<p>According to US news Penn State is ranked at #46 overall tied with University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of Texas at Austin and University of Washington. Isn't that somewhat unfair for other Universities ? Everyone knows its 10 times harder to get into Illinois and UTexas at Austin than PSU but they are ranked the same as Penn State. Penn State is THE most easiest college to get into that's in the top 50....If you think I am exaggerating just check the average GPA and SAT scores for those colleges... </p>
<p>Penn State's peer Vtech is ranked at 72 where I think Penn State should be. You might say US news sucks, its flawed or something like that but it is the most popular and that's what colleges use to show off ranking in their website. </p>
<p>Don't get me wrong here....I am a prospective student of Penn State and very happy to see it ranked high...but why is it ranked so high ?</p>
<p>Agreed, I applied to UW, UIUC, and PSU… and the first two (and UT) are definitely superior academically (overall) to PSU.</p>
<p>As for colleges using these rankings, I feel they tend to use whichever has them ranked the highest. Forbes has PSU ranked considerably lower than UW, UIUC, and UT.</p>
<p>Personally I don’t put much faith in an overall ranking for a college. I’m not saying it doesn’t matter, but I’m more concerned about rankings of individual majors. </p>
<p>Actually I’m not sure I trust most of those ratings anyway. Especially if they don’t detail how they arrive at the ratings.</p>
<p>And one other thing–average GPAs are a joke. High schools have such varied ways of calculated GPA, especially weighted GPA. I’ve seen people posting stats on CC that show their weighted GPA is a full point higher than their straight GPA–that isn’t possible at our high school. AP classes are only weight 6% and Honors 3% for our kids.</p>
<p>Selectivity is only a small part of the USNWR rankings. Ranking a school solely by the difficulty to get accepted would be like ranking a restaurant by how crowded it gets on weekends. Sure, there is a correlation between the school’s overall quality and the average stats of its incoming students, but that’s far from the full picture.</p>
<p>Think of it this way - if Penn State’s selectivity is relatively low, its other attributes (which may be more important to its education mission) must be extra high Besides, if a school could turn average freshmen into superb graduates, isn’t that more impressive than if it started with superb freshmen who could pretty much teach themselves?</p>
<p>@nohook - Sure, but selectivity should be a more significant part of their formula. US News unnecessarily puts too much weight on things such as reputation or alumni giving. Reputation for instance is far too subjective, it varies from person to person and region to region.</p>
<p>I agree that it’s only part of the picture, but when the average UIUC SAT score for instance is over 200 higher than PSU’s… I don’t think that’s something you can blow off and say things such as reputation/alumni giving evens it back out.</p>
<p>Admission is only part of a college. Some schools are relatively easy to get into, but really hard to get out of. It all depends on what you make of it. NC State for example, is relatively easy to get into for residents, being a second choice usually to UNC Chapel Hill, but its engineering department is very very rigorous and is usually considered one of the better ones in the country. Rankings aren’t very important really, because there’s no sole way to judge a schools effectiveness.</p>
<p>I’m not going to spend the time to reply in depth because some of the statements in these posts are ridiculous (IMHO), but I think it’s much more relevant to look at OUTCOMES BY MAJOR (average salary coming out of school, recruitment, job placement, ability to continue post grad education if desired, student satisfaction, etc… ) then to look at the average SAT scores and GPA of incoming freshmen students as a measure of the academic quality of a university.</p>
<p>very nice explanation @no hook. Personally, I think US News cares more about prestige and other stuff than the quality of entering freshman class. Actually, University of Illinois does have 200 points more average SAT than Penn State but both are ranked at the same spot.</p>
<p>@etuck i agree. NC State is easy to get into and thats why its ranked at #106 wayyyyyy below UNC which is at #30 but this is not true about Penn State. Look at University of Pittsburgh’s stats…its average SAT is also 100 points higher than Penn State’s but University of Pittsburgh is ranked at #58 below Penn State. I think this is somewhat unfair for other universities…</p>
<p>@Theojohn - Maybe you should take the time to research “in depth” instead… because UIUC has a higher starting salary than PSU. By mid-career, the average salary of UIUC grads is considerably higher. Same applies for UW and UT.</p>
<p>Besides, the point of this thread seems to be the US News rankings… and the majority of their formula is based on reputation, retention, resources, and selectivity… so if anything, you disagree with the US News rankings as well.</p>
<p>I’m not trying to bash PSU, like I said I applied, but when the numbers (besides just SAT & GPA) point in favor of the other schools…</p>
<p>Then do your own thing - I’m not sure what the point of this thread is other than to bash PSU to be honest. If all you want to do is look at statistics, then go look at the statistics and make your choice off of those. Statistics are wonderful, but for every UT grad that makes 6 figures a year, there’s probably one struggling to get by. Same goes with most schools.</p>
<p>@SoDoMojo - What majors are you speaking about? 2012 Businessweek (Undergrad Business) had PSU at $55K and UIUC at $53,100 for starting salaries. We could talk numbers forever and I don’t need nor care to do further research but you made a broad statement “definitely superior academically (overall) to PSU” without any facts to support your conclusion. At that point the only things mentioned by the OP were GPA and SAT scores and that is was the easiest school to get into of the top 50. Both PSU and UIUC are very good schools, and I’ll leave it at that. :)</p>
<p>Theojohn - Who said this was about business? You’re the one who suggested going by individual majors. The point of this thread was the US News National Universities ranking, which in case you are not aware is intended to rank schools overall.</p>
<p>That is also why I included “overall” in parentheses, because I knew someone would start bending my words, so I tried to make that clear. PSU and UIUC are both good schools, but the reason the OP made this thread imo is since US News is such a popular basis for a school’s academic quality, it seems unfair that they’re ranked the same when there is such a disparity in selectivity between the schools.</p>
<p>Etuck24 - Of course, I never said that every UT grad was set for 6 figures. With that said, if you’re not looking at concrete statistics, you’re looking at subjective opinions, and imo that is an even worse measure of a school’s quality.</p>
<p>Just noting - UT Austin is very hard to get into for OOS students because of the top 10% rule (or top 8% rule or whatever it is these days). </p>
<p>My son was top 15% in his TX high school class and couldn’t get into UT, but he got into lots of schools including VA Tech, Purdue, UI-Urbana-Champange, and GA Tech. </p>
<p>Getting into the Penn State honors college clinched the deal for him.</p>
<p>Another evidence to contribute to this thread : according to payscale, the starting salary for penn state is 48k but UIUC is 51k…and then mid career salary for UIUC is 95k but its 83k for PSU…UT Austin and PSU are kinda the same</p>
<p>I think the rankings should be based mostly on the quality of the freshman class not its prestige. Simple logic: people with high stats goto that college because it has some quality</p>
<p>Yep, that’s the site I used. And I agree XtremePower, you’ll notice on the Forbes rankings (don’t factor in reputation/prestige), UIUC, UW, and UT are all ranked far higher than PSU.</p>
<p>College is what you make of it. Obviously someone who works hard at PSU will do better than someone who slacks off at UIUC, but from an overall standpoint, there’s not much of an argument for PSU being the superior institution of the four.</p>
<p>Those rankings are a complete joke imo… Arizona State #5? If those rankings held any water, the Ivies and all the top tier privates might as well close shop.</p>
<p>I wonder why employers would rank one school’s grads higher than another, then pay the one they ranked lower a drastically higher salary. Hmm… seems more like a slap in the face if anything.</p>
<p>The article states “Under pressure to cut costs and streamline their hiring efforts, recruiting managers find it’s more efficient to focus on fewer large schools and forge deeper relationships with them, according to a Wall Street Journal survey of top corporate recruiters whose companies last year hired 43,000 new graduates. Big state schools Pennsylvania State University, Texas A&M University and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign were the top three picks among recruiters surveyed.”</p>
<p>It does not say that they “prefer” the grads at the state schools over the ivy league grads. (I have one son who is an ivy grad; his friends all did quite well with their job and grad school placements.)</p>
<p>To everyone that considers ranking is everything…When you get a job ranking doesn’t matter, unless its the ivies. In your interview nobody is going to question you about your schools selectivity or how tough it was for you to get in. Get a high GPA, some internship and research experiences and that’s all that matter’s. I mean your boss will be someone who graduated from universities like Kansas State. </p>
<p>But if you want to show off by saying “Whoooo I went to a highly competitive college” then that’s up to you. </p>
<p>Talking about US news, here’s what I found “U.S. News ranking system is deeply flawed. Instead of focusing on the fundamental issues of how well colleges and universities educate their students and how well they prepare them to be successful after college, the magazine’s rankings are almost entirely a function of three factors: fame, wealth, and exclusivity”</p>
<p>There you have it, goto whichever college you will be happy at or its cheaper for you.</p>
Besides, if a school could turn average freshmen into superb graduates, isn’t that more impressive than if it started with superb freshmen who could pretty much teach themselves?</p>