New WSJ-Times Higher Education Rankings

College Search & Selection
21

@Much2learn - Why would offering an engineering program be a good thing?

This ranking - mistakenly, I believe - lumps all unis together (small LACs, large univs, etc.), and demonstrates too much bias toward large, comprehensive (generally urban) universities. The ranking incentivizes outputs like research papers per faculty member, number of accredited programs, and outcomes based on monetary value added. This leads to schools like Columbia/Penn/Hopkins doing well, and Dartmouth/Brown/Amherst doing fairly poorly.

Also, not focusing on inputs at ALL is inadvisable as well.

Finally, someone mentioned the out-sized influence of the US News rankings. US News rankings are certainly the 500 lb. gorilla in this space, and part of why they capture the fascination of the public is that they are, essentially, prestige rankings. They tend to align generally with public (for those in the know) perceptions of prestige with just enough “controversy” to get people talking. (See, Chicago tying with Yale this year, or, in the late 90s, Duke being ranked #3, or, for most of the 00s, Penn being ranked ahead of Stanford.)

Unfortunately, any ranking that has Harvard, Yale, and Princeton behind Penn, Duke, etc. loses traction with people. Interestingly, in the 30 years of US News rankings, Harvard or Princeton almost ALWAYS finishes #1, and that lends the (flawed rankings - as all rankings are flawed) a patina of credibility. NOT having these schools at the top (as you see with Washington Monthly or Forbes or whatever) is a bit of a death knell for a different rankings system.

All this being said, I’m shocked that Chicago did so well, given that it doesn’t have an engineering school (which can inflate post-grad salaries), and there’s still a lag in its career advising/post-grad outcomes. I’m unsurprised that Penn and Duke did so well, because they’re both so strongly all about post-grad outcomes.

22

@Cue7

You answered your own question.

23

Just what we need: another ranking!

The criticism of this ranking expressed in this thread seems to revolve around the “fact” that “everyone knows” that X University is better than Y University.

24

@cue7 I agree with @TomSrOfBoston . However, it also it offer students options. A student who is undecided or started out in in physics, math, chemistry, or a similar field has the option to decide to switch into engineering. I think that possibility has value.

25

I noticed something both in the USNews and the WSJ rankings. The difference in the raw scores is actually minimal.
Essentially it is a “Distinction without any real Difference”. Can you really say that a school that gets a score of 91.3 is better than a school that gets a score of 90.8. The same is the issue with the USNews scores. 100 vs 98 vs 97. It’s as if the publications are desperately trying to create a difference where there might be none.

26

@Cue7

I don’t think there are any surprises here, considering the same results have been duplicated over and over again with every ranking that combines LACs with RUs: the LACs do pretty darned well. Of the top 50 institutions listed, 13 are LACs; of the top 100 institutions listed, 30 are LACs That’s not too shabby for a group of colleges most people from around the world have never heard of:

  1. Williams
  2. Amherst
  3. Pomona
  4. Wellesley
  5. Swarthmore
  6. Smiith
  7. Middlebury
  8. Carleton
  9. Haverford 10.Bowdoin 11.Wesleyan 12.Claremont McKenna 13.Bryn Mawr 14.Bucknell 15.Colgate 16.Hamilton 17.Oberlin 18Trinity 19.Colby 20.Macalester 21.Vassar 22.Davidson 30.Grinnell 31.Barnard 32.Denison 33.Occidental 34.Kenyon 35Connecticut College 36.Scripps 37.Bates 38.Union 39.Spelman 40.W&L 41.Mt.Holyoke 42.Dickinson 43.Gettysburg 44.Colorado College 45.Pitzer 46.Reed 47.Skidmore
27

@CollegeAngst , perhaps they should have put a disclaimer like ‘differences of less than 8 score points are not significant’. Also there is no mention of tuition cost, a very significant factor.

28

@Cue7 I agree that having Columbia, Penn above Yale, Harvard, Princeton and Duke above Princeton is not most closely aligned with the established public perception, but alsothe USNews ranking does not accurately portray public perception.
I do think that this ranking raises a very important issue that US News for some reason hugely ignores, that is student outcomes and their importance in this day and age for prospective college students. While a difference of 2-3 places does not show anything, I think the ranking serves the purpose of showing that while places like Columbia and Penn do not quite have the prestige of Harvard or Princeton they do just as good of a job and sometimes even a better job at preparing students for their future careers and plans and have research that is as competitive and do a lot with their more limited resources.

I think the ranking should have given a small weight to SAT, GPA,class rank composite and then I am sure you would have seen Harvard rising above Penn and Columbia, to join Stanford and MIT, which is a more accurate depiction of its standing.

Even so i think this is more meaningful than the exorbitant weight that USNews places on highly subjective criteria of no practical importance such as counselor and peer reputation and too much emphasis on inputs such s acceptance rates and SATs which yields paradoxical results. Having Stanford ranked below Chicago and Yale just does not really reflect the current reality of higher education.

And the results are for the most part not that far off from public perception. The top 10, with the exception of the absence of Chicago and the inclusion of Cornell is pretty much the established top 10. Inclusion of a small factor of SAT/rank/GPA would take care of the small surprises of the actual order within the top 10.

Stanford, Harvard, MIT are widely considered the best US universities the world over which would be reflected with a small tweak (inclusion of SATs) in the this ranking but that is not the case for USNews, which is increasingly inconsistent with reality imo.

29

@circuitrider - where did you get your list ^^ from?

30

Problem with any ranking is when it conflicts with what people believe to be factually true. And what is great about any ranking is when it reaffirms what people believe to be factually true. Different rankings will be viewed very differently depending on what you believe to be factually true.

And we have people here who get upset when a school is ranked 9th when it clearly should be ahead of the school ranked 3rd. As if there are differences between 3 and 9. Schools in the top 10 (of any given ranking) do not want to see that there is essentially no difference between schools in say the top 20. Schools in the bottom half of the top 20 want to hear that. But they don’t necessarily want to hear that there is essentially no difference between schools ranked 20-50 either.

Though ultimately the problem is we are trying to judge the subjective and make it appear objective (with scores and ranked lists). And that is before you even consider that any given school means different things to different students/potential students. Doesn’t keep people from trying though.

31

@myjanda asks

It’s the WSJ/THE rankings minus all the noise produced by the presence of research universities. LOL.

32

^^ got it. You left out Lafayette which should be between 20 Macalester and 21 Vassar… :slight_smile:

33

@Penn95 “I think the ranking serves the purpose of showing that while places like Columbia and Penn do not quite have the prestige of Harvard or Princeton they do just as good of a job and sometimes even a better job at preparing students for their future careers and plans and have research that is as competitive and do a lot with their more limited resources.”

I agree with that, but having said that, I don’t understand why Harvard is not higher. Harvard has the highest salaries in the Ivy League.

34

@Much2learn Maybe has to do with the student engagement, student satisfaction etc scores. There have been complaints about the social life and student life in general at Harvard that could be reflected here.

35

You mean because being ranked #6 is a bad?

36

@Penn95

You may be right on Public perception, but it certainly reflects “perceptions among the higher education elite”, because it gives huge emphasis on that for its scoring.

I also think that for its target audience, the academic preparation and capabilities of fellow students at a university matters along with the opportunities for smaller classes and more interactions with professors. That is why USNews gives so much weight to inputs. It sort of guarantees (or at a minimum dramatically increases the probability) that you will be learning with a bunch of smart academically gifted peers in a supportive environment with a lot of resources thrown at you.

And since students learn as much form fellow students as they do from their professors, this matters for most involved kids and parents. Having said that, I don’t think there is any difference between the average student at Stanford and the average student at Penn in terms of academic preparedness or resources available to such students. But once you go below the top 30 or so, you will start seeing differences in motivation, preparedness etc (when you compare the average student body. There are bright kids at every school). The problem with the outcomes based rankings, is that they don’t let you filter on that criteria very well. They have all kinds of Universities lumped together where the student body could be very different from each other.

Its not that outcomes are not important. The problem is that there is no objective way to measure career outcomes right now that takes into account geographic, major and industry discrepancies. For e.g any school that has a sizeable engineering student body is going to do well in these outcomes based rankings. Any school that also has a business undergrad or a large percent of students going to “certain professions” is going to do well. That says nothing on whether the school is a “good school or not”. It could very well be a great school, but then again it may just be average. It just means the school’s students “choose” lucrative professions.

USNews’ ranking is largely geared towards “stacking” universities based on “prestige” Prestige as measured by “the higher education elite” not “lay people” That is why, it is remarkably consistent year to year. It is very hard to change perceptions.

37

Thanks, @myjanda . Adding Lafayette:

  1. Williams
  2. Amherst
  3. Pomona
  4. Wellesley
  5. Swarthmore
  6. Smith
  7. Middlebury
  8. Carleton
  9. Haverford 10.Bowdoin 11.Wesleyan 12.Claremont McKenna 13.Bryn Mawr 14.Bucknell 15.Colgate 16.Hamilton 17.Oberlin 18.Trinity 19.Colby 20.Macalester 21.Lafayette 22.Vassar 23.Davidson 24.Grinnell 25.Barnard 26.Denison 27.Occidental 28.Kenyon 29.Connecticut College 30.Scripps 31.Bates 32.Union 33.Spelman 34.W&L 35.Mt.Holyoke 36.Dickinson 37.Gettysburg 38.Colorado College 39.Pitzer 40.Reed 41.Skidmore
38

@saillakeerie No, not because I think 6th is bad. Of course the schools at the top are very close to one another. It is because when I see it lower than I expected, I am wondering why that happened, then I read that this survey is more outcome based. That explains why Stanford, MIT, Columbia and Penn are ranked 1-4, but since Harvard has the highest salaries in the Ivy League, followed by Penn, I would have expected to see in Harvard in that group.

@Penn95 's idea that students may not be as happy with the social opportunities at Harvard seems plausible. Columbia students have NYC, and Penn students are notoriously sociable and connected with one another. Harvard seems to be a bit more challenged for social opportunities. Being a lot further north and dealing with worse winters does not help.

39

@Much2learn

It’s not only that. There’s also the final clubs which even though no one knows anyone who’s actually a member of one, do seem to have an effect on the imagination. Was anyone else struck by how much of the film, “The Social Network” took place in Zuckerberg’s dorm room? After freshman year in The Yard, Harvard (and Cambridge) can get pretty claustrophobic.

40

Outcomes-based (i.e. salary-based) rankings will always favor schools with a higher percentage of business majors, engineers and pre-professionals over schools that produce a higher percentage of academics and public interest workers. For comparing the overwhelming majority of colleges, that is a perfectly reasonable stat to compare, because the overwhelming majority of the students going to college are doing so just getting a steady job when they graduate.

At the very top end of the rankings, however, it becomes a bit misleading. Places like Stanford, MIT and Penn produces a lot of people in the majors that make the most money right out of the gate - tech, engineering, and Wall Street. Places like UChicago and Yale and the top LACs like Amherst and Williams produce a higher percentage of graduates that that go for PhDs and academia and non-profits. As a result, the average salary of the second group of graduates is going to be lowered a bit, even though going into academia instead of a money profession was a conscious decision by those students, and they could have gone for the money if they wanted to.

It is very hard for statistics to parse out the difference between statistical salary outcomes at a college and the range and scope of the overall options provided by a college, but they are different things.

Of course, it’s not surprising that the Wall Street Journal analysis emphasizes salary - that is the mindset of that newspaper and there is nothing wrong with it. But its also not surprising that the results will be jumbled a bit from those of other rankings.