@pandaboy1 Are you saying that students should choose their college based on USNWR rankings? Further, you are claiming those ratings are āaccurateā whatever that means. If this is the type of critical thinking they teach at Columbia, I vote for Northwestern.
I would note that the communications studies major at NU is in the School of Communication, not Medill. Still a very fine program at a very fine university. Full disclosure, Iām a Medill alumnus myself, from three decades ago when NU ranked around the high teens in USNWR. Yet Iāve somehow managed to have a successful career in journalism, despite my lack of āeliteā pedigree. Fancy that!
The OP needs to learn more about the relative strengths of the undergrad programs at both schools, and how they relate to his own strengths and goals. Itās impossible to say any one university is objectively better for every student. My daughter is a student at Parsons, part of the New School, which ranks 133rd in USNWR. Her program is a perfect fit for her career goals and is highly prestigious in her desired industry, so going to Columbia (which she hated on a college tour) wouldnāt have been better for her. Nor would Northwestern, for that matter. Fine gradations of magazine rankings arenāt the most important factor, by a long shot.
Try University of Oxford.
You are obsessed with Columbia or other Ivy leagues ?
Does not sound as if you are thinking critically on specifics such as methods of instruction, or university investments in classroom quality and internships.
Sure, list Swarthmore last on your list if that makes one feel better. It is only one of the finest colleges for teaching in the nations.
Nope, Iām not obsessed with Ivies, and I went to one. Iām not the one obsessed on this thread.
What does Oxford have to do with anything? Thatās not one of the OPs choices.
You have demonstrated a lack of understanding of the college selection process.
Itās a Wall Street Journal rankings list of schools. Posted as an example of an alternate list to the USNWR rankings you keep promoting. There are many such lists: Forbes, Princeton Review, Niche and so forth. None are ārightā as they all use different metrics.
Not at all. I am well familiar with how many, many high school students think, and what they consult which influences their thinking.
The University of Oxford is my answer to someone speculating my ābreadā in this debate. There is nothing in it for me. I just am well aware of the reports, how they are used in the education industry and how they weigh on students and parents being asked to invest a fortune as well as investing four years between ages 18-22.
For the student wishing for a career in journalism, ye, the Medill School of Journalism is an excellent choice if that is her passion. Just be aware of the other fantastic learning opportunities out there if she has other choices.
Placing a world-class college like Swarthmore as number 30 is sheer stupidity.
Whoever compiled that list would have been better off being blindfolded playing pin the tail on the donkey with list of colleges.
You are engaging in a non-sequitur in your assumption about ācritical thinkingā and erroneous connection with any American institution of higher learning.
Which other school on the list would you switch with Swarthmore to raise it from #30? The point is that every rankings list uses its own criteriaā¦so none of them is ārightā. It depends on what the person preparing the list AND what the person using the list values and in what priority.
But you have also said:
Now you have a credibility issue.
Vineyarder, great example with the New School. Parsons is ranked as high as #1 in the country and is top 10 by any measure. And even at #133, there are a lot of other things that the New School does very well. A student can get a great education there if they know what they want and itās the right fit.
You have mentioned āwhat high school students thinkā several times. What teenagers think is irrelevant. Choosing based on three places on US News, or because one is an āIvy,ā is not a mature perspective and does not reflect what employers (or grad schools) think in the real, grown-up world.
OP is hopefully long gone, but OP if you are still around, to be clear, there may be many reasons to choose one of these schools over the other, but prestige is not one of them. These two schools are functionally equivalent out there in the employment world.
@Pandaboy1: Thank you for sharing the link to the US News rankings (2021 Best National Universities).
I printed out a hard copy of the rankings. When I turned the list upside down, Columbia was almost at the very bottom of the list. In a state of mild shock, unable to believe what I was seeing, I rushed back to my laptop, clicked on the link to the US News rankings, turned my laptop upside down and sure enough Columbia was near the very bottom of the rankings. What should I do ? I feel as if my whole world has been turned upside down. And I feel for all of the Columbia students who selected Columbia because it was near the very top of the list, not at the bottom.
P.S. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
(My point is that you may be giving US News rankings too much weight in your evaluation of schools.)
Pandaboy. I said it earlier. My daughter is going to the 16th rates of 17 she got into. College of Charleston. Itās the right fit, feel, vibe, and dyes already had personal attention from professors b4 enrolling.
Your quality of teaching metric again are all from āopinionā. Not fact. All schools have some good, some not so good. The higher rates are more esteemed. Often that does not mean better teaching but rather more funded research.
I sure you donāt insult your first boss who will go to aāpedestrianā school or no school with your boast of Ivy.
Also best you get an internship or two because of you have none and the student from Montclair State has and you are competing for the same job, guess who wins ??
If 100 people are telling you that your logic is foolish, thereās probably a theme there for you to take note.
The Wall Street Journal list ranking colleges & universities does not rank Swarthmore last; Swarthmore College is ranked 30th out of almost 800 schools in a system which combines rankings of LACs with National Universities. Swarthmore is ranked as the 5th best LAC (after #21 Amherst,#21 Williams, #24 Pomona, & #29 Wellesley) by the WSJ.
Swarthmore College is ranked above Tufts, Georgetown, UNC, UCal-Berkeley, Claremont McKenna, Carleton College, Middlebury, Haverford, Bowdoin (#42), Univ. of Washington at Seattle, Virginia, Hamilton, & #94 Kenyon College and many others which are very highly regarded colleges & universities.
Not at all. My significant other shares the same entry address who did attend Columbia as an undergraduate and loved it.
Most high school students I know are not thinking about jobs at age 17 or 18. They are socially conscious with what their peers in high school think. I hardly knw any high school students who do not pay attention to USNWR; and very few of them are thinking about employers. Nor are they disconnecting USNWR from how employers think.
You are talking about older, mature people in the work force, not high school juniors and seniors, nor even college freshmen.