Mini's ranking of Private UNDERGRADUATE Institutions

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Only Princeton Review ranks colleges and universities for undergraduate experience, and is the only ranking system to put LACs and research universities side by side. They do so from the perspective of actual students - no points given for hype, “prestige”, or grad school professors. They provide rankings for selectivity, academic quality, quality of campus life, and financial aid/scholarships.</p>

<p>The new edition isn’t out yet. For several years in a row, Carleton has ranked as the number one school in the country, and I would suspect they will again.</p>

<p>Some folks have difficulty with their selectivity index. That’s fine - among the top 50, if you take out selectivity, the rankings remain virtually the same, except the women’s colleges go up. At the lower echelons and especially with the publics, financial aid/scholarships can make a big difference (which is why I’ve left the publics out.) But even leaving out both selectivity and financial aid/scholarships, leaving only academic quality and quality of campus life, rankings among the top 50 change very, very litte.</p>

<p>So for what it’s worth, which is next to nothing: (where there were ties, tiebreaker is academic quality):</p>

<p>Princeton Review Top 50 Private Institutions for Undergraduate Quality (includes: Selectivity, Academic Quality, Quality of Campus Life, Financial Aid/Scholarships):</p>

<li>Carleton </li>
<li>Haverford </li>
<li>Amherst
Smith
Pomona
Macalester </li>
<li>Middlebury</li>
<li>Reed
Williams</li>
<li>Mount Holyoke </li>
<li>Princeton </li>
<li>Harvey Mudd
Swarthmore
Scripps </li>
<li>Bryn Mawr
Wellesley </li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>Grinnell </li>
<li>Bowdoin
Claremont McKenna</li>
<li>Stanford </li>
<li>Davidson
Kenyon </li>
<li>Rice </li>
<li>Occidental </li>
<li>Yale </li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Univ. Chicago</li>
<li>Barnard </li>
<li>Vassar</li>
<li>Univ. of South </li>
<li>Washington U
Harvard </li>
<li>MIT </li>
<li>Colgate </li>
<li>Brown </li>
<li>Wesleyan </li>
<li>Bucknell </li>
<li>Colby </li>
<li>Emory </li>
<li>Notre Dame
Georgetown
Tufts </li>
<li>Oberlin </li>
<li>Bates </li>
<li>Caltech </li>
<li>Boston College </li>
<li>Holy Cross </li>
<li>Vanderbilt </li>
</ol>

<p>Have fun! Remember - no one has ever attended, as an undergraduate, more than two, so these rankings are as good as any. Enjoy, and rip to shreds. ;)</p>

2

<p>Is Duke not on that list - from what Ive heard from other students who go there, its suppose to have a great undergrad program, academically and socially</p>

3

<p>Mini--- exactly how many students provided the data necessary to synthesize these rankings?</p>

4

<p>What is Carleton?</p>

5

<p>You could go research that! (actually, it is 110,000 students, which I think is by far the most extensive survey of its kind in the country.)</p>

<p>Nope, Duke is just below the top 50, as are Bard, Berea, Cornell, Penn, Northwestern, Rochester, and Lafayette. And it does have a great program (as do all of these). Hey, I didn't make the numbers....</p>

6

<p>
[quote]
You could go research that!

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Where?</p>

<p>I find their website very difficult to navigate. For example, I can't even find the list you are referring to. Is it only available in the printed book?</p>

<p>I can't find any info on the actual survey mechanism or on what elements contribute to the various ratings. For example, would being ranked #1 on the "beer flows freely" survey category increase or reduce a school's "quality of life rating"?</p>

<p>Just from a quick perusal of a couple of schools, it appears that "quality of life" and "fire safety" seem to be the two most variable factors.</p>

7

<p>this thing blows.. i dont care what u say.. yale is not 26 on private school list</p>

<p>i hope everyone follows that list and doesnt apply to ivys so i can get into college.</p>

8

<p>
[quote]

You could go research that! (actually, it is 110,000 students, which I think is by far the most extensive survey of its kind in the country.)

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Most extensive and least valuble because of how utterly unscientific and statistically invalid this survey is. I don't care what standards you use, colleges like Occidental and Kenyon simply aren't on the same level as colleges like UPenn, Cornell, Duke, etc...</p>

<p>This list is worse than the USNews list.</p>

9

<p>Add together "Selectivity, academic quality, quality of campus life, and financial aid/scholarship ratings." Their press release talks about the survey, including the number surveyed. They describe in brief on theirwebsite what went into each of the ratings. </p>

<p>"About the survey: The survey asks students 70 questions about their school's academics, campus life and student body, as well as their study hours, politics, and opinions. Surveys are conducted on campuses and via the Princeton Review website at which students at all colleges have the option, yearlong, of completing a secure online survey. This edition's rankings are based on surveys of over 110,000 students at the 357 colleges in the book (about 300 per campus on average) during the 03-04 and/or previous two school years.)"</p>

<p>About the subrankings: The book has 64 ranking lists, each one reporting the top 20 colleges. Rankings for 60 lists are based solely on student answers to survey questions: four lists factor in institutional data. A ranking list appearance does not reflect The Princeton Review's opinion of the college, but a high consensus of opinion among the college's surveyed students about it. </p>

<p>Ain't perfect, but has a heck of a lot more student input (both intensive and extensive) than anything else out there.</p>

<p>Anyhow - Enjoy! Rip to shreds as you will.</p>

<p>"This list is worse than the USNews list."</p>

<p>Why? (I presume you've attended Occidental, Kenyon, UPenn, Duke, and Cornell, and provided an informed opinion, right? How many students did USNEWS survey?) ;)</p>

10

<p>Duke has to be up there...</p>

11

<p>I think the list has some merit. </p>

<p>It's not that hard to see which category cost a school in the rankings. For example, both Harvard and Yale lost points on the "academic ranking", scoring only 94 out of 100 points. This is presumably based on factors that include class size, number of hours of work outside the classroom, accessibility of professors, number of classes taught by TAs, and probably a whole bunch of the 70 questions on the survey. </p>

<p>Duke had a academic ranking even lower (91) along with a low "quality of life" index (88), which combined to knock it down the list.</p>

<p>I don't see any visibility for the actual components of each score, so it's a little hard to say what areas are strong or weak at each school.</p>

12

<p>lol, because Penn and Cornell are definetely better than Kenyon or wherever</p>

<p>I'll take about it in absolutes too: Penn is BETTER than Kenyon</p>

13

<p>Mini - if this is worth "next to nothing" then why waste your precious time on it....?</p>

14

<p>seeing stanford so low is breaking my heart</p>

15

<p>
[quote]
Penn is BETTER than Kenyon

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I don't know much about either Kenyon or Penn. But, I wouldn't jump to that conclusion. Penn is a very large school. It is difficult to deliver consistently high quality, personalized undergrad education to that many students, especially with an index that weights things like classroom interaction, prof. accessiblity, lack of TAs, etc. I don't think anyone would be shocked if Penn students answered questions on a survey indicating they sometimes feel like "just a number" on a quality of academic experience. With nearly 10,000 undergrads, you are "just a number".</p>

<p>It is clear, that whatever the methodology, this particular ranking tends to favor smaller undergrad schools.</p>

16

<p>Quote:
"They provide rankings for selectivity, academic quality, quality of campus life, and financial aid/scholarships"</p>

<p>Based on these factors, especially with selectivity and generosity in terms of financial aid, the list is definitely messed up</p>

17

<p>Northwestern was #1 on this list just a few short years ago. And now they're not even on it? This ranking is useless.</p>

18

<p>The numbers are pretty meaningless. I've seen stories in campus newspapers urging fellow students to boost their rankings in the Princeton Review by voting a certain way. Have fun with the info. --- but bear in mind that this is NOT a scientific study by any means.</p>

19

<p>"Based on these factors, especially with selectivity and generosity in terms of financial aid, the list is definitely messed up"</p>

<p>Actually, as already noted, among the top 50, they make almost no difference at all.</p>

<p>But have fun! That's what rankings are all about! (and most of you only get to attend one, so get those applications into Carleton just as soon as you can. You'll be glad you did.)</p>

20

<p>Having transferred from #15 to #32, which utterly outclassed #15 in just about every way (academics, extracurriculars, social life, location, diversity, facilities), I find the list especially laughable.</p>

<p>As a related aside, why do people worship at the altar of class size to the exclusion of more important issues? I've never understood why it's preferable to be in a 12-person class where a great deal of class time is spent answering basic questions from students struggling with the material (my all-too-frequent experience at #15) rather than an 18-, 35-, or 90-student class where every minute is spent on challenging, in-depth analysis of the text (my experience at #32).</p>

<p>Edited to add: I also took about half my classes for two years at #2, where I ate in the dining hall daily, joined its clubs, wrote for its newspaper, and had a room reserved to live there junior year if I hadn't been able to transfer. It's better than #15, but likewise has its butt kicked by #32.</p>