<p>USN’s tries to concentrate on pre-college students who are looking for colleges that meet their specific criteria and who are enamored of rankings via its mix of variables that place the colleges in their various tiers, some of these variables of which keep a natural pecking order. Movement up or down one or two spots by one college would send the fans of this publication in a frenzy, especially on this board. </p>
<p>The problem is, as someone pointed out above, statistical inputs portions can be manipulated to give a college a better face to this publication than would be warranted. There is no standard way of reporting standards of admission within a college’s CDS, USN’s source for this data, so comparing the various colleges’ admissions statistics would be like comparing proverbially stated apples and… Alumni giving and class sizes can be similarly tweaked to give a college a better face to this publication. </p>
<p>I think Forbes is just trying to shake things up a bit. I’ve always felt there’s at least a bit of an irreverent air to this publication, and I think this is no different with its ranking system of colleges. There is no natural order of things based on past rep or some sort of peer assessment that would lend more stability and a natural historical rank, although things have obviously stabilized because its statistical inputs would have less variation from one year to the next. I’m sure when this pub’s rankings first started there were volatile changes and large movements up and down.</p>
<p>As someone pointed out, Forbes’ ranking tries to concentrate on students as finished products of colleges as opposed to trying to gather in the pre-college set. So I’m not sure what demographic to which the Forbes’ ranking appeals, but I, at least, like this attempt. There are certainly some schools that prepare students for corporate world, law, or medicine better than others, and it isn’t necessarily about SAT’s or even class rank. A lot of this, I would imagine would be a higher level of rigor, which I think is important in preparing student for the real world, something to which USN would never begin to measure. (And unlike USN’s, I feel class rank, ie, gpa, has much more significance than SAT’s because of the longevity of accomplishment, with grades being much more, rather than the ephemeral feat of scoring high. This has led to the various ascended ways of reporting SAT’s to rank higher within USN’s selectivity variable, for those colleges that want a better lot in life.)</p>
<p>My point, I guess, is there is no perfect ranking system because Forbes does have its flaws also. But to say as some do here that USN is the standard of ranking is entirely wrong. USN is just a bunch of gunk inputted, with no standard of review, no standard of authority to question funky statistics, etc. USN is therefore pure garbage.</p>