<p>Interesting little survey referenced on another forum, thought parents might like to see it.
[quote]
Austin, Texas. April 9, 2009. In an exclusive TrendTopper MediaBuzz analysis, the Global Language Monitor (langaugemonitor.com</a>) has ranked the nation’s colleges and universities according their appearance on the Internet, throughout the Blogosphere, as well in the global print and electronic media. The analysis is the only college ranking including Social Media.</p>
<p>The analysis was concluded in early April. The measurement period began 12/31/2008. Several interim ’snapshots’ were also made during the period to determine momentum and velocity. Momentum is defined as change since the last day of 2008; velocity is defined as movements over the preceding 30 days. The TrendTopper MediaBuzz ranking are powered by the Global Language Monitor’s Predictive Quantities Indicator, a proprietary algorithm.
<p>Virginia Tech must have become a very highly ranked school all of a sudden, after the terrible shootings occurred on that campus.</p>
<p>Does this ranking system have any value whatsoever in making a decision?
Admittedly, Colorado College is one of our choices, so it is gratifying that it appears as number one on somebody’s list. It would be interesting to know why it is generating so much buzz.</p>
<p>I find it interesting in that one often hears talk about how well the public (whoever that is) knows or does not know or talk about a particular college of class of colleges.</p>
<p>^ I don’t know where you saw that. My page shows Vandy in TN and nothing listed from KY. Aside from that, I think the “study” is pretty worthless. Being known for a good education is different from being known.</p>
<p>^^^The page I looked at just had a numerical listing of schools with the state abbreviation in parens after the name. After Vanderbilt was (KY). I didn’t look any further because notoriety and reputation are not the same thing.</p>
<p>It might be useful for those concerned with who has heard of the school one is considering, a topic of frequent discussion in student forums. What it didn’t indicate was what was being said about a school. I guess one could argue that there is no such thing as bad press :).</p>
<p>“It might be useful for those concerned with who has heard of the school one is considering, a topic of frequent discussion in student forums.”</p>
<p>How true. And for kids that aren’t going into academia for a career, name recognition is of value. I would guess a gigantic chunk of the working population outside the east corridor and many in hiring positions have never heard of Bowdoin (let alone know how to pronounce it) or many colleges of similar ilk. Fine academic institutions all, but very low name recognition. Who would ever have heard or known of “Seton Hall” until basketball…was it basketball???</p>
<p>Well, as one of the top 5 research schools I could see UW getting more mentions than Duke, NW and Gtown. Much of MIT’s work is secret military stuff so ditto.</p>