<p>It really comes down to what criteria a reader thinks make a ‘good’ college. If you disagree with the criteria, you’re going to disagree with the list.</p>
<p>as mohamed2015 points out, USNWR uses ‘reputation’ as a major weighting factor. If you’re interested in things like job placement and advancement, reputation is probably a VERY important factor. If you’re more interested in what kind of an education you get, than it’s not important at all.</p>
<p>And that is only one of the problems with these lists.</p>
<p>Either way, I think that the way that rated using rate my proffesor was fair and we simply don’t know how they did it, I mean my school has its own “rate my proffesor” made by the student union, they might have used that</p>
<p>As much as people dont want it to matter, reputation is one of the most important things that you get with a college degree. You make contacts with incredibly smart people and the network of alumni from your school. Employeers want people from Harvard and Stanford rather than Montana State university, while montana may be better than harvard in some areas, nobody really cares. Reputation is nearly everything and they have those reputations for a reason</p>
<p>Rate My Professors is probably one of the worst places you could go for this sort of thing. Not only is it a self-selected group of people, it’s asking the wrong question. If you give someone a five gallon tub of ice cream and you give someone else a plate full of broccoli and ask them which tasted better you cannot honestly come out and say that people should eat ice cream and not broccoli. And if not to tell people “you should consider going to this university” what the hell is the point of a “ranking”?</p>
<p>I don’t want to say that I don’t think RMP is a useful site. As a transfer student, I had nothing besides that and course descriptions on the website. It definitely is useful to get a general idea of what certain profs are like…teaching styles, etc.</p>
<p>But for a systematic ranking by an entity as supposedly reputable as Forbes? Kind of a joke.</p>
<p>WashU has their own website that’s similar to RMP but more detailed as well.</p>
<p>I agree that RMP is a useful site when picking classes, but definitely not when using it for deciding on the reputation of a university. Plus, people are more likely to post when they have something to complain about than when things are just simply good… students_review XD. (even CC thinks that website is so bad… they asterisk it out lol)</p>
<p>The scary thing is that many school sites are now quoting their (favorable) Forbes ranking on their websites, as though it is totally valid and fair. </p>
<p>Funny how if people see it in print, or on the web, many take it for gospel fact.</p>
<p>I find Forbs so caprecious and biased, it is almost based on heresay and many really fine schools are so low on the list while some pretty mediocre schools are ranked well. If I had to choose, I think USN&WR has more credible stats behind it than Forbes.</p>