How and why did Pomona go from #1 to #7?
I wouldn’t put a lot of stock in any of these rankings.
Williams (#2) over Harvard? Wesleyan (#9??) over Penn (#11)? Notre Dame (#13) over Columbia (#16)?
I think if you actually looked at students accepted at any of these pairs of schools, the overwhelming majority would select the lower ranked school. Does anyone think that many students would turn down Penn or Columbia for Wesleyan? I seriously doubt it.
Having said this, I believe that college is about 90% what you put into it. There are weak courses and majors at any school, including Stanford and Harvard.
I agree that this rank ordering is pretty different than what a revealed preference ordering (based on cross admit decisions) would show. And mixing research universities with liberal arts colleges is an apples to oranges process.
On the other hand, someone coming up with a ranking algorithm typically wants to get publicity, and a good way to do that is to come up with surprising findings (or at least a really different ordering than US News) . . .
i think if Brown and Wesleyan were substituted for Penn and Columbia, the top 10 would be fairly accurate. Caltech, Chicago and Duke should also be higher.
I also think USNews renders itself outdated by refusing to place Stanford #1 or #2, or even at the very least #3.
@fredthered, yes, I do think there are kids who would turn down Penn for Wesleyan. Columbia, not so sure. A lot of how we view this stuff is based on our own biases, which were informed by a lot of accurate and imprecise stuff a long time ago.
When I was in school, Penn was the absolute red headed step child of the Ivy League. Cornell seems to have that distinction today. I don’t know why.
In my biased view, Columbia is a top 5 university. I don’t see Penn that way.
So I have my own angle, which I can’t really substantiate any better than anyone else. I also share your bias where it comes to ND. I don’t see ND as a school people would tend to prefer over Columbia.
But Wes and Penn are closer in my view than your other pairings.
US News has some of these head scratchers too.
I think some college rankings make some sense conceptually; others not so much. For instance, i think you can roughly rank faculty in a given department at least on their research. By such a measure, Stanford or MIT have a stronger computer science faculty than (say) Yale or Virginia.
Another reasonable way to rank colleges is how students who are admitted to various schools choose. Avery et al had a now somewhat dated paper using this idea. It was based on survey data from circa 2000. The top 6 schools were: Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Caltech, MIT, and Princeton. The ranking change a little on the exact metric, but it is always these six schools.
When my son started looking at schools several years ago, I did some research. I ask college counselors, read papers, talked to top HS students, etc. I asked the question: “If the very strongest students could pick their school, what schools would they pick?” Again and again those 6 schools came up. One can argue about the rank ordering of these six schools, but I don’t see any other schools large or small that would break into this group. The Stanford Faculty Senate published cross-admit data a few years ago. Stanford won against MIT and Princeton, tied with Yale, and lost to Harvard. (Caltech was not included. Probably too small.) There is a post on CC that “some administrator” said that for the first time Stanford beat out Harvard for cross admits for the Class of 2019. Who knows if that is true.
Once you get beyond those six schools, it’s hard to get data. Avery et al has Columbia at 8, Penn at 12, and Wesleyan at 26.
When I talk with HS college counselors, one thing they tell me is that the small, rural liberal arts schools are not as popular now as they were 10 or 20 years ago. I don’t know if this is true, but several counselors independently told me this. They said that kids are more interested in urban or suburan universities that tend to be stronger in STEM. Certainly, Columbia and Penn would fit this category, but also schools like Carnegie and Tufts. I think at one time, some students would turn about H or Y for a Williams or Amherst. My impression is that those days are over. Again, hard data is hard to come by, but this is what counselors tell me.
I agree we you with on one point: when I was in HS (several hundred years ago) Penn and Brown were at the bottom of the Ivy League. I’m not a fan of Brown, but its unique curriculum has certainly attracted a lot of attention over the past 40 years. Penn has made real strides. Columbia in the 1930s had the chance to become a top 3 university. It might have been a top 3 university at that time. I think the 1960s were tough on Columbia. I’m not sure how it is doing right now.
I think you’re right about the trend right now going away from small, rural liberal arts schools, many of which are in areas with declining populations and also have not historically focused on STEM. There is a similar trend in that many companies are relocating their corporate headquarters to be in big cites, such as GE (Boston), ConAgra Foods (Chicago) and McDonalds (Chicago).
Perhaps it’s a different story at LACs in urban or at least suburban areas, such as the Claremont Colleges, Barnard, Swarthmore, etc.
I’m not sure. Among the small liberal arts schools, I have always been very impressed with Swarthmore. Perhaps more impressed with Swat than any other such school. Yet Swat now has both Early Decision 1 and Early Decision 2. Both are binding. I was very surprised to learn this. It suggests to me that Swat is no longer competing against the very top schools. Yet Swat has engineering and students may take courses at Penn.
You all seem to have put your fingers on the crux of the problem posed by the Forbes poll, which is,“What happens when you try to combine the top twenty or thirty LACs with the top twenty or thirty research universities?” It’s obvious if you weigh some characteristics more heavily than others, the results will tilt in favor of one group over the other. For example, Forbes could have made this a 100% reflection of Payscale or the college scorecard and the universities with large engineering and comp/sci components would have cleaned the LAC’s clocks in terms of earnings right out of college. OTOH, they could also have made it a straight reflection of the old “Who’s Who in America” ranking which was a regular feature of the 1950s and 1960s and almost always favored the potted ivies (Hiint: only two presidents of the United States graduated college with an engineering degree.)
I don’t think the results here would have raised many eyebrows as recently as the 1980s. But, times do change and as others have mentioned, not many people today would place leadership in the arts and public affairs and altruistic qualities such as community service, classroom performance, or the pursuit of “knowledge for its own sake” as part of their own revealed preferences. But, that doesn’t mean the results aren’t interesting.
@MiddleburyDad2 that was probably true many many years ago (like in the 70s, 80s) . Penn is not like that today and hasn’t been like that for over 15-20 years and with good reason. It has made incredible strides, as @fredthered mentioned above. There are many people who turn down Columbia for Penn nowadays. Revealed preference rankings put the split 50-50, even slightly in favor of Penn. Penn also has been winning the cross admit battle with Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell for several years now. Penn has been solidly considered in the middle of the ivies for quite some time now, along with Columbia, below HYP and above Dartmouth, Brown, Cornell. Penn made incredible improvements throughout the mid/late 90s under Judith Rodin and it has only been improving ever since under Amy Gutman. The students who would choose Wesleyan over Penn are a very very small minority. It is not even remotely close.
@Penn95, you don’t need to jump in and rescue Penn. I get it. You missed the point … and that was that it was the case several years ago. I don’t care why Penn has risen. The point is that they were viewed as a basement dweller when I was in college. Truth is, Stanford wasn’t perceived by many as quite elite as it is now either.
@fredthered I hear otherwise. But like you, I have my own angle on these things. My sense is that the elite LACs are enjoying more and more recognition all the time, and are thus also enjoying great and greater app. numbers from accomplished students. The NESCAC, as a brand, is, in my view, just scratching the surface of recognition and is becoming a national brand. No doubt the renewed emphasis on STEM has not be a friend to small LACs, but they seem to be weathering it just fine.
@Penn95 , not that it’s relevant to my point, but I’d add that Penn was considered lower-tier of the Ivy League during much of the 90s as well. That period covered my attendance there in law school. People always enumerated the Ivy League schools and concluded with, “oh yeah, and Penn.” They’ve always had Wharton, but there was a time when that was a very important asset and a time when “Wharton” was more recognizable to the man on the street than Penn. As a LS grad, I can’t tell you how many times people, including chuckle head family members, would ask me if I’d switched allegiances from the Tree to the Nittany Lion - they just didn’t know Penn, but would have known, I suspect, Columbia, Harvard, Yale, Cornell, etc.
So these things are fluid other than for those at the very top with endowments that will keep them at the very top in perpetuity. For everyone else, what goes up can very well come down.
Wes is a good example. So many on these boards aren’t old enough to remember when Wesleyan was the wealthiest LAC in the country. Then, their finances became a liability to them in their ranking. From all accounts they are well on their way to remedy that situation, though I doubt they’ll ever catch Williams or Pomona in terms of endowment given where they are. But then again, what caused Wesleyan’s financial woes could at some point cause Williams’: financial mismanagement, poor investment and over-draw on endowment principal. But I doubt it.
Right now Wesleyan over Penn? You might be right. Williams over Penn? I’ll bet those numbers are much closer. Then again, consider that a lot of those kids are in the category of people who need the affirmation of an Ivy League badge and the security of knowing that every dip sh** on the street knows they attended a prestigious university. I’ll take the people who are a bit more secure in themselves and go where they want to go, and on substance, there are many reasons to choose Wes - or Vassar or Middlebury or Amherst or CMM or Carleton - over Penn. There are just as many reasons to choose Penn over Wes or any of those schools, but there’s no doubt that the quality of education, instruction and peer group will suffice for the high achiever at any of those places.
All of this makes probably the only point in this thread that really matters: almost everyone who weighs in here has an interest in the outcome. Most people don’t give a damn. You support Penn for obvious reasons, I support LACs in general, and Wes (and Middlebury and Pomona) in particular, for my own reasons.
They all - Wes, Williams, Penn, Columbia, Midd and Pomona, have one thing in common though: they’re not as good as my alma mater! Stanford’s #1 in your heart and mine. 
To me, the important thing to note from comparing these rankings, where one school can differ by thirty spots between the two sources (Forbes and US News) is that they are fluid. If a school is in the top five in one of the rankings then it is one of the best schools in the land, but if it’s in the top fifty in one of the rankings is STILL one of the best schools in the land. There is no point in making distinctions between 3 and 4 because there is LITERALLY no difference in quality between the two. And if one moves five spots in one year it hasn’t gotten any better or worse.
@MiddleburyDad2 they would have known HYP, maybe columbia too, but Cornell not so much. Cornell has always been the step child of the ivies. Yes i know your point about the 90s is correct, that is why i said it hasn’t been so for the last 15-20, i.e starting in the late 90s. Point is nowadays this is not the case at all. Things are not as fluid as you make them to be. Stanford rose for a very good reason, it wasn’t chance and so did Penn. Also of course Stanford is better than Penn as you say, it is the best university in the world nowadays imo and I don’t see that changing in the future.
@Penn95 it’s ultimately an anecdotal thing, but in my experience Cornell is a very recognizable name. Not saying it’s better, but it is recognizable. It “sounds” Ivy League to people. Pen has one major issue in this category: the name recognition of Penn State because of its former iconic coach. People who don’t know schools hear “Penn” and think state college first.
Cornell has no such confusing reference.
Again, just my personal experience. Can’t prove it.
It is pointless to try to rank top-50 or so. They all offer more opportunities than any student can ever avail of. Sure, if average Harvard student is smarter than most, he will (hopefully) remain smarter by the time he graduates, but it does not necessarily make the school any better at education. Aim high but please relax, education is not an exact science.
It’s difficult to marry the U’s and the LACs. I think Forbes gives it the college try. The difference of a couple spots isn’t worth sweating over. And thank goodness ol’ Leland Stanford had the sense to build his Cornell where he did, knowing the Silicon Valley would one day grow around it. :))
Wesleyan’s problem wasn’t that it was mismanaged. Because of pressure from the IRS, it had to relinquish its biggest asset, an unbelievable cash cow called, American Educational Publications, the income from which paid for an important growth spurt in the 1950s and early 60s that put it on a par with Amherst and Williams. It took Amherst and Williams nearly thirty years to surpass it again in terms of endowment and then, only because Wesleyan’s reputation for wealth was so stubborn that alumni were skeptical it needed money. Meanwhile, it is all Amherst, Williams, and places like it, can do right now to continue tuition discounting as much as possible in order to keep attracting smart, middle-class kids, something Wesleyan has been extremely mindful of, too.