<p>Since were all censurning these college rankins, why dont we just get rid of them and base our rankings on college departments. since we all major in different things, it would be a shame to rank on school over another over varities of programs. so why dont we end rankings, and only allow program rankings of school. i think program ranking is well more accurate than overall ranking, due to a stronger consensus.</p>
<p>i think it makes so much more sense what your proposing. because like art schools, they aren't even ranked like the us news ranks all the liberal arts, and all the research universities.</p>
<p>it shows how flawed they are. if us news ranks art schools by departments, yet they cant as an overall, that obviously means they're making the overall rankings be meaningless especially when a school can easily be #1 in a specific dept, that otherwise would have made them school number 60 on us news</p>
<p>Because its almost impossible to measure very specific department at the undergrad level...what matters with undergrad is how strong the students are that come in, and what they go on to do after they graduate - thus, the US News rankings atleast show the overall strengths of the school to allow for this</p>
<p>How would you measure undergrad quality in any department?</p>
<p>good point, but cant we measure that on the departmental scale? i think it can be done in accordance to the same forumal USNWR currently uses. if you think about it thoughprocess, when i applied for schools the past fall, i noticed how the departments with in the school act as if they are there own seperate entities. and they are! i am a transfer student, i might apply to a CMU for Econ and get accepted because of space availabilty as well as rejected if i wanted to major in journalism. these schools really are smaller departmental schools, and i know for a fact it can be done.</p>
<p>Oh yeah, true, as with CMU's Tepper School or Penn's Wharton...but it gets trickier when talking about a specific social science field for which there isn't a difference in admissions rate or procedure.</p>
<p>This would only be helpful if the majority of applicants to schools were at least semi-sure about what major they would like to pursue, which is rarely the case.</p>