How often does this actually occur, as opposed to students choosing not to enroll in the critical prerequisite or requirement because it is offered at 8am?
Granted, students who have substantial work, family, or athletic obligations may find the time slots for courses more restricted, so they may encounter this problem less voluntarily. But that does not describe the majority of the forum demographic.
But there are more great schools than one - so who is to say.
But let’s look at your case.
Your daughter is at UGA - I’m guessing even at half or full out of state waived. If half OOS, her cost is low 30s for just tuition room and board.
I think she got into UCLA. Let’s say it .truly is higher ranked and better. But tuition room and room and board are about $70K.
So nearly $40K higher. Each year.
Even if UCLA were higher ranked (it is) and better (who knows), is that worth an extra $150K+.
On top of that, your daughter is not just at UGA but at UGA Honors - which is the creme de la creme of UGA.
None of this can be put into a rank…
Even on these forums, some apparently think that “liberal arts” does not include science and math.
I understand all that. And UGA is not addressing it’s ranking and claiming it should be higher or bemoaning the fact that Rutgers or Ohio State passed it. I am not making a personal statement here- our kid didn’t care about the rankings and I only care as much as it may or may not affect her job prospects later.
But…if UGA, or Tulane or NEU or Wake Forest or College of Charleston or whatever, WANTED to get out there and say Hey we are really good and better than our ranking and here’s why…I have no problem with that. In fact, isn’t it better for a school to explain whay they are great with real facts rather than just saying: “hey look we are #14 so we are great and you should come here!”
Some people, like me, sarcastically use UC Boulder or UC Eugene to reflect that a lot of Californians choose, for whatever reasons, not to attend a CCC, CSU or UC. For me, it’s tongue-in-cheek.
I may be losing you.
US News is coming up with a list of the best colleges. I think they need to figure it out criteria that at least includes quality of students, competitiveness of admissions, success in and after college without forgetting the experience a student has in college such as the learning.
If US News is not able to do that well, as challenging as it may be, I do not think we should be compassionate to the challenges they face in doing it poorly. They decided, this year, that class size is no longer meaningful - and that faculty and student spend is not as meaningful.
Again, I may be losing you.
And don’t forget NEUO or is it NEU-O. 
Completely agree with the points in this.
One might make an argument that the whole athletic program at many/most schools is nothing more than marketing.
I think most can generally agree that “social mobility” and “diversity” (however we define those things at a high level) are good things in society. But what relation a College’s % of Pell recipients has to the educational experience my kid might be expected to have is a mystery to me. Schools cater to the wealthy until the reach an endowment where they can take the moral high road (here’s looking at you Harvard!).
Do not forget that wisdom of filtering ranking (and looking at historical data) is not considered by everyone. Many foreign students go directly by ranking. Similarly, recent immigrant families too. I do not mention even Asian families in the US, for them ranking is everything. DD who was accepted to both UMich and GaTech was asked zillion times how on earth she could pass UMich opportunity. In our area, UCs and UMich are absolutely golden standards because they could be “reached” with money. To me that is crazy. Families will starve to pay for the above colleges. On the other hand, I will not consider loans for any school, even for Harvard. In addition, many families do not understand that Harvard or Stanford alone will not land for your student a better life. It is based on connections… Also, my kids would not go to Harvard or Stanford even for free. They were not interested in feeling like Cinderallas that do not belong…
Yes, I have heard kids at our local bay area high school referring to UC Boulder and UC Eugene for this reason. Some other notable “UCs” discussed as such by our local students include UC Seattle and UC Hicago 
Thanks for asking. I think US News needs to figure it out using primary research. Why do we know that smart kids go to Wake Forest (just an example), but they do not know or know and do not care. They are already surveying schools, there must be questions they could ask if they cared to know. They can still use GPA (not perfect but something), SAT (not perfect but something), admissions rate at college (not perfect but something), Honors/AP courses (not perfect but something). If these inputs do not make up 25% and the success rates, defined as… who knows, do not make 25%, how can these really be the best colleges.
Something that’s easy to lose sight of in these discussions is that the “2024 Best Colleges” rankings calculations include some very stale data. This is an inherent challenge with any sort of outcome based metric…you have to wait for the outcome to be realized.
For the 2024 National Universities rankings, USNWR utilized 19 factors. Seven of those factors (representing 42 points of weight) have a graduation component, meaning it necessarily cannot be measured until some time after graduation.
Of the overall (100%) weight, 37 points of the weight data is from classes entering between 2011 and 2016. If we were to remove the subjective peer assessment survey (given the highest weight of 20 pts) and only focus on the remaining 80 points attributed to quantitative metrics, then 46% of the objective measures weight comes from classes entering between 7 and 12 years ago.
You can argue that the inclusion of stale data affects them all. But what you cannot argue is that although USNWR labels these rankings as representing relative standing for 2024, they are in many ways a look into a past that may or may not accurately represent the present.
Agreed. Were I in charge and limited resources left me with but one choice, I would try and devise a method for rankings services to come up with some proxy for high school rigor, which in my humble estimation tells you more about who you’re getting than just about anything else. And if we could generate that proxy in an efficient and agreed-upon manner, I’d direct all ranking services to assign it a healthy and standardized weighting.
But that’s a dream.
Don’t know if it’s been posted, but this article explains why Princeton has remained #1.
The post you replied to was about the Best Value ranking. Among the top 10, there were essentially no changes in the Best Value ranking. Rice and MIT swapped at #5 and #6. Vanderbilt and Dartmouth swapped at #7 and #8. All others were the same. There were no publics in top 10. The highest rated public was UNC:CH, which advanced from #15 to 2023 to #14 in 2024. Again not a large change. UNC:CH was the only public in the top 20 for value.
Which specific colleges are your referring to that had a large bump in the Best Value ranking?
Got it. I thought you meant something different.
I hadn’t heard of UC Hicago, but I definitely forgot about UC Seattle.
BIngo!!! Agreed.
University of South Carolina folks have a bigger fish to fry - which school can rightfully be referred to as ‘Carolina’ 
, them or UNC CH?
When I hear ‘Carolina’, my mind goes to Chapel Hill. Sorry for the other schools in the states of North and South Carolina, but to me there’s only one.