<p>@sevmom:</p>
<p>Isn’t that like the modern day’s Who’s Who?</p>
<p>Though there would be geographic bias that way.</p>
<p>Maybe compile it with the wedding sections of papers in LA, Chicago, SF, Houston, Dallas, Detroit, Atlanta, Miami, Boston, Philly, and DC as well, weighted by each city’s relative importance. ;)</p>
<p>
So far, their cash offers for my method are equal.</p>
<p>Bidding is open if others would like to join in:<a href=“Ranking Colleges by Prestigiosity - College Search & Selection - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/978040-ranking-colleges-by-prestigiosity-p1.html</a></p>
<p>Yes, PurpleTitan, and city prestigiosity should be the next index!</p>
<p>I found the link about the New York Times with “tiers” of universities. <a href=“» Matrimonial Moneyball”>http://grantland.com/features/matrimonial-moneyball/</a></p>
<p>I am just bothered to see schools I have never heard of in the top 20s, especially when they are top 2s, I just feel very uninformed.</p>
<p>Oh, do not feel bad. Chances are that your daughters had little interest in building ships! The entrepreneur college has been in the news, although many would be surprised that a school that only offers a “lite” degree could be Money’s darling. But then, it is Money! </p>
<p>The video shows a more respectable angle
<a href=“http://time.com/money/3053304/these-five-states-have-the-best-colleges/”>http://time.com/money/3053304/these-five-states-have-the-best-colleges/</a></p>
<p>And they still give no love to the service academies which are ostensibly free and provide a good wage and career afterward… Dribble</p>
<p>@oldfort:</p>
<p>Webb is absolutely tiny, and I had never heard of them until a few weeks ago, but once I found out about them, I’ve suggested to kids in CC who were looking to go in to engineering but needed and couldn’t get much aid to look in to it as I feel that it is a great bargain for the right kids.</p>
<p>Babson is small as well (though not as tiny as Webb) and is well-respected for its entrepreneurship program. I’ve known about it since b-school (a classmate went there for undergrad).</p>
<p>Babson and Webb both sound great but they are educating so few kids in the scheme of things that it seems strange that they would end up at the top of this list.</p>
<p>@sevmom:</p>
<p>LOLOLOLOLOLOL</p>
<p>Some terrific gems there, such as “Every now and then the Times tries to ■■■■■ the matrimonial-industrial complex by featuring an “off the beaten path” look at the weddings and relationships of drug addicts/dealers, homeless people, criminals, people who went to state school, and the like.”</p>
<p>Columbia is evidently elevated to the level of HYPSMCaltech in NYC while I anticipated the snub of the “name” universities in the Midwest like UChicago, Northwestern, WashU, and UMich (and Rice in Texas) because, well, they <em>are</em> in flyover country after all.</p>
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<p>Humm, you anticipated the snub and … did it happen in this ranking? Michigan, Rice, and Columbia are all lumped together in a nice package with Notre Dame and TAMU. All between 20 to 25.</p>
<p>WashU, Wisconsin, and Chicago did get clobbered. Not sure if the flyover element played a role in this whimsical effort. </p>
<p>I hope the discussion does not veer in trying to find much redeeming value in the ranking beyond some entertainment and the opportunity for some of us to polish our sarcastic teeth. </p>
<p>@xiggi:</p>
<p>That comment was about the article on tiering of colleges in the NYTimes Weddings section:
<a href=“» Matrimonial Moneyball”>http://grantland.com/features/matrimonial-moneyball/</a></p>
<p>I actually didn’t look at the Money ranking in detail; the website was too slow for me to spend much time on it.</p>
<p>However, it does seem that they don’t adjust for cost-of-living when looking at alumni salaries.</p>
<p>“The video shows a more respectable angle”</p>
<p>Manhattan College? Seriously? </p>
<p>Hey, it is New York! Never heard of it, but the name is catchy. It might be just as prestigious as the Manhattan Institute. </p>
<p>@someonemissingthememoaboutsarcasm </p>
<p>Manhattan College has a quite reputable Engineering Department.</p>
<p>My friend’s D is going to Manhattan this fall. A health degree like nursing I think. They’re Catholic and it’s popular with a lot of Catholic school kids from NY, they also apparently gave her a lot of merit so it was her least $$ option in the end. I still wonder why it’s called Manhattan College when it’s in the Bronx though…</p>
<p>Just an observation. I noticed the top 50 (with the exception of some maritime colleges) were quite selective and the average HS GPA was quite high. I do believe I’ve seen something somewhere that some studies indicate that HS GPA and rank has more to do with how successful you are after college than what college you attend. It just so happens that selective colleges normally have a majority of their classes made up of strong students out of HS. The list may predict which schools have the highest success rate but for the wrong reason. </p>
<p>^ That may be so but so does a school like Union (ranked 17th for undergrad engineering.) I just don’t see how Manhattan makes that list when there are schools like U of R, RPI, Vassar, Union, Binghamton, etc. There is nothing wrong with Manhattan College - my son looked at it for a safety - but I don’t think it is in the same league as other schools in NY. </p>
<p>Well it’s not a ranking of best education. It’s focused on value as narrowly measured by financial return on investment. My guess is that Manhattan graduates kids who stay in NYC and earn higher salaries because of geography. The salaries really should be adjusted for location somehow. Students probably already have good NY city based networks. I don’t really know. Just speculating.</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>Of course, MC, does not belong into that list anymore than their first two choices! It is the domain of those wannabe rankings to establish criteria that will deliver an overwhelming majority of usual suspects and pepper the list with enough unusual choices to make it appear … interesting. HYPS will always show on top … but how boring would it be to only list the schools that are their true peers and all the ones that fall a bit lower. </p>
<p>Just as “another” ranking believed the horrendous UT in El Paso should be ranked next to Harvard! All those rankings, including the Grande Dame of Morse et al, should be taken with a huge grain of salt, and especially the numerical ranking. None of us really know the “adjustments” the writers make to, in their words, keep the playing field level. Morse relies on a overly manipulated and loosely defined Peer Assessment to incorporate “intangibles” and most other rankings suffer from imprecise, older, and not always relevant, if not blatantly false entries. </p>
<p>The beauty of the various rankings is that it end up pleasing a few who measure them solely according where their fvaorite schools fall. That is why fans of Cal love that ARWU ranking despite it having not much to do with … undergraduate education. And why LAC fans love the Atlantic Monthly or the USNEws that gives them a special place. </p>
<p>This time, we celebrate the obscure and tip of hats to the shipping industry and the proud people who want to design and build boats! Next time, it might be the turn of the culinary arts or the Python coders. </p>
<p>And so it goes. All is well, as long as we do not take the word of those jokers anymore seriously than the ones of those pseudo-scientists in London or China! </p>