<p>For the record to anyone that thinks people are only criticizing this ranking because their colleges aren’t at the top, my school is ranked third and I still think this ranking is a huge joke because the methodology and results are ridiculous as has been brought up many times.</p>
<p>Cornell, an Ivy League school, is ranked #207? It’s top 15 in Usnews? Honestly?</p>
<p>honestlyyyyyyy</p>
<p>While I don’t think we should all hate on West Point, it’s clear that this ranking methodology takes little consideration of prestige in the public eye.</p>
<p>it’s not based on prestige as it clearly says…</p>
<p>how much did the gov’t pay forbes?</p>
<p>actually, westpoint is an amazing school.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they made it in the top 20 schools, easily.
I think it’s great that tuition is all paid for…
but a military career is definitely needed.
My friend got in and he loves it. Then again, he’s very militristic…</p>
<p>The people complaining here remind me of parents whose 5th-grade kid gets a C on a test and they complain that there must have been something wrong with the test.</p>
<p>Any methodology of attempting to rank things as complicated as universities on their “quality” is going to be imperfect. As long as the person doing the ranking clearly and honestly states his criteria, then it’s a valid ranking (according to those criteria). Those that huff and puff and act like Duke and Hopkins have a God-given RIGHT to be near the top of the list simply don’t understand what the word “criteria” means.</p>
<p>Also, those claiming West Point has no prestige among the public clearly aren’t from the South or Midwest, where being a soldier and protecting the rights of whiney elitists is an extremely honorable profession.</p>
<p>How about this: we rank the colleges based on our gut reaction to them, and then chose criteria that will confirm that ranking.</p>
<p>Al6200:
</p>
<p>This is the most ridiculous part of the methodology. Owing the US military 8 years of your life (5 years active service, 3 years reserve), plus the possibility of being recalled at any time after that is a HUGE DEBT. </p>
<p>How much it is worth to you NOT to kill, maim and capture, and not to get killed, maimed or captured?</p>
<p>Sure, a military is sometimes a necessary evil, but a military education shouldn’t be dressed up as a cheap way to go school.</p>
<p>
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<p>wow 10 char</p>
<p>Most can agree the methodology is ridiculous. A prime example: In my home state, TN, UT-Knoxville is ranked behind University of Memphis. This is kind of baffling…</p>
<p>2 people have bashed getting a military education, let me take the last one.</p>
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<p>Do you know anyone who has graduated from West Point? Do you have a statistic that shows every West Point graduate is holding a gun and shooting at someone? That’s what your point is based off of and it’s an incredibly ignorant statement. I have a friend at West Point, currently he is packing all of his stuff to leave the Kennedy Center where he just spent an entire summer working on real rockets and assisting with launches. After he graduates he will be working at the Space Center along side MIT graduates.</p>
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<p>Oh my…you’re just another one of the kids on this thread whose mommy and daddy paved their way into some great school that was thrown into the bottom 100s aren’t you? Have you ever lived in a world or read about a world where some sort of fighting force was not necessary to protect you? I didn’t think so. Before you fly off the handle about how I’m just some military baby, I’m not. The last family member I had in the army was my great grandfather.</p>
<p>Please, take your liberal view of the military and shove it up your ass.</p>
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<p>True, it might be a valid ranking based on the author’s predetermined criteria. However, the public reserves the right to criticize the methodology if they so choose. Many here have no problem with West Point or its graduates and we all know it’s an excellent school that produces some of the best leaders in the nation. With that said, Forbes weighed 50% of their score based on information gathered from two websites that can’t claim to have a representative sample of students or graduates from the schools. The data alone is seriously flawed and many here are pointing that out. If Forbes didn’t weigh heavily on such ridiculous variables then you wouldn’t have much of the criticism that you see here. But the result sure did give Forbes that sensationalized headline (“West Point beats Harvard”) which probably helped boost their magazine sales. Judging by all the West Point television interviews on Fox Business and Fox News, where Forbes has their own show, I think the formula did more to help Forbes than it did the student, to which the ranking should be geared to.</p>
<p>Just for the record, my school still made the top 10. Not that it matters but it seems many of you are starting to use that as an excuse to marginalize the opinions of others.</p>
<p>Scott, I agree that the criteria and their weighting is fair game for criticism. And some of the Forbes criteria are easy to take shots at. But remember that the USNews rankings also include some pretty weak stats, like Alumni Giving Rate (what difference does this make?), Peer Assessment (low response rate, and apparently often done by underlings who aren’t academic experts), and % of Classes Over 50 (in which a class with 51 students counts the same as a class with 500 students).</p>
<p>But anybody who’s even slightly familiar with stats and research has to be horrified at the number of people here who assume that the Forbes ranking HAS to be flawed because they don’t like the results. This approach reeks of Judge Sotomayor and the New Haven firefighters’ test that was tossed out because she didn’t like the results.</p>
<p>
nothing but…
an awful lot of West Point grads are leaders in business and Forbes is a business publication.</p>
<p>Schmaltz - I agree. US News likes to use “reputation” as a criteria. Forbes is attempting to measure the quality of one’s education by value (debt load after graduation), effectiveness of teachers and success of graduates.</p>
<p>If you ask me the worst thing about doing the military education is the inability to hold a stable family lifestyle. Not only are you in 5 years of military service, in peak family starting time. But then you are put on reserves and can be called up at any time to serve your “country” while tearing apart the most treasured thing you have in the process.</p>
<p>Haha Service Academies rock the Ivy’s any day!! lol…Seriously though, I think more people find West Point attractive because of our economy…I mean West Point gives you prestige, 4 years of a free education, and a guaranteed job after graduation if you survive, right?</p>
<p>Well manyman- it seems pretty likely that you have neither lived with this responsibility yourself nor known well someone who has, so I kind of doubt that anyone could explain it to you. Although many of those who pass for current leaders or aspire to be future leaders in the country use terms lke service & sacrifice- they don’t actually mean it if it comes to them personally giving up something or making sacrifices for someone else’s benefit. Funny thing- when you spend some time getting the military education that you are disparaging, you actually discover what real leadership entails. You ought to be thankful that there are some who are willing to assume the burden that you are not willing to assume yourself. So- stay home, take your degree at “Wassamatta U” and take care of number one.<br>
Schmaltz: good posts- think you are right on target.</p>
<p>HOW IS ANYONE TAKING THIS SERIOUSLY. Maybe I’ll say it again, CORNELL IS IN THE 200’S. Are you all morons?</p>
<p>and no I don’t even go to Cornell.</p>