https://colleges.niche.com/rankings/best-colleges/
What do you think of their ranking?
Some dramatic changes from 2015 to 2016 if you look at the comparison link.
Boston College dropped 22 places
Carnegie Mellon rose 32 places
CWRU rose 43 places
Lehigh rose 37 places
No validity at all
Just what everyone needs…another ranking…sigh…
And I agree with @TomSrOfBoston
Here is how the major rankings work and differ:
http://www.collegechoice.net/how-college-rankings-work/
But that still does not explain the volatility in the Niche rankings from year to year
I don’t think the ratings on Niche are very reliable.
The state school ratings are absolutely incorrect. (NJCU, with a 7% graduation rate, is ranked higher than Montclair State…)
I often feel Niche favors private schools. (LIU Brooklyn, with a 26% graduation rate, has a “B” ranking.)
I prefer to use Niche for their rankings on topics such as location, diversity, or party scene.
I don’t know in what universe (except a devout Mormon’s) BYU ranks higher than UC Davis, Boston College and Claremont-Mckenna
To be fair, this ranking system ranks EVERYTHING about the school including academics, diversity, party scene, and even parking.
https://colleges.niche.com/rankings/best-college-academics/
Here’s a list based on academics
Pushed to the top of the rankings by parking… Yay :))
The volatility must be due to the 4% party ranking. If a school has lame parties one year then the ranking has to reflect that!!
Wow, Amherst #34? Northwestern #30??? Must have some really lame parties!!
Count me as not impressed with the Niche rankings.
@Ruby789 - which schools do you feel Northwestern should be ahead of?
@ClarinetDad16: Wow, I’ve always wanted to create the Ruby789 college rankings, but I keep thinking no one will care, and now you’ve asked me my opinion! I was really pointing out that party ranking as a consideration - even 4%- doesn’t make sense to me.
As far as Northwestern in concerned, I think it would fall in the top 20 of any ranking. But I would see NU being ahead of USC, Brown, Duke, Rice, University of Virginia, Carleton College, UCLA, Rice, WashU, Georgetown, Dartmouth for sure. I love Washington and Lee, and think they are completely different kinds of schools, so would hate to compare them. Cornell and Northwestern might be close, but NU’s endowment, and outstanding engineering school would win it for me. And, totally for subjective reasons, I would place NU over Columbia and UPenn. I wouldn’t put NU over Bowdoin, bc the parents of kids from that school would beat me up.
What’s your view on this, ClarinetDad16?
The party ranking makes sense to me. I know I looked at that when I was looking at my colleges. I am not a heavy partier, but a lack of social activities would be awful for me.
I almost applied to covenant college, this is the christian version of byu
@Ruby789 - my school view is tailored to universities that offer solid music performance opportunities, so in no particular order some of these universities include:
Publics like Michigan, Indiana, Texas, Colorado, Florida state
Privates including Yale, Rice, northwestern, USC, Vanderbilt, Carnegie Mellon, Johns Hopkins, NYU, Miami
@ClarinetDad16: Yes, I would know absolutely nothing about music! That would definitely change up your list.
@SeniorStruggling: But how do you RANK parties? Quantity? Quality? Only Greek parties are fun? Off campus are the most fun? I don’t mind that students consider social lives when choosing a college, that is important. But I don’t understand RANKING it.
For 2016 rankings, Niche is using rather old data !?! For example, shows that GTECH has an acceptance rate of 55%. This is what it was in 2012. It was 41% in 2013, 33% in 2014 and 32% in 2015.
http://admission.gatech.edu/images/pdf/2015_freshman_profile_web.pdf
Just looking at some of their categories make me go hmmm. Drexel University and UPenn are located right beside each other and share the same neighborhood with both having easy access to Center City Philadelphia and public transportation basically equal. The off campus food rating for UPenn is in the 60s and for Drexel 150ish. That makes no sense. In fact since the on campus food offerings of UPenn are better than Drexel, Drexel should have a higher rating since the UPenn on campus food offerings are off campus for them. And besides Philadelphia is a top 10 foodie area so both should be in the top. They have UNC-Asheville in the top 10 and I love the food choices in Asheville - the best in NC but Philadelphia has everything Asheville has X 10.
While I think some of the specific rankings are kind of odd, I really appreciate that there’s a list that goes beyond just academics when ranking schools. The college you choose to go to isn’t just the name that goes on your diploma; it’s also your home for 4+ years. A lot of the non-academic stuff like social scene and food choices are just as important as the prestige of the academic program.
@Marakov29 Agree 100%. Most of these kids have no interest in many of the things that make college fun and where social skills are developed. Many seem to want to avoid fun, like sports, parties, etc. I find it very odd.
The ranking on Niche don’t correlate well to the letter grades but I find the ratings for food, campus quality and housing to be very accurate.
College Factual is very interesting.