<p>That’s an interesting perspective, finaldchild. </p>
<p>I agree that there is a cluster of schools that are all very comparable in the 11-20 ish range, and through a completely objective lens you can’t really discern between them.</p>
<p>You guys are too funny. All you do is compare test scores from 18 year old kids who have yet attended these colleges and assume they are all comparable and better than schools listed below them at USNWR.</p>
<p>I’m not sure I follow, rjk. Who was comparing test scores and assuming they are all comparable and better than schools listed below them at USNWR?</p>
<p>“You guys are too funny. All you do is compare test scores from 18 year old kids who have yet attended these colleges and assume they are all comparable and better than schools listed below them at USNWR.”</p>
<p>I’m a little confused, rjk.
This paragraph doesn’t really make sense, grammatically or otherwise. Are you saying they are wrongfully trying to impose a correlation between student test scores and university quality? </p>
<p>Sorry if I missed something, it is early and I’m tired! :D</p>
<p>I believe my sentence makes some sense, although I agree it isn’t worded very well. . I agree that test scores are important, but not to the extent you guys make them out to be. It seems that too many people on CC follow USNWR rankings blindly; just assuming that the top 20 schools are the litmus test for university quality.</p>
<p>Oh OK. I personally think test scores/student strength is but one component of what makes a strong university. I think it accounts for 15% of the USNWR rankings. </p>
<p>Does anyone know how frequently, if at all, US News adjusts the criteria it uses to rank the universities? I remember reading a snippet from US News where they insist they often alter the criteria they use in an ongoing effort to improve their methodology.</p>
<p>^^^^It seems as soon as a public starts to rise too highly, they tweek the methodology to give a boost to privates. ;-)</p>
<p>US News takes too much information from private schools blindly without verification. Of course in reality, they really don’t care. As long as they sell their product, the end results don’t matter all that much.</p>
<p>Do you honestly think USNWR has a vendetta against publics, or do you just think their current methodology is coincidentally less advantageous to publics?</p>
<p>I honestly think USNWR will tweak their methodology in any way in order to sell more copies of their reports online and in the stores. That the criteria definitely favors private institutions is beyond a doubt. People who actually spend money on these rankings are not interested in seeing top publics ranked too highly. It ruins their perception of what a top university is supposed to be.</p>
<p>Where did I say test scores? I was talking about optometry LOL.</p>
<p>Finalchild Preliminary Rankings</p>
<p>Harvard
Stanford
Yale
MIT
Princeton
Columbia
Chicago
Swarthmore
Williams
Amherst
Brown
Penn
Carleton
J. Hopkins
Middlebury
Pomona
Haverford
Duke
CAL
Northwestern
Dartmouth
Bowdoin
Wash U
Cornell
Wesleyan
Vassar
Vandy
Rice
MICHIGAN
Davidson
Grinnell
UCLA
Carnegie Mellon
CalTech
Harvey Mudd
Tufts
G-town
Notre Dame
Claremont Mck
Oberlin
Macalester
Washington and Lee
UNC
UVA
Emory
Colby
Kenyon
Hamilton
William and Mary
Bates
Whitman
Rochester
NYU
Holy Cross
BC
Wake Forest
Brandeis
Villanova
Occidental
UT-Austin
Wisconsin…</p>
<p>Sure I’m missing at least a couple of obvious ones and left out all-female schools…</p>
<p>I’m sure I’ve forgotten a couple of obvious ones, and remember this is only overall undergrad quality/experience…if more global assessment then I probably would put Mich with Northwestern and Dartmouth.</p>
<p>Yes, I agree, let’s move Michigan between Northwestern and Dartmouth and put UCLA where I had Michigan :)</p>
<p>Ill play:</p>
<p>US Undergraduate Rankings (excluding LACs, don’t know enough about them)</p>
<p>Harvard
Princeton
Stanford
Yale
MIT
Columbia
Chicago
Caltech
Duke
Penn
John Hopkins
Brown
Northwestern
CAL
Dartmouth
WUSTL
Cornell
Vandy
Rice
Michigan
UCLA
CMU
UVA
Notre Dame
Georgetown
USC
Emory
Tufts
Boston College
UNC
Rochester
NYU</p>
<p>:D</p>
<p>It’s Cal, not CAL.</p>
<p>Thx UCBCEG…good to have someone really smart monitoring the board. Where’s the PHD at the end of UCBCEG???</p>
<p>No comment about Johns Hopkins UCB? ;-)</p>
<p>Johns* Cal* </p>
<p>You’ll have to forgive me :D</p>
<p>Pretty reasonable rankings, finalchild and jakey. Nicely done, you both get a gold star! :P</p>
<p>I don’t think it is possible to rank universities. I prefer grouping them as follows, based on (1) strength of faculty, (2) quality of departments, (3) academic reputation, (4) institutional wealth and financial stability, (5) strength of student body, (7) graduate school and professional placement:</p>
<p>GROUP 1
Harvard
MIT
Princeton
Stanford
Yale</p>
<p>GROUP 2
Cal
Caltech
Chicago
Columbia</p>
<p>GROUP 3
Brown
Cornell
Dartmouth
Duke
Johns Hopkins
Michigan
Northwestern
Penn</p>
<p>GROUP 4
Carnegie Mellon
Emory
Georgetown
Notre Dame
Rice
UCLA
UNC
UVa
Vanderbilt
WUSTL</p>
<p>GROUP 5
Boston College
Georgia Tech
NYU
Rochester
Texas-Austin
Tufts
UIUC
USC
Wake Forest
William & Mary
Wisconsin-Madison</p>
<p>There is virtually no difference from group to group, let alone within the same group.</p>
<p>I’d say Alexandre gets the gold star. He is the only one here who really knows the actual perception of these schools. Notice his rankings don’t blindly follow USNWR for the most part? Also notice how he places the strength of the student body behind other more important variables? Michigan doesn’t have the strongest student body going in However, it places its graduates as well, if not better, than many of the other institutions ranked higher than it at USNWR. There must be a reason that a school with lower quality students ends up doing so well.</p>
<p>“I don’t think it is possible to rank universities. I prefer grouping them as follows, based on (1) strength of faculty, (2) quality of departments, (3) academic reputation, (4) institutional wealth and financial stability, (5) strength of student body, (7) graduate school and professional placement.”</p>
<p>Alexandre: What happened to number 6? ;-)</p>