below
[/quote]
</p>
<p>What about the LAC's? What about places like The Cooper Union, Harvey Mudd college, Swarthmore College, Rose Hulman, Olin, Amherst, Williams, etc...? Are you telling me that all these fall below your so "good colleges" list?</p>
<p>I think LockMonkey was referring to research universities, although he does seem to leave out three major research institutions: Caltech, Chicago and Michigan.</p>
<p>Furthermore, if he is to include Georgetown and Notre Dame, he should also include Rice, and maybe even CMU, Emory, Vanderbilt and Washington U.</p>
<p>As for LACs, the list would be just as long, but that's an entirely different story.</p>
<p>...in today's Sun about rankings. </p>
<p>My philosophy on the rankings was that they are more of an information resource than a guide. I would look at things like SAT, acceptance, etc. I also used them to find comperable colleges. However, if i got into cornell and brown this year, would I pick cornell just because it's 13 and brown is 14? No, i'd pick cornell because I am having the best 5 days of my life here. Classes start tomorrow; I'm so excited.</p>
<p>Some of the US News rankings seem misplaced. I think they have really been duped by Wash U. Nothing against that school, but its number 9 ranking is largely due imho to their success at gaming the system. The bombard students with repeat mass mailings (many by fedex), which has dramatically increased the number of applicants. This enables them to appear to be more selective, which in turn has produced more applicants simply because it appears harder to get in. I think US news has really been duped. Check out the link in the general college discussion forums asking about which school has sent the most mailings............wash U wins by a landslide and has offended many....but I gotta say, their mass marketing ploy has worked well.</p>
<p>You are preaching to the choir, smilemore.</p>