<p>monstor how could i be a ■■■■■? that doesn’t even make sense…</p>
<p>“Northeastern at 593/600 though…can anyone justify that for me?”</p>
<p>davematthewsxvii - Of course no one can justify that - I don’t think the people at Forbes even bothered to review their own list. Totally Bogus List…</p>
<p>I presume you guys who like Forbes are all in agreement with the following:</p>
<p>72 Brown
77 Vanderbilt
83 Penn
98 Dartmouth
104 Duke
105 Cornell
106 Georgetown
130 Wake Forest
173 Johns Hopkins
267 Carnegie Mellon
270 Rochester
281 USC
342 Boston University
355 NYU</p>
<p>that would be correct</p>
<p>^^^^^^^^^lol</p>
<p>GoBlue81, I agree that those rankings are completely out of whack. Unfortunately, Forbes will love it if people keep debating whether school X should be ahead of school Y in their rankings because it keeps them from discussing the merits of the methodology. The weights on the various criteria are completely ad hoc and the data used are of little value. It does not in any way measure productivity. Using RateMyProfessors.com to assess quality of teaching is a joke. Anyone who has been involved in the assessment of college teaching knows that student assessments are readily manipulable, with higher grades being the easiest way to get higher assessments. Colleges that are serious about teaching have senior faculty observe junior faculty in the classroom, and they often find that someone is getting high evaluations because he is not demanding. RateMyProfessor.com is even lass reliable than a colleges own student evaluations because the sample of respondents is even less representative. Forbes has had the unfortunate effect of making the USNWR rankings look even better.</p>
<p>GoBlue, Cornell was ranked #207, not #105. #105 was Cornell COLLEGE, not Cornell University. And Michigan was ranked #200.</p>
<p>Sorry, how could I possibly make such a mistake. Of course everyone knows that Cornell College is a better school … 102 places ahead of Cornell University to be exact.</p>
<p>that would also be correct</p>
<p>Can someone please lock this ridiculous thread? The intent of this thread was not to start any serious debate, which is clear by looking at soccersam’s latest posts.</p>
<p>this list makes absolutely no sense, why am I paying 50K to goto nyu ?</p>
<p>:P I should just goto some random college in middle of nowhere to get a “better education”</p>
<p>There is a fallacy of logic called “begging the question.” It involves using the conclusion of an argument as a premise. In other words, using the very thing you’re trying to prove as a reason for you being correct. “Harvard is the #1 college because it’s the best college” is an example of begging the question. So all you people who claim that college x should be higher than Forbes ranked it because it’s a better college than that are committing one of the most obvious and elementary mistakes in reasoning.</p>
<p>If you attended one of these traditionally highly ranked colleges that got humbled by Forbes and are committing this fallacy, maybe your school really isn’t as good as you think it is.</p>
<p>Schmaltz,</p>
<p>There is a fallacy of logic called a “non sequitur”, and the Forbes list (and much of USNews) is built on this. Non sequiturs are built on constructing a cause and effect relationship which does not actually exist. For example, “If more kids at this university get caught up in the scam that is Who’s Who, the university is better,” or “Students use ratemyprofessors.com at all schools and this is an accurate representation of education/course quality.”</p>
<p>There’s another logical fallacy called “ad hominem”, where you make an argument based on your personal considerations. For example, “If you attended one of these traditionally highly ranked colleges that got humbled by Forbes and are committing this fallacy, maybe your school really isn’t as good as you think it is.” This combines both ad hominem and non sequitur, and throws in appeal to authority (and one whose very authority is being questioned, but I digress).</p>
<p>Sorry to disagree with the critics, but I don’t really think this list is all that inaccurate. If we’re to consider a large composite list like this, we have to look at a bigger picture. I don’t really see anything wrong with the top 25 schools on that list (minus Centre College); many of what I consider to be the top national universities and liberal arts schools are on this list of the top 25 schools. If you look at the top 50, I can probably see about 5 colleges that I don’t agree with. If you look at the top 100, I can see about 9-12 that are anomalies, but other than that, the schools that deserve to be there are there. After a list of 100 or so, any college ranking is going to be grossly inaccurate. You may argue that some schools deserve a higher ranking, and while I agree that Forbe’s ranking is somewhat flawed, I think this list is a vast improvement on last year’s list. YMMV.</p>
<p>BTW, the military academies definitely deserve their spots on the top of the list for having such rigorous curricula.</p>
<p>Vinnyli you should also disclose your bias opinion that you attend BC. If you agree then why shouldn’t Centre College be included?</p>
<p>“Can someone please lock this ridiculous thread? The intent of this thread was not to start any serious debate, which is clear by looking at soccersam’s latest posts.”</p>
<p>Translation: “I’m losing this argument, so somebody please gag my opposition.”</p>
<p>What this thread shows is how much some people’s self-image is tied to their college’s USNews ranking. Mess with that ranking and you mess with their lives. If you live by the ranking you can die by the ranking.</p>
<p>Vinnyli, I agree that the military academies should be where they are ranked. However, it invalidates their rankings somewhat when the rest of the list seems completely random. There is a simple formula to make the public go along with your ranking: Have HPY top the list. Sure none of them are #1, but no one is going to throw a hissy fit when they lose out to Army and Air Force. P is 2, H is 5, Y S and M are 9-11. Now if none of them broke the top 10, and a few were out of the top 25, maybe the people who claim that Forbes is valid would change their minds.</p>
<p>I’d say the following top 50 schools shouldn’t be ranked dozens of spots ahead of some very reputable universities like Dartmouth and Vandy:
Centre, Whitman, Kenyon, Carleton, Colby, Union, Wabash, Franklin and Marshall, Lawrence, DePauw, and Hamilton.<br>
That’s 1/5 of the top 50. Had Forbes stuck Dartmouth and Penn in some of those spots maybe people would have taken them more seriously.</p>
<p>I guess someone has to grossly overrate LACs though.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So what if I am going to attend BC? Does that mean anything, beside the fact that I like the school, really? Don’t go ad hominem on me.</p>
<p>Now, I am not one to criticize schools, but Centre College is not regarded as a top liberal arts school. The others on the top 25 are regarded highly as top academic institutions, however, even BC, Whitman, and Kenyon. Just because you haven’t heard of these schools or think of them below the tippy-top schools doesn’t make them “bad”.</p>
<p>Even though I personally hate the undergraduate philosophy of Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale, I think they are all good schools that should be placed at the top (they are). Equivalent schools, like Chicago and Caltech, should also be placed at the top (they are). The military academies should also be placed at the top, as should the top liberal arts colleges (they are). So while some schools are missing at the tippy top (most noticeably the top public schools and some of the other Ivie-like schools), this list does highlight many of the more well-rounded schools. I don’t really think that the list is all that odd, considering the purpose of Forbe’s ranking. It’s certainly better than last year’s, which I thought was whack (BC was ranked highly in the last list, also).</p>
<p>The USNWR is a more reliable source; that I can agree with.</p>
<p>Venkat98: Carleton, Colby, Kenyon, Hamilton, and Whitman have student bodies comparable to top-40 Universities. I can’t comment on several of the others (F&M, DePauw, Lawrence); however, I don’t think Wabash, Centre, and Union belong on that list.</p>
<p>^I’d say schools like Penn, Cornell, Dartmouth, and Vandy have similar, if not significantly better, student bodies to Carleton and Colby, yet they are ranked over 25 spots behind those colleges. Don’t get me started on the schools ranked 50-75 that outrank a lot of colleges that I would consider to have stronger student bodies and stronger academics.</p>