<p>@Anniebeats That’s a very broad question. I think there is merit in the raw results that these rankings provide us and I respect CCAP for providing all the data to us. Whether we agree about their methodology is a different issue- one can manipulate the data in order to get the result that one desires. If you don’t like it, you can view in in your own perspective; no one is forcing you to believe in what the rankings hold. </p>
<p>@Classof2018app I do view it in my own perspective lol. Because the ranking are nonsense and mean absolutely nothing. </p>
<p>I am not convinced this is a list anyone is starting to pay attention to yet. Forbes is best at ranking celebrity millions versus ranking colleges.</p>
<p>I think the only thing that this ranking is useful for is enlightening the students about what are some things that they need to keep in mind when choosing a college; I could not care less about what ranking a specific school holds. This ranking shows that students need to consider the school’s retention rate, financial versatility and many other factors when they’re compiling their lists; many of today’s students only think of name and do not consider other factors.</p>
<p>One obvious thing that no one has pointed out is that with Forbes’ rankings all colleges and universities are ranked together so something has to give because twice as many schools are being crowded into the same number of numbers. Obviously if a university is number ten on US news and a LAC is number ten, they can’t both be number 10 on Forbes list (though I guess they both could on US news which is another consideration). So a University can drop from number 20 to 40 just by the introduction of a lot of great LAC in between or vice versa. It would be impossible for their rankings to be the same as US news. Also the rankings would have no point if they came up with the same outcome as US news. Personally I find Forbes the most useful rankings because I can compare all institutions across the board. Small universities like say Brandies do not live in a completely different universe then a large liberal arts college like say Wesleyan. It is much more convenient to have everything on one list Then is on wants one can filter by size, like say any school between 20000 and 7000 students. </p>