<p>You see, my point isn’t that I believe in Forbes. It’s idiotic. My point is that I equally don’t believe in US News. It is also idiotic. Both are, in effect, idiotic ideas scrounged up to make lots and lots of money. Ranking colleges is inane, and the methods are, of course, even worse.</p>
<p>I agree with DolorousEdd, most people KNOW what the top schools in the country are. All of these schools are fine institutions but US News tries to come up with a notion by ranking that a certain school (that may be similar to another school) is better than another just because it is ranked higher. That notion is ridiculous. If you attend a well-known school in the country, you should be happy with the education you are receiving and not regretting that you should’ve attended Yale instead of Cornell because it is ranked higher. I see people on here squibbling about the precise ranking of a school and it is ridiculous. (whether UCLA or USC should be ranked higher, Michigan vs. Columbia etc…)</p>
<p>What needs to happen though is for some way to get the names of lesser known schools out to people who will not be able to attend the more well-known schools in this country. “Colleges That Change Lives” has done a good job though that list is more exclusive to LAC’s, Princeton Review/Fiske has done that somewhat with their books (yet a lot of people focus on the rankings for PR instead of the actual student reviews in their books).</p>
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<p>And you know this how?</p>
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<p>And you know that those fine LACs are not better than Columbia for an undergraduate education? It seems to me many posters like to make assumptions based on no evidence. Agreed that Forbes and US news may do that as well, but they have made some attempt to use objective means as opposed to such assumptions.</p>
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this could be said of anyone, right? Unless someone transfers between schools, it is quite difficult to make any such assessment. As an alum, I can certainly tell you that Columbia offers the finest education anywhere. Of course, I can’t say this about another school unless I’ve attended it. I am sure, however, there are quite a few other schools that offer fine educations as well…
Also, one school might be “better” for one person and not much so for another…</p>
<p>Of course Smart Guy. I suspect Columbia does offer a great education as do HC, Scripps, and Colby. I wasn’t putting down a Columbia education and it might deserve to be #1 on the list. But you can’t make an assumption that Columbia is better than x and those who say otherwise are “wrong” based on perceptions and anecdotal evidence. It goes back to what’s the right fit and “better” for the individual.</p>
<p>“As an alum, I can certainly tell you that Columbia offers the finest education anywhere.”</p>
<p>Perhaps you should settle for ‘it offers a fine education’, since, as you admitted, one cannot know anything about what sort of education colleges offer unless one has attended said colleges. You actually do not know “…that Columbia offers the finest education anywhere.” – do you?</p>
<p>clearly what college works for an individual student is going to depend on their field(s) of interest, their learning style, etc.</p>
<p>Its clear that one can broadly rank institutions based on either admissions selectivity, prestige, or intellectual rigor. Though each of those three qualities is itself complex, and each may vary among academic areas within a given institution. There is, for quite logical reasons some relationship between those three factors, though they are not identical. And none of them necessarily correlate closely with teaching quality.</p>
<p>I think there is enough logical consistency within each category and enough consistency within institutions across fields, and enough relationship among the three qualities, to make an overall “quality” ranking meaningful. However such a ranking must be qualified in two ways - the various complexities identified above, combined with issues of measurement, make it a mistake to over interpret small differences in ranking - the rankings are most useful at less granular level. And the greatest weaknesses of the ranking are likely to come in comparing different TYPES of institutions - LACs to research U’s, or small private research Us to large public research U’s. </p>
<p>All that said, I think USNWR rankings are useful, if taken with a sufficient grain of salt. Other rankings could be useful, but I have yet to see one that is any better. The Forbes ranking seems to be worse, to me.</p>
<p>One of the criteria used in the Forbes Rankings is National Award Recipients (Rhodes, Fulbright, MacArthur scholarship winners adjusted for school size.)</p>
<p>Here is a list of the schools that have produced the most Rhodes Scholars since 2000. It is NOT adjusted for school size. (The Rhodes Trust also warns against comparing the early days of the award with the present, since they have changed the way they chose winners over the years, so I am sticking with recent years.) This list includes all the Top 25 Colleges and Top 10 LACs, according to U.S. News. I am showing the Rhodes since it is easy determine (it is on their website.) Maybe someone else could post Fulbright or MacArthur.</p>
<p>Schools that Produced the Most Rhodes Scholars Since 2000</p>
<p>Harvard 38
Yale 26
Stanford 18
Westpoint 17
UChicago 15
Princeton 15
Duke 13
Naval Academy 12
MIT 11
Washington University (St. Louis) 8
Columbia 7
Brown 7
Air Force Academy 5
Dartmouth 5
Swarthmore 5
Georgetown 4
Wake Forest 4
Virginia 4
Cornell 3
Northwestern 3
Emory 3
Williams 3
Amherst 3
UCLA 3
Penn 2
Berkeley 2
Caltech 2
Johns Hopkins 2
Rice 2
Carnegie Mellon 2
Vanderbilt 1
Notre Dame 1
USC 1
Wellesley 1
Bowdoin 1
Pomona 1
Carleton 1
Davidson 1
Haverford 1
Claremont McKenna 0
Middlebury 0</p>
<p>Let’s actually take a look at the numbers Forbes has used for its rankings from Xiggi’s post (<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/13026841-post6.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/13026841-post6.html</a>). As we can see, it’s not necessarily a problem with the individual stats themselves, but with how they’re applied.</p>
<p>Student Evaluations from RateMyProfessor.com (17.5%)</p>
<p>This is a complete junk variable to be used in a ranking for a multitude of reasons. I hope I don’t have to list any of them.</p>
<p>Predicted vs. Actual Freshman-to-Sophomore Retention Rates (5%)</p>
<p>I’m not sure what this is supposed to be measuring. I’m guessing that most Freshmen at top schools who leave probably just didn’t find the school to be a good fit.</p>
<p>Listings of Alumni in Whos Who in America (10%)</p>
<p>I’m not familiar with Who’s Who, but I’ve heard it’s a joke.</p>
<p>Salary of Alumni fromPayscale.com (15%)</p>
<p>Payscale is a website based off of self-reported statistics, and the coolege stats only measure people whose highest degree is a Bachelor’s degree. This is highly determined by what the school teaches. For example, Harvey Mudd comes first in their list as it is a completely math/science/engineeering school, which is not a viable situation if you don’t want to study any of those. Dartmouth comes in highly in those rankings too as it is very strong in finance, but it doesn’t say how a Dartmouth English major would do.</p>
<p>Alumni in Forbes/CCAPCorporate Officers List(5%)</p>
<p>This is an interesting statistic. I guess there’s nothing wrong with it, but it strongly leans towards schools that lean more towards Business.</p>
<p>Competitive Awards (7.5%)/Student Nationally Competitive Awards(7.5%)</p>
<p>While I guess these are legitimate ways of looking at schools and their student bodies, a lot of the time, it seems like winning awards is strongly determined by faculty support.</p>