<p>I know this sounds kind of shallow, but college rankings are REALLY important these days. I was just wondering if any of you knew what Cornell's forecasted rankings are going to be. Also, what are some problems which if alleviated will enable Cornell to rise to the top.</p>
<p>bumpitybump</p>
<p>i don't know who these rankings are important to but they weren't to me when i was choosing colleges. and i can say for my classmates, i doubt they picked up a paper and searched for college rankings. i think Cornell may rise a spot or two. the admission rate didn't fall as low as we all thoiught this year but over the past 3 years it has dropped and that means a higher ranking.</p>
<p>incredibly shallow. rankings shouldn't be important, and they're definitely not to me. cornell is a great school... i don't know why people insist on challenging that. no one could say we're not going to a top notch university rich with opportunity and passion. rankings, rankings, rankings. sigh.</p>
<p>Problems? Well, if Cornell reduced its class size and became a private Ivy, that would help its rank...</p>
<p>what do u mean by "private Ivy"?
reducing the class size wouldn't make since cornell is a huge university, that would be a waste of resources for the sake of increasing ranking for a news paper poll</p>
<p>Exigent is referring to a privatization of the contract colleges.</p>
<p>I think reducing the class size would allow Cornell to focus more on individual students, improve the experience of the student inside the classroom, foster community, and improve the undergrad experience at Cornell overall.</p>
<p>Some schools like CALS and ILR are NY state contract colleges, which have a higher acceptance rate. If they went private, I would think that would help boost Cornell's rank.</p>
<p>MIT is Massachusetts' federal land grant college. That doesn't seem to hurt its level of prestige.</p>
<p>MIT doesn't give preference to instate applicants. Certain Cornell colleges do.</p>
<p>i don't see how making the three colleges endowed instead of statory will help the rankings, and reducing the class size still doesn't make sense since once everyone has completed the required courses class sizes decrease dramatically due to people only taking classes for thier major. the overall experince of a student is left to the student to pursue not the college to inhance or hender</p>
<p>Reducing class sizes would lower the acceptance rate. Cornell would be more selective. Making certain colleges private would hopefully increase the quality of education, and set higher standards for applicants.</p>
<p>the statory colleges don't have lower standards of acceptance, they have selective criteria that goes beyond test scores. cornell across all schools has quaility education. most professors teach across schools and the same students in all schools.people r making these assumptions with no evidence of turth to them. yes if cornell did make all these adjustments how helpful would they be to us the students, it seems they only would be made to increase frivolous rankings.</p>
<p>Studentforever, I don't believe that is presently the case at Cornell.</p>
<p>if selectivity is one of the factors in ranking colleges, then there is a problem. sure, in many cases, a smaller population will gain increase attention on each student but does that mean Cornell should decrease its class size and privatize its contract colleges? </p>
<p>The fact that Cornell can allow MORE students to have a world-class ivy league education (for some students at a lower price) really shows that Cornell truly intends to provide more people with opportunities to grow. In addition, when you have more students than say harvard or yale, you have more professors and resources to benefit from. Smaller isn't always better.</p>
<p>oh, not to mention,</p>
<p>more people--> more diverse selection of girls/guys to choose from</p>
<p>i'm sure the rankings don't reveal that ;-)</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The contract colleges dont give preferece to NY state students, at least not anymore. </p></li>
<li><p>"private ivy"?? ... it's not even partially a state ivy, in the eyes of the law cornell is a private ivy. This has been discussed before. </p></li>
<li><p>Dont judge the contract colleges by their acceptance rate. Fact: the school with the highest acceptance rate and the school with the lowest average stats of incomming students (the the school with second lowest) are both endowed colleges. Two years ago, the acceptance rate for ilr was around 24% while Cornell has a whole was 30%. I didn't see anybody knocking the university and praising ilr for this. The numbers go up and down from year to year. </p></li>
<li><p>"the statory colleges don't have lower standards of acceptance, they have selective criteria that goes beyond test scores." Absolutely right. Same for hotel and arch, but nobody gets on their backs about it. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>becomming "fully private" wouldn't touch Cornell's rankings. Reducing class sizes and hiring more faculty would.</p>
<p>if i'm not mistaken, the student faculty ratio overall was 10/1 in 2004. and considering the fact that all professors HAVE to teach, and that besides writing seminars, all classes are taught by professors (at least for lecture), i think that cornell's class size and faculty amount is fine the way it is. screw rankings</p>
<p>Point on class size. It's an independent factor in USNWR rankings, so it's not just the effect on admissions that might be important. And, of course, smaller classes are generally (although certainly not always) better classes. Cornell needs to get solidly back into the top 10 and stop hovering around 13 or 14. I think it will.</p>
<p>I agree. </p>
<p>And damn it, I'd like some smaller classes anyways.</p>