<p>i think it would be fun to make a prediction for the 2012 us news college rankings. I will choose not to make my opinion public at this point in time in order to refrain from biasing the posters who respond. Please focus on the top 15 and tell me which universities you think will have the biggest changes from the status quo (both positive as well as negative) and substantiate your claims with appropriate reasoning and evidence. Let the battle commence.
Cheers !
PS please also mention which college you are attending so that we can compensate for the inherent bias that will undoubtedly be prevalent in your perceptions.</p>
<p>1) Rankings do matter;
2) don’t try to predict new rankings.</p>
<p>Wow that sounded like a dire warning of some kind 
When are the US News Rankings out anyway ? I would appreciate it if someone was kind enough to tell me.</p>
<p>If rankings don’t matter, then why are all the Harvard, Princeton, Yale folks quiet while the Berkeley and Duke folks pop up in every thread to point out they’re just as good? And why does it seem that nearly everybody’s wish list here looks like the USNWR top 30?</p>
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<p>Because some people have no clue about what’s really important and aren’t willing to do the hard work to figure out where they can get the best education, given their own interests, talents, and financial situation.</p>
<p>Since you asked.</p>
<p>I would say that part of the problem would be parents(for me anyway.) Parents seem to make a HUGE deal about being accepted into a top ranked school(Even my high-school counselor chimed in about it; she wanted me to go to U Michigan). Just as an example. I probably would have chosen W&M (My lowest ranked school) If my parents weren’t so bothersome and pressuring about rankings. I’m sure I’ll be fine.</p>
<p>I’d say it’s a general culture thing</p>
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<p>IMO, that hits the nail right squarely on the head. And I’d add “alumni.”</p>
<p>Here ya go-- the best collee ranking system out there [College</a> Ranking Service, A Peerless Evaluation of Colleges, rankyourcollege.com](<a href=“http://www.rankyourcollege.com/rankings.html]College”>College Ranking Service, A Peerless Evaluation of Colleges, rankyourcollege.com)
Read each option and don’t forget to refresh the pages a few times.</p>
<p>haha that was refreshing. College kids these days sure are an innovative bunch.
Also MisterK why single out Berkeley and Duke? Numerous alums from an array of schools are promoting their institutions on these forums. Some schools are even gaming the rankings and reporting distorted numbers why don’t you target them instead.</p>
<p>puglacious-
Can’t credit that college ranking service thing to college kids! The link at the bottom shows credit goes to [Stuart</a> Rojstaczer source material page](<a href=“http://www.stuartr.com/stuartetc.html]Stuart”>http://www.stuartr.com/stuartetc.html)</p>