<p>Class of 2010 but I will answer anyway (feel free not to include)</p>
<p>No
Yes
Yes
Mid Atlantic
Yes</p>
<p>No
No
No
Michigan
Yes</p>
<p>Yes
Yes
No
California
Yes</p>
<p>I'm past edit time, but yes the parent looked at the rankings.</p>
<p>I have to say, I admire parents who can read CC and not look at USNWR.</p>
<p>Did I ever look at USNWR?: Yes</p>
<p>Did you choose the highest ranked school according to USNWR?: Yes</p>
<p>Do you know the PA (peer assessment) of your kid's school? I don't even know this...my parents certainly do not. </p>
<p>What part of the country do you live?: Illinois--Midwest</p>
<p>Did one of the parents ever look at USNWR?: No...and when I read it to my father he was OUTRAGED!!! :). He didn't agree very often.</p>
<p>Did DS ever look at USNWR?: Yes, briefly
Did he choose the highest ranked school according to USNWR?: not highest ranked in his major, but overall highest ranked.
Do you know the PA (peer assessment) of your kid's school? yes. but I think PA is bogus.
What part of the country do you live?: Texas - it's its own section of the country
Did one of the parents ever look at USNWR?: Yes, well, duh ;)</p>
<p>I'm the kid but</p>
<p>Yeh.
NO!
Nope.
LI, NY</p>
<p>I'll the kid, so I'll answer for myself.</p>
<p>Did your kid ever look at USNWR? Yes.
Did your kid choose the highest ranked school according to USNWR? No.
Do you know the PA (peer assessment) of your kid's school? No...I don't even know it.
What part of the country do you live? New England.</p>
<p>OK, dstark, I'm curious. What's the point?</p>
<p>Regional differences in reading USNWR? I'm not certain what conclusions you are going to draw from this. You can't tell anything about the influence of USNWR. Since most kids wind up choosing among 2-3 schools, you would get a fairly high number of kids choosing the higher ranked USNWR school if the choices were random. And since neither the choices nor the rankings are entirely random, I would expect slight correlation between choices and USNWR rankings even if no one ever looked at them. Furthermore, since you're not looking at which choices people make, you're not distinguishing between someone who chooses #21 over #20 (i.e., a difference even a die-hard USNWR fan, if one exists, wouldn't view as significant) from kids who choose a school that USNWR ranks meaningfully lower than the alternative. And you didn't even ask whether the ranking (if a kid was aware of it) influenced the choice.</p>
<p>Then there's your teasing focus on peer assessment, a/k/a reputation. It's kind of buried in there, and it's not terribly informative (because not very precise or differentiated).</p>
<p>I know you know all of that, so what are we getting at?</p>
<p>Yes
N/A (see post #51)
Yes
MidAtlantic
Yes</p>
<p>Yes
No
No
L.I., N.Y.</p>
<p>D - Class of 2008:</p>
<p>No.
I don't know! I'd have to go check!
No.
Vermont
No</p>
<p>D - Class of 2009:
No.
I don't know! I'd have to go check!
No.
Vermont
No</p>
<p>Susan, you were in the last poll. You were such a trouble maker too. You never wrote a post with so few words last time. :)</p>
<p>Did your kid ever look at USNWR? 24Yes 34No
Did your kid choose the highest ranked school according to USNWR? 13Y 41N
Do you know the PA (peer assessment) of your kid's school? 10Y 47N
What part of the country do you live?</p>
<p>Did one of the parents ever look at USNWR? 38Y 7N 1 Maybe</p>
<p>Did I ever look at USNWR?: No, not formally, but I mean, I know the gist of the list. But that's kind of just common knowledge of roughly what institutions are peers. I'm not interested in who crawled up one spot, if one school is one spot higher, etc. </p>
<p>Did you choose the highest ranked school according to USNWR?: Actually I'm pretty sure it's ranked a little lower than the other one I was choosing between, but, they are "peer institutions", really, by most objective measures and my own general evaluation, which is why USNWR wouldn't factor into it. And no, I'm not talking about choosing between HYP :p</p>
<p>Do you know the PA (peer assessment) of your kid's school? No, my parents wouldn't either. I vaguely understand the concept but I never really had any burning desire to find out what the actual value is, not exactly that I reject it's usefulness, the need just hasn't come up in my life. Yet. </p>
<p>What part of the country do you live?: east</p>
<p>Did one of the parents ever look at USNWR?: No, but I'm sure they know the gist, again.</p>
<p>son, class of 2011</p>
<p>kid looked at rankings: Yes
chose highest ranked?: No
Know PA score?: Yes
live: Midwest
Parents looked at rankings: Yes</p>
<p>Kid looked at rankings: No.
Chose highest ranked: No. (I know this because the particular school doesn't participate and is penalized in the rankings for it.)
Know PA score: No.
Live: West Coast
Parents looked at rankings: I think I have vaguely looked at some info online, but not enough to remember much about it. It was never a consideration for us at all.</p>
<p>No a parent of a current senior, but I'll contribute as well:</p>
<p>D, class of 2010:</p>
<p>Did your kid ever look at USNWR? No</p>
<p>Did your kid choose the highest ranked school according to USNWR? No </p>
<p>(chose Barnard over Chicago.... but it's all kind of murky since Barnard is connected to Columbia, which in turn is ranked higher than Columbia -- but the decision was influenced by financial aid + geography, not ranking)</p>
<p>Do you know the PA (peer assessment) of your kid's school? no</p>
<p>What part of the country do you live? California</p>
<p>Did one of the parents ever look at USNWR? Yes, frequently, but for other data than rankings -- used USNWR to assist with determining reach/match. </p>
<p>And for some historic data - going back to 2001 for son, originally class of 2005:</p>
<p>D, class of 2010:</p>
<p>Did your kid ever look at USNWR? No</p>
<p>Did your kid choose the highest ranked school according to USNWR? </p>
<p>Definitely not -- he chose his 2nd choice, a LAC ranked much lower than another school which admitted him - and his 1st choice was relegated to a lower tier. </p>
<p>Do you know the PA (peer assessment) of your kid's school? no</p>
<p>Did one of the parents ever look at USNWR? Not until after my son was admitted to his first college after all deadlines had passed -- then I looked up the school that admitted him at of curiosity, and was actually very surprised to learn how well ranked it was.</p>
<p>Out of 26 kids whose parents (or who) say they looked at the rankings, I think there are only four who say they chose the highest ranked school.</p>
<p>No
No
No
Kansas</p>