<p>I like the idea, since 25% of the U.S. News Rankings is based solely on reputation, but there are a couple of criteria I wish they would add. What do you think?</p>
<p>I put in what I liked, and this is the list I got:</p>
<p>1)US Air Force Academy
2)New College of Florida
3)Georgia Tech
4)William & Mary
5)UNC Chapel Hill
6)Jewish Theological Seminary of America
7)Cal-Berkeley
8)Wisconsin Madison
9)Missouri University of Science and Technology
10)UCLA
11)Georgia
12)College of Charleston
13)LSU Agricultural and Mechanical College
14)CalTech
15)UCSD
16)UNC Ashville
17)Mary Washington
18)FW Olin College of Engineering
19)Texas Austin
20)North Carolina State</p>
<p>Knd of random… could the top three schools be anymore different?</p>
<p>Sure, some other variables (like geographic region and top three majors) would be nice. That said, I took only four variables, (class size, student faculty ratio., cost and SAT mid-range reading) and played with them. Besides the obvious candidates, it brought up other schools that a student might want to consider. That provides value. </p>
<p>It would also be nice if the links it provides were brought up in a separate window, one that doesn’t change the criteria you selected when you hit the back button. This way you could also change one single criteria and contrast and compare more easily.</p>
<p>This is really nice. US News Premium sells itself as being able to do this, but it really can’t. More variables would be nice - portion of students in top 10% of class, for example.</p>
<p>This is a cute idea but in this crude form it’s more likely to mislead than to inform. As others have pointed out, there are too few variables. And the categorical treatment, couple with possible flaws in the database, can result in many omissions. When I did a search including both SAT scores and ACT scores in the rankings, it came up with a list of schools that excluded a lot of top LACs and research universities for such a list, possibly because the website database had only one set of test scores for them, either the SAT or ACT but not both. When I included SAT scores but not ACT scores in the search criteria, I came up with a completely different list of schools—apparently adding schools that had SAT scores in the website’s database. And when I included ACT scores but not SAT scores in the search criteria, I came up with yet a third list of schools. But some schools that obviously fit my search criteria—low student-faculty ratio and high test scores—seem to be excluded entirely. So I’d be extremely wary about relying on this tool as anything more than a toy.</p>
<p>“What’s wrong with the University of Phoenix? Or are you just being an elitist snob?”</p>
<p>Not at all. I think online education (while unfortunately does not always allow for student interaction) has tremendous potential.</p>
<p>My problem is when colleagues are recruited by these places to teach courses and told to “pass everyone because they paid a lot of money” regardless of performance. (Or lack of performance)</p>
<p>This is a cool site!
Though I’m not sure if I’d put Caltech at number 2 on my list. And I haven’t heard of Jewish Theological Seminary of America until now. :D</p>
<p>Oh, this is interesting. Some of the schools I applied to ranked highly on my list here, but my top one was Caltech…didn’t consider it since I’m not a hardcore science person. Wish it could consider strengths in certain fields.</p>