I was happy to see UC Merced move up the rankings, even beating out UC Riverside. I hope this will get it more love from future applicants.
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Tied, but at #15 overall, ok.
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Rutgers is T40. Why do all the jersey people not want to go there …?
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National Liberal Arts Colleges
︎1. Williams
︎2. Amherst
︎3. U.S. Naval Academy
︎4. Pomona
︎4. Swarthmore
︎4. Wellesley
︎7. U.S. Air Force Academy
︎8. U.S. Military Academy at West Point
︎9. Bowdoin
︎9. Carleton
︎11. Barnard
︎11. Claremont McKenna
︎11. Grinnell
︎11. Middlebury
︎11. Wesleyan
︎16. Davidson
︎16. Hamilton
︎16. Harvey Mudd
︎16. Smith
︎16. Vassar
National Universities
︎1. Princeton
︎2. MIT
︎3. Harvard
︎3. Stanford
︎5. Yale
︎6. UPenn
︎7. Caltech
︎7. Duke
︎9. Brown
︎9. JHU
︎9. Northwestern
︎12. Columbia
︎12. Cornell
︎12. UChicago
︎15. UC Berkeley
︎15. UCLA
︎17. Rice
︎18. Dartmouth
︎18. Vanderbilt
︎20. Notre Dame
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Are you happy or mad to be tied with UCLA?
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I don’t really care, to be honest - I was just joking about the rivalry that seems to surface over the number one spot.
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As I went to US News to look at the rankings, my goodness - I found out they have lots of rankings.
Best countries - Swtizerland, Canada, Sweeden. Why aren’t we debating this??
Best states - Utah - my son would agree. Washington, Idaho, Nebraska, Minnesota - why aren’t people dying to become Cornhuskers?
OK - thoughts on the college list:
LACs - Grinnell rose but the one that really fell - W&L. Last year I want to say they were 11. Now 21. Now here’s what I always ask? What is different about them than a year ago. This is why the entire thing is goofy. Looks like Wesleyan moved up in addition to Grinnel but I’m going by memory.
National - UF - just because they’re on the move - #28 with UC Davis and San Diego. Interesting to me, people always put UCSD high up on the UC list and UCD (in my observation) the least prestigious after UCM, UCR, and UCSC. But here it is ahead of UCI and UCSB.
UT Austin seemed to have risen pretty good as did Illinois and Wisconsin and yes that school New Jerseyans are embarrassed by - Rutgers. Big leap and tied with #40 Tufts (way down). Rochester and Wake fell even more - #47. Yet I surmise they are the same schools as when they were top 30-35. Same with W&M and Brandeis, both of which fell and then there’s #73 Tulane. Wow. SMU at #89 - are you sure you want them, ACC? Big drop. Another big drop - American - to 105.
UCM at #60 beats both UCR and #82 and the final UC - Santa Cruz - pretty darn good if your lowest rated school is #82. And all higher than the highest CSU (Long Beach and SDSU) - in the “national” rankings with Phd - which SLO is not in but ranks #1 in regional universities west.
FIU - #4 int he WSJ nationally for public schools is tied for #4 in the state of Florida with UCF - at #124.
Also notable, #133 Miami Ohio (very popular on CC) - tied with SUNY Albany and Dayton, and the beloved U of Alabama at 170, trailing in state UAB by a lot.
As for specialties, right after tied for 5th Cal Tech, Michigan, and Illiniois is #8 Purdue and Carnegie Mellon, with Cornell, UT Austin, Princeton, and Johns Hopkins, Northwestern and others following.
In supply chain, Michigan State and Arizona State still lead but MIT has overtaken UTK for 3rd place. Unsure if MIT has the major as I can’t find it but I’ll assume they do.
For business - big tie at 8th place - Cornell, Indiana, USC, and USC.
Lots to peruse and there are huge ranking swings for big name colleges.
Will this impact who applies - is Wake or Rochester no longer near top tier, etc?
Does Rutgers become beloved? Do Illinois students stay home?
Does UCSC take the place over Mercedes as the top 9% fallback?
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I guess we’ll find out. But should it really impact who applies? It would seem odd for a ranking change due to a formula change to cause students to reconsider where they apply unless the factors weighing more heavily in the new formula are especially important to those students. Obviously different students weigh factors differently anyway. Just thinking out loud.
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I agree - that’s the entire - I read an article today suggesting Nick Saban retired because Bama didn’t crush someone. Or we’ve heard for a few years that Bill Belicheck can’t coach.
Did they forget how to coach overnight?
Did Wake or Tulane or American or SMU or Rochester or Tulane or whomever just completely lose all their institutional knowledge, contacts and expertise - and go from being the choice of many top students to the school people will be sad to attend if they were forced to?
I don’t think so - but for those now entering the fray and looking at rankings for the first time, I imagine it will have some impact.
But hopefully people will continue to focus on the right fit - and note the specialties where so many schools excel.
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Looks like UC Davis moved up and UCSB moved down. Amongst public universities, USNWR now ranks the UCs in this order
UCLA = UC Berkeley (1)
UC Davis = UC San Diego (6)
UC Irvine (10)
UC Santa Barbara (12)
UC Merced (28)
UC Riverside (36)
UC Santa Cruz (40)
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That’s crazy -
a) the one everyone tries to avoid is 3rd from the bottom.
b) I always thought people consider Davis 4th from the bottom but it’s near the top
c) the entire system is top 40 public - wow!! That’s incredible.
On another note, is it just me or did James Madison go from regional to national?
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Engineering Rankings for the UCs
#3 - UCB
#17 - UCLA
#19 - UCSD
#30 - UCD
#37 - UCI, UCSB
#90 - UCR, UCSC
I also tried to get the CS rankings but its not accessible beyond the top few programs.
#1 - MIT
#2 - CMU, Stanford, UCB
#5 - UIUC
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Have you ever been to Merced? It isn’t about academics or social mobility. The location and campus community are what students aren’t attracted to.
USNWR changed their criteria slightly.
The 2024 Best Colleges methodology will place greater emphasis on outcomes for graduating college students. Updates will include:
- Increased weighting on a schools’ success in graduating students from different backgrounds; and
- Removing the following factors as ranking indicators: alumni giving, faculty with terminal degree, class size and high school standing; such factors will be included in school profiles and comparison tools for students.
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It’s interesting to me - I get UCB being closer to where all the computer stuff happens but outside of that, wouldn’t most consider the two UCs interchangeable for engineering? More like - campus preference.
I didn’t have a student there (we moved from there in 2006) so I honestly don’t know.
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The reverse is also true. A lot of computer stuff that happens, happens because UCB is the driving force creating the research that fuels innovation in the silicon valley. Data Science as a field was literally created at Berkeley, and other schools borrow from their curriculum. All of the UCs are very good, and we are lucky to have this quality of public colleges in our state. But, Berkeley is definitely a cut above particularly for engineering and CS.
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I’ve been to Merced but not the school - no. I’ve seen the pics. It looks like it’s by itself - not near anything. But I do think previously it was lowest ranked - and let’s be honest, that and because it’s the newest - are why it’s always considered on the bottom. UCSC is beautiful - but would scare me away - due to the housing crunch.
I wonder what they define as different backgrounds? It will be harder to get going forward unless they can capture race - and not sure how they define this anyway? Not sure why this should be a factor though vs. overall success. But this is the kind of metric that makes me think half the kids that use rankings have no idea why the school is ranked where it is, just that it’s high on a list.
I’m glad alumni giving is gone - one school was having everyone give a dollar at graduation and getting that %. I imagine for schools that have non academic majors - things like theatre, fashion, or journalism - they’d have a higher % of non terminal degrees - so perhaps those type schools were getting unfairly dinged?
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For those who care about the technical underpinnings of the rankings, note that it didn’t take me long to come acros a significant mistake in the standardized scoring information for a particular school. Therefore, by the intended methods of U.S. News itself, the overall rankings it has posted may not be entirely reliable.
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So you found an error at one school? Were you able to replicate it for others?
That’s too bad.
I’d imagine they’d study this 8 ways to Sunday b4 getting it out - but even at work, we can have 8 eyes on something and still miss something.
FWIW - As someone whose interests are solely centered in engineering/CS, I think Purdue is a top school. Its in the top 10 for engineering, and its CS program is definitely in the top 20.
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