<p>Forbes = Horrible.</p>
<p>Do you realize that 17.5% of this ranking is based on Rate My Professors data? And rates some of its “did they succeed” figures from Who’s Who listing.</p>
<p>This is completely, utterly inexcusable.</p>
<p>Forbes is a very desperate, dying publication and will do anything, and say anything, to promote viewership and readership. </p>
<p>Anyone who bases a life decision on this kind of crap deserves the inevitable outcome. Enjoy these results while you sit in the house you bought in 2006.</p>
<p>I saw a couple of comments about Rate My Professors and we need to be clear about this: Rate My Professors is a sham within a sham. It is a holdover from the early Web 2.0 years (see Virginia Heffernan’s excellent piece about this) and it’s maintained by some holding company essentially as a cost-free ad revenue cash cow.</p>
<p>Anyone, at any time, can engineer any result on that site. It is complete dreck. You also need to notice how FEW postings appear there; what does that say to you?</p>
<p>The world needs good public information about faculty performance. Someday, the right investment will be made to provide such a thing. But for now…it doesn’t exist.</p>
<p>anyone who basis a life decision on ANY publication’s rankings is a fool</p>
<p>I find Forbes totally untrustworthy due to the fact that so many colleges have made radical changes in placement (like 15-20 places) since last year’s rankings, not to mention the questionable criteria…</p>
<p>However, the thing that most annoys me about college rankings is the fact that they are pretty much pointless. People are freaking out that Williams, Amherst, Claremont, and Pomona made the top 20. I even read a comment where someone called Pomona a “second tier school” for kids who could never get into schools like the Ivies or Hopkins (which I personally know to be blatantly untrue). I mean, people don’t know what they are talking about, and if they don’t get the rankings they want to hear (i.e. 1. Harvard, 2. Yale, 3. Princeton) they will just assume it’s B.S. So it’s more or less completely pointless to put out rankings at all anymore because every moron in the country already thinks he knows better.</p>
<p>Curseit writes “I find Forbes totally untrustworthy due to the fact that so many colleges have made radical changes in placement (like 15-20 places) since last year’s rankings, not to mention the questionable criteria…”</p>
<p>This happens often with the USNWR rankings; famously the year Cal Tech vaulted, like magic, to the #1 spot. Careful observers (i.e., Slate’s Michael Kinsley) noted the USNWR very transparently was trying to hype up the publication; you can’t get any buzz if people know, in advance, the results. </p>
<p>Which means…you know in advance these publications have every incentive to mislead you. </p>
<p>Keep an eye out for the diploma mills on this list who will tout their status (“we’re the 3rd highest ranked institution in central Arkansas!!”).</p>
<p>I don’t know why this is even news. There are about 17 people in the world who take Forbes Magazine seriously. </p>
<p>What’s next, TMZ’s top 100 colleges?</p>
<p>Forbes does not include the teacher’s hotness rating from the Rate My Professor data! That’s bullcrap. Hot teachers get students in class, command attention, are young and full of energy, etc.</p>
<p>Love the prestige obsessed getting all ****ed over this list.</p>
<ol>
<li>Who Cares?</li>
<li>Every top school has its merits and demerits</li>
</ol>
<p>It’s not news. In my case, I just like to get agitated about stuff like this.</p>
<p>I would leave it at this: I bet there are colleges on this list who will spin their status into a selling point. If so, they should be called out.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Sounds faintly similar to what people were saying about USNews twenty years ago. Is there any doubt that its patented heralding of the “Best” this-that-and-the-other-thing is what brought it from the brink of bankruptcy?</p>
<p>Ridiculous. I mean, RateMyProfessors??? I just checked my college, and at least half the people listed on there in my department haven’t taught there in a decade or more, and half those in the department aren’t listed. What a crock. The scary thing is, probably some people <em>do</em> take this seriously.</p>
<p>Forbes’ list ranks only undergraduate institutions and the undergraduate programs of universities: </p>
<p>“‘Unlike other lists, the CCAP doesn’t subdivide its rankings into categories like “National Research Institution” or “Liberal Arts Colleges.” When choosing a college, prospective students ultimately select only one, meaning that all undergraduate institutions are competing with one another for students. It is not as though a high school senior selects one large, public school and one small, private school. The senior picks only one, and our ranking reflects that decision process”’
—Forbes America’s Best Colleges 2008.</p>
<p>Although I admit freely that I liked the list because my S is at Williams, I think that however flawed its rankings may be, Forbes’ attempt to join these categories together seems to be worthwhile.</p>
<p>I agree with the ‘who cares’ comment above. What does anyone actually do with these ratings??? If you currently are in high school do you only apply to colleges rated in the top 50/top 20/top 100…such nonsense. Mostly, these are good for their entertainment value and to sell newspaper and magazine subscriptions. Whatever criteria they use will always be arbritrary and not really of much value to anyone for any practical purpose.</p>
<p>Bowdoin is way too low. And why is Boston College before Dartmouth?</p>
<p>^^^It doesn’t seem worthwhile at all. It seems like a bunch of chimpanzees drew names out of a hat. Either that or an explicit satire of US News.</p>
<p>
Yeah you’re probably right, which is a little disconcerting.</p>
<p>because BC is better than Dartmouth. why did BC drop from 16 to 27?!?!?!? that’s the real question.</p>
<p>These rankings are as ridiculous as the “prestigiosity” rankings.
It’s embarrassing that some school websites actually post the “Forbes Rankings” as a selling point.</p>
<p>just because HYP isn’t 1 2 3 doesn’t mean these rankings are useless. you people are so shallow! why don’t you all just move to new haven or cambridge or ithaca or hanover so you can more easily worship the ivy league</p>
<p>Thank you ^^^</p>