<p>Oh. I worded it wrongly since I wanted to make it short.
I pay nothing when I go to G-town. My father's job offers 12,000 a year for a son/daughter's college and I got a measly amount from outside sources so add that to G-town (33,000) and I pay nothing.</p>
<p>So I should've said G-town free. WashU cost minus 12,000-15,000 =P</p>
<p>How about asking the actual students what they think about Wash U. Isn't school suppose to be about the experience rather than the rankings. I have a friend whose daughter transferred from Harvard to Wash U, and she couldn't be happier. She was totally uncomfortable with the first year Harvard experience. I wonder why?</p>
<p>i agree...like I said before, after a certain point the undergraduate education at the top schools is very similar and the differences in quality are very minor at best. I think rankings matter more at the graduate level, or for specific programs like pre-med instead of just the general undergraduate education. Some schools are better at certain things than others.</p>
<p>Pre-med rankings aren't that important. It's much easier to qualify for med school from a good public than it is from a high-ranked pre-med program. I agree with everything else.</p>
<p>The revealed preference rankings fail the common sense test even worse than THES and Jiao Tong.</p>
<p>The RP rankings don't fail any kind of test.</p>
<p>To me, most of the rankings are pretty ridiculous. About this RP crap . How many people who apply to Brown also apply to Caltech? </p>
<p>Again, yes WASHU is a good school. Im really tired of hearing all this my friend left Harvard for . Crap. Great, so your friend, or friends friend would rather be at WASHU than Harvard, this is, however, something that most people would not choose. Does this mean that WASHU does not give an equal caliber education? Of course not, that would be plain silly. People at WASHU (at least people on these boards) seem to be offended whenever anyone questions any aspect of the school, quickly taking up defenses of higher yield, low acceptance rate and unknown with high school students. I do not expect anyone to put up with cheap shots about his school (I do not either), but at least allow people to voice their opinions, however unfavorable, before you get so defensive.</p>
<p>kk...the only time everyone is trying to defend WashU is precisely after the others voice their opinions...otherwise they'd have no reason to.</p>
<p>kk19131
Your tone is defensive.Why?</p>
<p>Not at all... just firm...</p>
<p>My comments on Wash U being overrated</p>
<p>1) Wash U is a great school</p>
<p>2) Wash U does not deserve to be #11 though</p>
<p>3) The rankings are pretty much worthless anyway</p>
<p>4) So who really cares? It's a flawed and largely useless ranking system, why bother arguing with it?</p>
<p>5) I really like Wash U.</p>
<p>I think this topic has run its course</p>
<p>I'll just let chemchi's immature attack on the previous page slide. Rankings aren't everything but that is the only thing WasUians have to justify their undeserved, lofty position.</p>
<p>The conversation shouldn't stray from the fact that Washington University is an excellent, excellent school from which a student can really do anything he wants. The sh1tstorm started with the mere suggestion that Washington University is "overranked" in one particularly notable source.</p>
<p>Do bear in mind that the US News rankings are "endogenous" - that is, to some extent, they are a self-fulfilling prophecy. Second, I've found that because USN is so heavily weighted towards admissions, schools often catch up to it a couple years later - in other words, USNR tend to be a "leading" indicator. They tend to be one of the first sources to rank a school higher early on.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, however, reputation and prestige are "lagging" indicators. If I remember correctly, the NBER's use of a few years at a time will also make it a lagging indicator, not to mention that I believe it's a couple years old by now (or do they do it every year?).</p>
<p>(For a concrete economic example, unemployment is typically a "lagging" indicator of an economic recovery, because employers have to turn profits first before they feel comfortable increasing their payrolls. That in turn depends on consumer confidence, which is a classic "leading" indicator.)</p>
<p>One good example of these two phenomena at work (endogeneity and leading/lagging indicators) is Penn, which jumped quite spontaneously from - I believe - #13 to #4 a few years back. It's clearly ridiculous now to claim that Penn doesn't belong in the top 6 or so (7 if you really want to stretch) schools.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, however, schools like Chicago and MIT and CalTech are benefitting somewhat from lag in reputations, while the US News Rankings are, simultaneously, hurting them in addition to prophesying their (very minor) slip.</p>
<p>The ultimate example of a "lag" in reputations is UC Berkeley, and on this I would argue that even USN is lagging. UC Berkeley's reputation is propped up in CA not least by the huge proportions of Asian people who have been slow to adapt to the new reality - Asian culture is the paradigmatic "reputation" culture, and thus lags by as much as thirty or forty years back in this case.</p>
<p>I believe time will soon bear out WashU's status in the top 10, not merely top 11, for the following reasons:</p>
<p>1.) The "centers" of the country are shifting. You've already seen it in the rise of Duke (Raleigh/Durham), Baylor College of Medicine and Rice (Houston). Boston should be fine for the near future, but California (esp. Bay Area) and New York will soon see young professionals passing them up in favor of the better living conditions (real estate, driving, open spaces, environment, taxes, jobs) of currently less-developed places. Students will follow as the "hot" places shift.</p>
<p>2.) Much more importantly, schools that are ranked highly are schools that take good care of their undergraduates in an increasingly search-cost-dominated world. Advising becomes more crucial every year, and schools that go the extra mile to take care of their premeds, career fairs, etc. are increasingly successful and popular. Wash U is notorious for solid advising.</p>
<p>It's my belief that this factor is responsible for Harvard's "slip" from #1 to tied for #1 over the past few years - it began to acquire a reputation for focusing too much on its grad students and neglecting its undergrads. This was one of Summers' top priorities, actually.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Berkeley and Chicago, schools famous mostly for their graduate programs, will continue to suffer in the rankings and be railed against by people who read academic papers - because they're undergraduate rankings, not PhD rankings, and students know that you have to go to a place that puts its undergrads first.</p>
<p>3.) Theoretical, ivory-tower based philosophizing is "out", and practical, hands-on solutions are "in". I'm not quite sure why this is, but you can see it most clearly in the rise of schools like Duke and Penn while Cornell, Chicago, and other theory-dominated schools slip somewhat. It may be that the economy is good and so practical skills are simply in demand, or it may be that the ivory tower has politically shifted too far and the general public is becoming impatient or... I'm not really sure why.</p>
<p>Well said Bluedevilmike, I like how you used the economic jargon to explain the rankings. It makes a lot of sense.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Meanwhile, Berkeley and Chicago, schools famous mostly for their graduate programs, will continue to suffer in the rankings and be railed against by people who read academic papers.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This is a typo. "For which the rankings will be railed against".</p>
<p>PS: I love econ.</p>
<p>I like much of what is written, but I don’t know that I believe in the theoretical prophesizing power of US News.</p>
<p>PS: I hate Econ. :)</p>
<p>I have to disagree.</p>
<p>It's ridiculous to claim that Penn isn't top 6? It's student's have slightly lesser scores than those at Chicago, hardly a bastion of high selectivity. It has only one truly notable program, and that in a joke major. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, and Caltech (that's 6 there) all have better programs and higher scoring students. In addition, Dartmouth, WUSTL, and Duke have higher scoring students while Columbia and Chicago feature comparable scores along with superior programs. While people get carried away promoting the focus of their schools on undergrad (<em>cough</em> Columbia, <em>cough</em> Princeton, <em>cough</em> Chicago), I've never even run across a Penn troll who claimed a special quality or focus of undergrad education at Penn (which I consider a positive, actually.) A generous ranking would place Penn in ninth place. Twelfth is more like it.</p>
<p>MIT and Caltech won't slip. Why? They fill a niche with high demand and no close competitors. I can see Chicago slipping.</p>
<p>"2.) Much more importantly, schools that are ranked highly are schools that take good care of their undergraduates in an increasingly search-cost-dominated world."
Schools are not ranked on taking good care of their undergraduates. Harvard always had a rep for slighting undergrads and it hasn't slipped. It's traded with YP over the years since the rankings began. The only measures that would be altered by a change in Harvard's reputation for undergrad care are peer reputation (still 4.9) retention (sky high) and acceptance rate (lowest in the country). Harvard shares the top place because it's very similar numerically to YP and the rankings are determined by numbers. Schools don't change ranks because USNews thinks they deserves certain spots.</p>
<p>If people knew they had to go to places that put undergrads first, the top LAC's and Dartmouth would dominate cross-admit battles. They don't. The uber-prestige schools do. I've run across the rational applicant argument before. College-bound students are not, by and large, making rational decisions. They decide from a perspective of very limited information under the strong influence of the bias of peers.</p>
<p>"3.)" Duke and Penn aren't providing practical, hands-on solutions. They're part of a class of national university that has decent programs with a few standouts. The major ones are WUSTL, Penn, Duke, Brown, Dartmouth. Presenting Chicago and Cornell as paragons of the other class is ridiculous. The major schools in this class are HYP, Columbia, Stanford, MIT, Caltech, Cornell, Chicago, and JHU (Penn and Duke can and probably will make the switch to good research schools). You just listed the low-ranked ones. Harvard actually has a very similar profile to Chicago as far as grad students vis-a-vis undergrads (2:1 graduates to undergrads, famous for graduate school, etc.) It's kind of arbitrary to mentioned the top ranked schools of one type with lower ranked schools of the other to imply that the former class is gaining. Here, I'll do it. Brown is ranked relatively low. Harvard is ranked high. Ivory tower schools are in while undergrad-centric schools are out.</p>
<p>As a Chicago student, two things: 1. Chicago isn't famous for grad programs. It's not famous at all, for anything. 2. USNews is not an undergraduate quality ranking. It's not a ranking of overall academics (Penn>Stanford?), prestigiousness (...Penn>Stanford?), attention to undergrads (Harvard>Dartmouth?), faculty strength (Penn>Cornell?), or any combination thereof. Chicago slips in the rankings because it's numbers on USNews' heavily weighted criteria aren't that great. Period. Don't read actual changes of school quality into the USNews rankings. That's not what the rankings are measuring.</p>
<p>"Theoretical, ivory-tower based philosophizing"
Srange name for good grad programs.</p>
<p>"practical, hands-on solutions are "in""
Stranger name for decent to mediocre grad programs. </p>
<p>Oh yeah, I hold WUSTL in VERY high esteem. I don't see a great reason to hold Duke or Dartmouth in higher esteem and I respect WUSTL more than Brown or Penn.</p>
<p>KK: It's not that US News has "prophetic" power, its that their numbers are weighted very heavily towards the freshmen classes, which will take a few years to impact a school's reputation.</p>
<p>D: I'll leave others to deal with your discussion of Penn, but suffice to say that characterizing it as a school with merely one good program in a joke department is dramatically and excessively harsh.</p>
<p>MIT and CalTech are extremely hard to rank because they're so different from others. So predicting a slip, a rise, or simply holding is nearly impossible to do, because ranking them in any kind of consistent manner is also very difficult.</p>
<p>It's my opinion that Harvard would have the name power to run away with the top spot if undergrads felt confident that going there would actually give them the attention they needed - Summers' platform was very reasonable. College students are making rational decisions: name power and quality of education trade off. Harvard, with its dominance of name power, doesn't need to win the quality of education battle to run away with the entire show.</p>
<p>My shorthand "practical, hands-on solutions" was another phrase for pre-professional undergraduate student bodies. Not, as you seem to imply, mediocre graduate school programs, or even schools with just "a few standouts".</p>
<p>And you do your school a dramatic and frankly hysterial disservice when you label it "not famous at all, for anything". You have a preposterous percentage of Nobel laureates, for one thing, and your graduate programs in Economics and Physics are simply incredible.</p>
<p>And US News may be an imperfect ranking, but it is in fact designed to do SOMETHING. It is meant to approximate the quality of the education you'll get as an undergraduate. Whether it does so well or not is a discussion for another day - but I have found that whether for exogenous (it's predicting well) or endogenous (it's self-fulfilling) reasons, it seems to work moderately well a few years down the line.</p>
<p>"It's student's have slightly lesser scores than those at Chicago, hardly a bastion of high selectivity."
I should defend Chicago's undergrad program (something I rarely do as a result of an unfair bias) by noting that they honestly are a self-selecting school. They have a high acceptance rate because, in general, their applicant pool is more qualified to begin with. You've gotta be pretty serious about UChi to complete that application.</p>
<p>"...and the rankings are determined by numbers."
Wait, Harvard deserves to be numero uno because it has the best stats, but Penn doesn't deserve to be in the top six based on the same criteria? I'm lost.</p>
<p>"If people knew they had to go to places that put undergrads first, the top LAC's and Dartmouth would dominate cross-admit battles. They don't. The uber-prestige schools do."
I agree with you here. This same reasoning on the part of the (ironically) unwise masses, this scholarly supplication to the HYPS gods of prestige, is the reason that these Ivies have such high yields, high retention, and low admit rates. Shame on all you Ivy hopefuls. You glorify these schools yet discredit their irrational student bodies. (To a certain extent, I'd agree with you. I'm just saying that I don't follow your logic here.)</p>
<p>"1. Chicago isn't famous for grad programs. It's not famous at all, for anything."
Wait, seriously? The Chicago School of literary criticism? Or, say, Milton effing Friedman? Have you heard of a nuclear reactor?</p>
<p>"'Theoretical, ivory-tower based philosophizing'
Srange name for good grad programs.
'practical, hands-on solutions are in'
Stranger name for decent to mediocre grad programs.
Oh yeah, I hold WUSTL in VERY high esteem. I don't see a great reason to hold Duke or Dartmouth in higher esteem and I respect WUSTL more than Brown or Penn."
Word, I'm with you here. I just don't understand the point that you're trying to make with the rest of this, if you're defending WUSTL or the Ivies or both or neither or what.</p>