<p>I’ve heard that Penn has been on the rise as a school, and I also know that rankings do NOT mean everything, but then what was the rationale (if there is any) behind ranking Penn 7th, a drop from 4th in usnwr?</p>
<p>There are 3 schools tied at #4--MIT, Caltech and Stanford. This is why Penn is at #7, but would otherwise have been #5. It is only one point behind these 3 schools if you look at the US News overall scores out of 100. Penn didn't "drop" in that sense, 3 schools beat it by 1 point.</p>
<p>where did you get that info? i'm trying to find it.. is it the premium edition? is there anyway to see the stats without buying it?
thanks!</p>
<p>Penn is 7th this year.</p>
<p>Princeton
Harvard
Yale
MIT, Stanford, Caltech
Penn
Duke
Dartmouth, Columbia, Chicago</p>
<p>Honestly, Penn is not better than Stanford, MIT, or Caltech, so these rankings are more legit.</p>
<p>oh i meant i couldn't find where to find the "points" that the previous poster was referring to..</p>
<p>yes it is better in my opinion. What makes MIT and Caltech(won't argue stanford) better. They have engineering and technologically oriented careers that aren't even the unanimous top programs (Stanford). Penn on the other hand has Wharton, enough said. And don't tell me that MIT and Caltech have better liberal arts han penn, penn has one of the top and vastly underrated liberal arts programs. By the way Venkat, how do you know that those are better schools, you are only thinking of prestige. If you think of it that way then rankings will never change</p>
<p>O, I misunderstood your question. The points are only in the magazine and the premium edition. No sane person things Penn is better than Stanford, MIT, or Caltech, so this year is more of a correction than a drop in rank.</p>
<p>MIT has some very strong liberal arts programs in econ, business, and polysci. It's not a powerhouse, but if you ask 100 people "Whats better, MIT or Penn" you'll hear MIT a hell of a lot more. USNWR doesn't show which schools are better, but prestige. You can't say 1 college is clearly "better" than another at this level with so many different departments and offerings, but you can say which is more prestigious.</p>
<p>if you ask common people if Boston college is better than penn they are going to say Boston college because the name is better known, and we all definately know that's not true. Maybe you can argue that MIT is better, but Caltech? Come on. Caltech is 1D, while Penn isn't. I actually think that Penn and MIT offer the best practical education because they are the only schools in the top ten that have business( and top ones at that), engineering, and college of arts and sciences. all HYP has is hype and the networking. Besides that tell me a clear reason why their undergrad is better than penn.(not arguing grad school)</p>
<p>I'd hate to argue why MIT is better than Penn for undergrads seeing that I'm going to Penn and not MIT, so I won't :)</p>
<p>Cornell has undergrad business. So do WashU, Emory, and a few others in the top 20.</p>
<p>Yeah, but were talking about schools that are without doubt in the top ten, ignoring rankings. My argument is why isn't penn better know those schools for undergrad, on what basis.</p>
<p>
You know, they do tell you the basis in the magazine...check it out sometime. </p>
<p>Also, you're really quibbling over very small (overall) differneces (as evaluated by USNEWS). Any one of the top 10 schools could be 'the best' by playing around with the metrics, so don't stress it.</p>
<p>For the record, Cornell does not have undergrad business. From the Penn website
[quote]
"As the only undergraduate business school in the Ivy League, Wharton offers you an unparalleled combination of business and arts & sciences at one of the world's leading universities."
[/quote]
<p>Cornell doesn't have an undergrad business school. It does have an undergrad business program. </p>
<p><a href="http://business.aem.cornell.edu/%5B/url%5D">http://business.aem.cornell.edu/</a></p>
<p>When I visited Cornell, the tour guide said "Cornell is one of two Ivy League schools to offer business to undergrads. The other is the Wharton School at Princeton." They really don't teach you much at Cornell I guess.</p>
<p>How did he/she get Princeton ? Princeton doesn't even have a Graduate Business School.</p>
<p>I guess I have to rethink about wanting to go to Cornell now ;)</p>
<p>Penn should honestly be better than MIT and Caltech. Those schools are so predominantly science/engineering, while Penn is just all around good. I think the thing the differentiates HYPSM from Penn is prestige in the eyes of the magazine and most people. Don't forget, US news uses the bogus Peer assessment, which is essentially a prestige-based rating of another school. By the way, it counts for 25% of the entire rank. You don't honestly think deans of other schools have time to look at the schools. The assess some arbitrary number out of 5 to each school based on what they think. Subconsciously, you know it comes down to prestige. The USNEWS ranking system prevents schools that lack name recognition from getting into the top 5.</p>
<p>Haha. Fair enough Venkat. My bad.</p>
<p>^Like I said, USNWR tries to keep some sense of consistency and tries to have people believe their rankings. Not having HYP make up the top 3 makes it difficult for most people to believe that the ranking is legit. Not having HYPSM make up the top 5 will put questions into many people's minds, and have CCers say that Penn fudges around the numbers (all colleges do). Penn at #7 makes sense in conventional wisdom prestige. Think of it this way. If an MBA ranking puts Kellogg and Tuck as the top 2, and has HBS, Stanford, and Wharton bellow 7, do you think that rank is legit? No. Kellogg and Tuck are very good programs, but HSW are the top 3 in most people's eyes. USNWR doesn't measure quality. Nor did I say it measures quality. I see it as a prestige scale.</p>
<p>downtown128, do you actually know of a better metric that indicates the quality[/q] of the school (i.e. the faculty)? Without PA, all that US News rankings would indicate is *inferences for how good of an education one can receive at different schools: e.g. who cares if you have lots of small classes if the professors aren't up to par for other schools.</p>
<p>Keep this in mind, as it was told to me by an admissions officer:</p>
<p>It is always in US News' interest to change the annual rankings in order to SELL MORE MAGAZINES!</p>
<p>A lot of schools hype up/ change numbers each year for this very purpose.</p>
<p>Maybe for Caltech, but MIT's Sloan Business School is ranked 2 just behind Wharton and is incredibly good, AND MIT has obviously top engineering credentials. And it has good/underrated humanities offerings.</p>