<p>Many high achievers that come on CC rely heavily on USNEWS rankings to determine their list of colleges to apply. This tendency tends to favor private schools which rank higher than many great state universities (CAL, MICH, UVA) especially if money is not a major consideration. I was wondering which of the top 30 ranked schools have a tendency to "game" the system to achieve the highest rank which I think the schools equate to prestige rather than the quality of education they provide. Conversely, which schools ignore the rankings game and therefore is viewed less favorably?</p>
<p>It’s smart business to run operations around a set of numbers that can make more money for you, so they all “game” the system in a sense. There are many factors that go into the rankings and by working in those areas, you can bring up your school. One thing to check is the number of waitlisted kids and how many taken off of the waitlist. If a school is accepting fewer kids than formula prescribes and is using the wailtist heavily, that can up the selectivity component which puts the school higher on a number of ranking lists. Nothing wrong with a large waitlist, but if sizable acceptances are coming off of it, the school is not accepting the number of kid it probably should be.</p>
<p>The schools that refuse to release their numbers are so noted. I believe Reed at one time refused to even respond the USNW. But who knows if in the cases where numbers are not given, if the school just preferred not to report them using the non response as part of gaming the system?</p>
<p>Another note – a friend of mine who does fund raising for our alma mater said that USNWR rates your school higher if alums donate every year (regardless of how much). She said I should give $20/year, every year, because it makes a difference in how the school is ranked. Which is kind of nutty…</p>
<p>Alumni giving percentages make up a very small factor in how a school is ranked on USNWR’s.</p>
<p>I think many of the state schools (starting with the University of Washington, and likely including Berkeley and UCLA, but likely others) are well overrated. That is because they were much better schools for undergraduates 10-20 years than they are today, due to budget cuts that can be, at least in the case of UW, quite extreme. The result is that while the schools become more “selective” (as a result of rejecting more applicants if they shrink enrollments or hold them steady, and accepting more OOS students), the actual quality of education is declining, perhaps rapidly. It takes awhile for reputation to catch up to actual educational quality.</p>
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Reed still doesn’t return the survey. Much of the info is available from other sources, like the CDS, which USNWR apparently uses instead.</p>