<p>I'm currently at a public state school that ranks in the top 10 for undergraduate education but I will be transferring to another state school that ranks in the third tier. Rankings weren't very important in choosing where I went to school (I went to USNews occasionally but mostly for the pictures of the schools) but I get strange stares when I tell people that I'm leaving to go back home to a "less reputable" school (it'll save $$$ and I can use that money for a car (!) , I can commute and get the hell out of the dorms/away from my awful roommate , and finish in less time which would save on loans). </p>
<p>But despite the high rankings, people outside of the state assume that the school is in Florida and confuse it with the University of Miami all the time.</p>
<p>So anyways, how important are rankings to potential employers and graduate schools (mostly for those of us not attending HYPS, etc)? How important are/were they when you picked a school?</p>
<p>agreed with the major. Say you want to major in business, where school A and school B are both very strong. As long as you do well, learn your stuff and network, you should be able to land some sort of entry level job through either A or B. But if you’re interested in engineering and school B waaaayy outranks school A, it would be easier to get a job through B (as well as have better knowledge and experience), even though the overall University ranking is lower.</p>
<p>Rankings are pretty dumb. There’s lots of articles about how arbitrary and unreliable they are. I once read an article about the start of the USNews rankings and they said that when their formula didn’t yield Havard as the top school, they were convinced something was wrong and tweaked it til it did.
Also, when my school (Reed College) decided to stop submitting info, we went from being a T10 LAC to like #54 within a year.</p>
<p>Most of the adults I know hiring, look to make sure you have a degree and don’t care about ranking. Networking/ internships are a big deal. Each job/position can depend on who is hiring and their own personal views. Some will comend you for having the sense not to get into terrible debt for the same degree cheaper elsewhere. My 2cents.</p>
<p>Yeah, I go to MU now and I don’t like it at all. Aside from what is mentioned above, I can’t stand the fact that with a lot of the people I’ve met thus far, my race is always such a huge thing. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard, “He doesn’t really like black people, but he likes you!” Like, srsly?</p>
<p>I really want to switch my major to environmental sciences. I’m not sure the rankings on the programs here or at the school I’m transferring to but the one major upside to there is that it’s about a 15 minute drive from an environmental consulting firm that I would love to intern at (but I already have about 1.5 years worth of experience so far in Chemistry and Pharmacology labs from Case Western and this semester at Miami).</p>
<p>Many kids from my HS go to MU. I’m sad to say I hear similar comments all the time. What school are you planning on switching to? Are you from Cleveland (guessing from Case…)? I’m an Env Bio major at another Ohio school. PM me if you’re interested in getting EnvSci input on more OH schools, I researched many when I was looking for colleges.</p>
<p>Before I came here, I saw a breakdown of the student body demo and didn’t think it’d be a problem. I had some people tell me to basically not be so naive considering where the school is located and the small-town students that go here but basically ignored it figuring it’s 2011 and this stuff isn’t so bad in our generation so it wouldn’t be an issue here.</p>
<p>Wrong! Wrongwrongwrongwrongwrong. There’s just a slew of racial comments made towards the president, Middle Easterners, me not being “black” because I’m not a thug… it’s tiring and I’m sick of having to defend myself for being black, but not some warped gangster fantasy people here have of black people. It’s just…ugh!</p>
<p>I just switched back to Environmental Sciences this semester from biology so I never did any research on programs when I was in high school.</p>
<p>A few colleges will have a valedictorian, but none of the schools I’ve attended did any more in the way of rankings. Besides, I can’t imagine a grad school in, say, physics comparing your grades against someone who majored in art. Your GPA, test scores, letters of recommendation, and experience are what matter.</p>