<p>Brown’s placement in these rankings seems to be one of the more contested, mostly I think because Brown is one of the schools that has a ranking that doesn’t really line up with its prestige/reputation. For example, at my school at least, if you were to ask somebody which is better, Cornell or Brown, I can guarantee you 100% of the people you asked would say Brown without blinking. This could also maybe be an east coast bias, but I find it hard to believe there are many people would rank Brown behind WashU and Northwestern. </p>
<p>And yet there it is at #16. Do you think USNWR’s methodology is flawed? Or is Brown’s prestigious reputation just that, a reputation (not saying 16 isn’t prestigious, but I think many people would equate it to Columbia/Dart/Duke)? Or does Brown’s uniqueness in many categories hurt it in a ranking of this sort? Just wondering what peoples’ takes on this are.</p>
<p>Lastly, I am in NO way saying that rankings should play any role in your college decision on, so please don’t make this a discussion about that. Also, this is in no way meant to bash Brown (I applied there ED), I’m just curious as to why it is so much lower than it seems like it should be.</p>
<p>1) Peer Assessment. This counts for a full 25% of the college’s overall score. Because Brown is focused on undergrads and isn’t a graduate school/research powerhouse(think Chicago, Berkeley, etc.) its score is on the low side. Dartmouth faces the same obstacle.</p>
<p>2) Selectivity rating. Brown is holistic in its admissions. If it focused more on SAT and class rank like some of its competitors, it would do better.</p>
<p>brown is incredibly selective, unlike several schools on that list. this selectivity gives it the solid reputation it has, since brown students are quite accomplished, smart, and talented in general…perhaps more so than at some of these other schools, despite whatever methodology usn&wr uses. so while it may not be underranked (since claiming that would imply that i have knowledge about the relative quality of academic programs at all of those other schools, which i don’t, since i haven’t attended them), the rankings are effectively null and void, since its reputation is so well established. in fact, brown might as well not even be ranked, and it would still probably accept <15%. this kind of reputation can’t be captured by a ranking list. usn&wr is more important for schools like wake forest or usc that want to prove the quality of their academic programs by rising to a certain level…for ivies, it’s pretty much a wash, since the best and most ambitious students will go there regardless.</p>
<p>Of the USNWR rankings, the only ones that are, in particular, correct, are Harvard and Princeton being number one and Stanford being number four. </p>
<p>They’re all generally fairly close, though.</p>
<p>They give a good representation of the best 25 colleges in the country, but not really the correct ranking order of those schools.</p>
<p>So, I guess Brown is one of the top 25 in the country, and I can’t really get too worried about where within that 25 it is.</p>