<p>America's</a> Top Colleges - Forbes</p>
<p>In the top 10- Stanford, Pomona, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Swarthmore, USMA, Harvard, Williams, and MIT</p>
<p>I guess I can live with Yale being number 4 as long as Harvard is number 8.</p>
<p>Nice ranking for Washington and Lee.</p>
<p>Some interesting things I noticed:</p>
<p>1) The top 10 list contains virtually the same schools as last year, though MIT is coming in and U’Chicago is going out.
2) The Ivy League did much better this year, with all 8 ranking in the top 20.
3) Liberal art colleges seemed to have gotten the shaft this year. Noticeable cases: Haverford, Middlebury, Carleton, Harvey Mudd
4) State universities did better than last year, with 5, UCLA, UCB, UVA, UNC, and UM all placing in the top 40 institutions.
5) Some schools seem to be underrepresented in this list: Rice, Vanderbilt, the above LACs, Johns Hopkins, WUSTL, USC
6) Claremont McKenna, Bucknell, Emory, and Iona were excluded from the rankings due to publishing faulty data.
7) They didn’t use the Who’s Who list this year. Instead, they compiled a list from Forbes’s many lists. This may have helped out the Ivy League and hurted the liberal art colleges.
8) Despite RMP being a significant part of the ratings, it doesn’t seem to have helped out liberal art schools. Stanford and Princeton have higher RMPs than Swarthmore and Williams (<a href=“http://centerforcollegeaffordability.org/uploads/2013_Component_Rankings.pdf[/url]”>CollegeLifeHelper.com)</p>
<p>If you don’t like the rankings this year, do not worry. Next year they will once again change dramatically. Just another garbage listing provided by Forbes.</p>
<p>I lol’d at this</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>they give some justification for why there are such dramatic shifts though:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It’s unfortunate that they chose to USN&WRify their rankings to make them seem ‘legitimate’ and ‘make sense’ for the most part anyway (I suspect these rankings mirror the peer assessment scores.) </p>
<p>The biggest snub is to Harvard, having three ivy-league schools placed ahead of it; that’s not even including it’s cross-country rival Stanford, which takes the top spot.</p>
<p>And they at least got some data legitimately wrong about UCLA. They list its admit rate at 27%, whereas it’s listed as 22% for fall 2012:</p>
<p>[Profile</a> of Admitted Freshmen, Fall 2012 - UCLA Undergraduate Admissions](<a href=“http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/Prospect/Adm_fr/Frosh_Prof12.htm]Profile”>http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/Prospect/Adm_fr/Frosh_Prof12.htm)</p>
<p>Overall Forbes ranking is still making sweeping jumps in methodology and is too unpredictable from year to year to be taken seriously (and yes I’m ****ed about UCLA’s placement similar to other peer universities.)</p>
<p>Beyphy- They are also accounting a new “Forbes Financial Grade” which may have accounted for some of the differences. </p>
<p>[Behind</a> Forbes Financial Grades - Forbes](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/sites/schifrin/2013/07/24/behind-forbes-financial-grades/]Behind”>Behind Forbes College Financial Grades)</p>
<p>“Overall Forbes ranking is still making sweeping jumps in methodology and is too unpredictable from year to year to be taken seriously (and yes I’m ****ed about UCLA’s placement similar to other peer universities.)”</p>
<p>I think they got UCLA about right. 
j/k</p>
<p>Reed at 65 and Tulane at 128, hmm…</p>
<p>Although it’s nice to see UVa and UMich finally holding hands. ;)</p>
<p>I feel a little sad for Bephy and UCLA though. :(</p>
<p>Ranking is a joke.</p>
<p>I think the top 25 is fine- the schools on it can switch in whatever order, and it’d be quality. </p>
<p>It goes downhill after the top 25.</p>
<p>^^^^I’d say after the top 30. :-)</p>
<p>I do like Ohio State at #138. That seems a bit high though. ;-)</p>
<p>Michigan State at #154 seems about right :-)</p>
<p>Wayne State at #494 is ridiculously low. It should easily be in the 300 something range! :-(</p>
<p>Btw, these rankings are ridiculous.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The categories do not all appear to have been adjusted for scale. For example, the post-graduate Leaders List and Competitive Awards together comprise 33% of the scores.</p>
<p>I’m not sure about that. According to <a href=“http://centerforcollegeaffordability.org/uploads/2013_Component_Rankings.pdf[/url]”>CollegeLifeHelper.com;
<p>Amherst ranks 8 for American Leaders Rank and 11th for Student Awards
Carleton- 77/16
Harvey Mudd- 242/6
Haverford- 45/24
Middlebury- 89/39
Pomona- 31/8
Swarthmore- 9/3
Williams- 16/13</p>
<p>So some LACs do rank quite high in either category.</p>
<p>almost all my schools went up in the rankings so that was good. penn state went up almost 100 places-not sure what could have changed that much! also interesting that they left out bucknell and the three other schools that admitted to lying about sat scores</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Don’t, I’m doing fine ;)</p>
<p>These rankings aren’t even done by the same person that previously did them. And this new woman, the face of the rankings, already made herself look dumb saying that those in the ‘Top 100’ are America’s top colleges in the ranking, even though the ranking itself is called ‘America’s top colleges’ and ranks 650 schools, indicating that these 650 are America’s top colleges. If they, in fact, are not, what’s the point of ranking the other 550?</p>
<p>no, they are. They were ranked by the Center for College Affordability this year, last year, and the year before. There’s just a different author for the article.</p>
<p>I agree, that comment was really uncalled for.</p>
<p>According to article, Forbes distinguishes itself by measuring output/ ROI versus input. A more practical, helpful measure.</p>
<p>Go Tufts at 25!</p>
<p>I remember Forbes also ranked Palo Alto as a top 10 college sports town, and New York, London, and Tokyo as three of the top ten most beautiful cities in the world.</p>
<p>That was enough to stop me from paying attention to Forbes’ rankings.</p>
<p>A little troubled by the sub-title: “The Only Schools That Matter”
Ooooohhhhh.</p>
<p>"I remember Forbes also ranked Palo Alto as a top 10 college sports town, and New York, London, and Tokyo as three of the top ten most beautiful cities in the world.</p>
<p>That was enough to stop me from paying attention to Forbes’ rankings."</p>
<p>So agree with the above statement!</p>