I mostly pay attention to engineering, where they not only don’t measure anything I care about, they don’t measure anything. They don’t rank PhD granting institutions with those who don’t. Schools are asked to name their peers, that’s it. I find them utterly worthless.
No one seems to ask why Olin (a very good school) ranks no better than 7th in any of the majors they rank, but number 2 overall. HMC (also a very good school) ranks no better than 5 and ranks in things they don’t even offer, but also ranks 2 overall. Cal Poly ranks no worse than 2 in any major, yet 5th overall. It makes ZERO sense.
Now lets consider the fact that they are all three completely different institutions.
So, for me, when it comes to engineering…useless. Give me some Iowa State and Missouri S&T.
I am familiar with USNews ranking and always have been since I was in college. In general that awareness framed parts of the search especially when we were looking for more options to research (in broad categories though, not for exact rank comparison). We started with tours though, not rankings:
We toured a few for fit/size in-state and once my D21 decided she loved W&Mary best, we looked for similar size and feel with that type of intellectual culture and rigor, then based on SAT/naviance alignment (started touring pre-TO) we found reaches matches and likelies that worked. It just so happens all the matches that fit the criteria were T20-40ish and the reaches were T15. For the likely search, general rank range mattered very little: more important was size plus graduation rate and outcomes, since these were only considered if W&M/other matches hadnt worked out.
For D23 we looked all over the place since Engineering became a goal junior year and fit of size and peer-group was already clear from many tours. She wanted non-huge(UVA size was max) with undergrad-research based experiential Engineering yet able to change out Chemistry or even humanities easily and still have a vast majority of highly intellectual peers, PLUS the ability to continue her ballet. There were several that fully met the criteria & she could have been extremely happy attending, and the favorite matches and reaches were basically all T15s, even though exact rank order per se was not considered.
But these are a type of ranking. They had some criteria to include/exclude schools. Much of the impact of rankings is unknown to the decision maker. Unless you were in complete isolation, rankings likely had some impact on your decision making process.
Yes, that’s true. I’m not denying that rankings played some role in our thought process. We wanted a school with a solid reputation that was attainable given D’s grades/scores and which offered the programs and opportunities she was seeking. She was coming from a rigorous private HS, so wanted an academically strong student body, where she could still have an active social life. We used various resources to come to a short-list, but we were fortunate that D had great college counseling and we were able to tour and consider various choices in light of the “great on paper” first cut.
I know it’s not popular to admit it, but we actually did look at things like average GPA, test scores, and other indicators to gauge not only likelihood of admission for D, but also whether it was likely to be a serious (but still social) peer group. I’m sorry that some of the criteria that USNWR used to include in their rankings has gone by the wayside. I think it’s valid for students to consider the academic strength of the student body, and it seems like more guide books and websites are eliminating that information in favor of categories like social mobility and “outcomes”–which are important, but didn’t happen to be our top criteria.
Right or wrong. I believe outside the local public or state flagship, rankings influence most. Maybe not directly but to the point here - you looked at qualitative or verbatims vs rank.
But they only cover x amount of schools in their book. They ranked the schools.
So not everyone says top 50 but many, maybe most outside the local public and flagship have their lists ranking influenced - I believe.
Perhaps. My sense is that people think SATs are bunk and with grade inflation, it’s hard to put much faith in the published GPAs. It seems like equity, social mobility, and average income of graduates have taken center stage as criteria–certainly that was the take away based on the changes made by USNWR this year. I’m not saying those factors aren’t important–they are–but they weren’t the main things D was seeking. Obviously she wants a job after college, but our family greatly values a liberal arts foundation (with confidence that D’s brains, work ethic and ambition will ultimately result in a career).
D23 is absolutely loving it at Emerson, the city, her classes and the opportunities already to get experience in film production. It was originally outside our budget, but we appealed twice for more merit aid and they came through, twice. For that we are forever grateful.
Way back at the beginning of the process, I pulled up a list of the top X schools with D24’s intended major and weeded through them.
The very tippy top ones were eliminated due to some combination of low acceptance rates, the grades/test scores/ECs needed to be competitive, and/or the fact that they are too expensive for us and give no merit aid.
Others were eliminated due to preferences on things like location, size, M/F ratio, religion, greek life, etc.
In-state schools got a big bump due to familiarity and lower cost. She had to answer this question…in what circumstance would she choose that particular OOS school vs. the in-state school? Several came off the almost final list at that point.
In my mind, with what she needs from and is looking for in a college, there would have to be something compelling like an amazing scholarship or specific program to choose a college much below her top in-state option (a T200) in the rankings.
Some folks might be surprised, but I very much agree with this. Granted, my feelings about the differences between individual schools’ rankings are probably different than those of many others. But it does help me in terms of being able to associate colleges I’m more familiar with as compared to schools I’m less familiar with. Because I have yet to find an externally-produced ranking whose methodology is just right for me, I love to look at a variety of rankings, both overall and very specific. And since the most popular ranking uses dubious “reputation” surveys as 20% of the weight, I tend to place relatively little weight on that particular ranking (as the people filling out the survey probably have little actual knowledge about what’s going on at all the other college campuses, and that’s where a large chunk of my interest lies).
When people think of colleges, they tend to think of colleges that they have heard of. They typically hear about colleges because they live in a region where students tend to go to those schools, or they see those schools when watching sporting events, or they are better performers on some kind of ranking (whether specified as a ranking or a subjective, unspecified ranking).
That’s not to say that those aren’t fine schools that can provide a quality education; they’re just more unknown to much of the American (and CC) public. So although I’ve learned that U. of Southern Maine has a strong linguistics department and Plymouth State (or is it Keene…?) has a good accounting program, most people outside of those regions have never heard of those schools. So although a kid might have Bates or Dartmouth on their list, they’re not thinking about these other schools that are just as far away from their homes. It’s why I’m on my ever-present quest to figure out how to identify more quality schools. Just because I haven’t heard of a school doesn’t mean it’s not a quality school (i.e. part of my issue with USNWR’s reputation surveys).
That said, it’s one of the reasons why I like data and rankings. If I don’t know about a school, I can see what its doctoral production is like, or what percentage of students it graduates as compared to its predicted percentage, or other factors that can give greater insight into what the university is doing and what the preparation is like. I do not think that all schools are providing the same quality of education, and the data can help to differentiate between them.
So, to answer the question, data from rankings do influence the college list. But the actual “ranks,” particularly from USNWR, do not.
The broad school rankings played no part in the application process. We did look at some program rankings to help narrow down and better understand the options.
We also found the Niche “report card” grades helpful from the standpoint of it breaks them down into categories and we could evaluate and further research “hey, how come their food gets a D?” or “hey, this one gets an A+ for their dorms lets go see what differentiates them”. The fact that one got a D and one got an A for something meant nothing without further research to understand why - some of those grades are based on old data/opinion.
Strictly speaking, “influencing”, yes - but we didn’t start off with a list based on the “Top-n”.
I left college selection to my daughter, who spent the time researching colleges she heard of, seemed to be a target in Naviance, or her counselor recommended, or previous years’ top students were attending. She did apply to UMass Amherst, and also visited UVA and UMD because they were along of one of our regional “visit trips”. She also applied to Fordham “because they sent me a fee waiver”.
And generally, when I didn’t recognize a name as one of the very few “brand names” I was familiar with, let’s say “URichmond”, she would instantly reassure me “It’s known as a good school, Dad!”.
So, she clearly was “aware” of a school’s reputation, and made sure that they were at least in a “good” bucket, either informally or by some listing; in that sense it did “influence” her selection.
I, on the other hand, was mostly “brand-aware”. While I never consciously looked up USN rankings, I most likely encountered them when I googled any school. I admit that I do suspect that at least one of her 3 Ivy applications was partially to pacify the parents’ (parent’s ) unspoken desire to aim high.
Having now helped a half dozen local kids/parents with applying to college – and granted, maybe it’s my area of middle-class nowheresville PA – I know that the number one concern for every one of these families is budget, not ranking. (Well, except for the kid who went to Colorado for the weed, lol.)
Sort of? If I liked the vibe and location of a college, it’s in the top 100ish for what I’m interested in, and it could potentially be affordable, I looked more into it. But a 20-spot difference doesn’t matter to me. 100, yes. But a few spots? Not at all.
Suppose you were guaranteed admission to any HYPMS school of your choice (coincidentally corresponding to the 2024 USNWR #1-5 ranking) with absolutely zero cost.
How many of you would take the offer on the spot?
How many of you would turn down the offer because you weren’t given the chance to determine whether another school (also zero cost) was a better fit compared to those 5 options?
If I walked around all 5 of those campuses and hated them and knew even if I went there I’d be miserable (very unlikely scenario but a potential one).
But I think that’s an extreme example.
What about using your same scenario but it’s schools ranked 35-40? Are you going to tell me there’s some significant educational difference to the schools in that bracket to those say 45-50 or even 55-60?
) unspoken desire to aim high.