<p>Ok, I realize that USNWR isn't the end-all be-all, but I'm curious about the rankings because they rank liberal arts colleges and universities separately. For universities, about where on the list would you create "tiers?" Same for the liberal arts ranking? Is a #30 on the university ranking at the same "caliber" as the #30 for the liberal arts ranking according to USNWR?</p>
<p>This is more curiosity about reputation than anything.</p>
<p>There is a temptation to compare the lists, but it doesn’t really work that way, they are really meant to only be used against themselves, LAC to LAC, national to national. That said, I think it’s safe to say that most would agree that the national list ranks above the LAC list, number for number - #30 national is higher ranked than #30 LAC. Exactly how they intermix is a different story, since the experiences are so different, so probably the best way to do it would be to say how difficult it is to get into any one school vs. another. Getting into Amherst or Williams ranks up there with getting into Harvard or Yale, although the crowd trying to get into any given LAC is naturally going to be smaller. After that the LAC list sort of stretches out in comparison.</p>
<p>Personal experience, D managed to get in LACs around the #15 level and nationals around the #30 level. I’m pretty comfortable comparing those schools. She cut short her applications to anything higher due to getting in ED2, but I think anything higher ranked on either list would have been a real-longshot. So if you want to compare the top of the lists that way, double the LAC number to get the equal national number, it’s crude, but it works as a rough approximation, at least for the top of both lists. However, as you move down the lists, I think the LACs start gaining a bit, as there are a lot of schools in the 40-100 LAC range that match up well with some schools in the same range on the national list.</p>
<p>Maybe that makes no sense, but it’s what I can come up with in 10 minutes, having looked at both lists repeatedly for the last two years.</p>
<p>There are more national universities than there are LACs and they are almost impossible to compare (except perhaps narrowing it down to two specific schools). This is because they offer two different types of learning styles -one with larger class sizes and more career oriented, but more research done on campus, the other small class sizes, more professor student interaction, but more focused on learning through a wide distribution of topics, often learning for the love of it. Yes both can get you to amazing places, but they have different strengths and are separated as so. I wouldn’t regard the rankings too highly anyway.</p>
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<p>That really depends on your perspective.
If you value undergraduate focus then you might consider the #30 LAC “better” than the #30 national university. If you value research, you might think the opposite. </p>
<p>In my opinion, Bryn Mawr College (aside from being a women’s college) is a very similar product to Bowdoin or Middlebury. All 3 are very expensive at full sticker prices, but claim to cover 100% of demonstrated financial need. All 3 offer consistently small classes. At all 3, you’ll be taught by professors with PhDs (never by TAs); many professors will have doctorates from top graduate programs. The top 30 or 40 tend to draw students from all over the country. Most top LACs offer pretty much the same programs and educational philosophy. </p>
<p>I think there are more significant variations among the top 30 or 40 national universities (not necessarily in the qualifications of students or professors but in financial aid, average class size, overall population size, national drawing power, pre-professional orientation, etc.) </p>
<p>I would not pay much attention to World Ranking Universities. There is not enough data to justify this ranking system compared to say individualized country rankings. The situations, systems, and other parameters are so far apart that it does not really have much commonality for correlation basis.
It would be better to stick to individualized country rankings and then go from there.</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses. Is there a way to compare schools on the lists strictly for prestige and less for the type of education you’re getting? Well, I guess that wouldn’t work because most people have heard of HYPS but I’m sure people haven’t heard of WASP unless they’re in academic circles or students who look at those lists.</p>
<p>@rbouwens
That’s kind of the problem with USNews; it’s a perfect illustration of the Uncertainty Principle, which states that it is impossible to observe a phenomenon without affecting its outcome. Like it or not, a college’s place in the ranking has become a vector for prestige and tends to predict its rank in the future.</p>
<p>The reaction to highly ranked LACs is interesting - people from the area of the country they are in tend to know them and are impressed, people from elsewhere generally don’t and wonder why you’re going there. Unless they themselves or their children were interested in them. Or they were alumni, in which case you have a friend for life. </p>
<p>I can’t tell you how many times my wife has been talking to people in business situations, mentions where D is going in the fall, and they hand her a card and tell her to call X and mention name Y if she ever needs anything. Trustees, deans, directors, alumni - we’re accumulating quite a pile of cards and she hasn’t attended a day The alumni network is really interesting, something my wife and I never saw from either of our schools.</p>
<p>Us-news ranking is a very much the prestige ranking, and the prestige ranking then becomes best academically accepted ranking. So yes… that’s the list that most go for. Forbes does have a list too, but their rankings DRAMATICALLY change every year, so it sometimes makes no sense to use their rankings on schools below 100. Their top 100 pretty much mirrors US-NEWS ranking, except for combining both Research universities and LACs on the same list.
Other than OXbridge, kings college London, and few Scottish schools the prestige will still fall back to US-news rankings which is unfortunately for other counties…basically American colleges and universities.
However, they rightly deserve their rankings compared to other countries education quality system.</p>
<p>Here’s a CC thread from a while back where the OP tried to create a combined list. Take a look:
<a href=“Selectivity Ranking: National Us & LACs combined, USNEWS ~method - College Search & Selection - College Confidential Forums”>Selectivity Ranking: National Us & LACs combined, USNEWS ~method - College Search & Selection - College Confidential Forums;
<p>Also, here’s a link to the Forbes list mentioned above which combines LAC’s and National Universities into one list that uses a different (and more accurate/better IMHO) ranking system than USNEWS:
<a href=“Forbes America’s Top Colleges List 2022”>Forbes America’s Top Colleges List 2022;
<p>For comparing these top schools in America, I think the high school counselors who are dealing with prospective students for top schools everyday are the most credible. The overall USNWR ranking included 22% financial related factors and altered the actual academic ranking. (LAC’s and national universities are separated out for reasons that they are even harder to compare)</p>
<p>This is how award winning high school counselors rank them:
<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/high-school-counselor”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/high-school-counselor</a></p>
<h1>1 Cornell, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, Yale (Alphabetical order)</h1>
<h1>7 Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins, Penn</h1>
<h1>12 CalTech, Carnegie Mellon, Duke, Georgetown, UC Berkeley, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt</h1>
<h1>19 Northwestern, Chicago, William and Mary, Emory, Rice, Tuffs, UCLA, North Carolina – Chapel Hill, UVA, Washington U in St. Louis</h1>
<p>Even though #1 and #19 appear to be only 0.3 point out of 5 difference, if we convert this to a scale of 100, we have #1 at 98, #7 at 96, #12 at 94, and #19 at 92 … seem to be right about the A+ and A- difference. </p>
<p>^^ The 2009 thread cofbrien linked is kind of old… much has changed since then.</p>
<p>And then the Forbes ranking is never going to be taken seriously. The methodolody problem:
<p>These two factors added up to weight 50% of the Forbe’s ranking. No wonder it looks wired and changed dramatically every year.</p>
<p>I think the counselor’s opinion means nothing because they are trying to get kids in, but how the kids come OUT of the college is what is important. They have no particular line of sight to results. They are no different than all of us. Lots of opinions. This is just another way to measure perceived prestige, but says little or nothing about how well they perform. If you are going to go based on opinions, go on opinions of people who hire graduates.</p>
<p>USNews has WAY too many factors based upon how much spending is done and how much people are paid. That skews to metro schools and those in more expensive locations (NYC, So Cal, etc.)</p>
<p>Rate my professor is not a good method either, but you definitely can measure post graduate success and it needs to be a more important factor for measuring colleges.</p>
<p>Ratings need to be overall and against peer colleges. If you are looking only at urban universities, rural schools are just in the way. All of these systems need to be ‘filter-able’</p>
<p>“because they are trying to get kids in”</p>
<p>Exactly, that’s why these counselors know their kids’ work and who have chances to get in where, how tough each schools are, and which schools accepted the best of their students.</p>
<p>"you definitely can measure post graduate success "
Students who reported their post graduate salaries are only a portion of all graduates, and each schools have different percentage of their students reported back. (a lot of times only the high income ones reported back) However no matter how many/few their graduates reported, the result is still their post graduate success result.</p>
<p>Not rating schools to find out how tough they are for admissions, trying to find out which schools produce the best graduates. Sorry to all the HS counselors out there, but in my experience there are precious few who know much about the results of the colleges. The acceptance info is meaningless if you are ranking the school. I can open a school tomorrow (figuratively) that only admits one student. I could solicit applicants and even pay them to apply. Say I can get 100 kids to apply for a $100 gift card. My admission requirements could be very rigorous and I would have a high yield, because I would give my student a completely full ride. Using admissions logic, it would be the most prestigious school ever. 1% admissions and 100% yield! Eventually, counselors everywhere would be telling their top students to apply, even if it is just for the free $100. You see, that criteria means NOTHING.</p>
<p>You are assuming that the only way to measure success is salaries. There is a great deal of information in the public domain. You have no idea how much of your information is publically available. We could easily determine what % of graduates in a given program either 1) take a job in the field or 2) get admitted to a grad school. (I am open to other types of success as well. Wages are one measure, but they do not always reflect success. Say I graduate from Notre Dame and join the priesthood. If I majored in Divinity, it would be in my field. How much I earn is meaningless as to how well Notre Dame prepared me for my chosen profession. Someone joining a non-profit out of law-school may not make much money, but if they are happy and the school prepared them for their chosen role, success. Graduate from HYPS and end up waiting tables because you could not get a job…not success.</p>
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<p>What exactly do you think you are comparing when you compare schools strictly for “prestige”?</p>
<p><a href=“College Branding - Neuromarketing”>http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/articles/college-branding.htm</a></p>
<p>^ Their reputations that are usually based on (shallow) values. 
The name.</p>
<p>That is impossible to measure “presitge” unless you go about surveying asking if people have “heard of” the school which in my opinion is a terrible way to go about it. For example, many people have “heard of” sports heavy schools such as University of Florida and University of Connecticut (march madness) but does that mean they are better than a less sports heavy school like Emory or Rice University, which are highly regarded in academic circles? Not necessarily.</p>
<p>Furthermore, that would be a very shallow ranking indeed, as it varies significantly among demographics and location. Many schools would crumble under this system even if their academic profiles are stellar.</p>
<p>And don’t forget, most employers don’t care about “prestige” at all unless it is one of the 1-10 schools on the list simply because of name recognition alone. Most will regard other schools the same, save perhaps for the alma matter or a well known school in a particular FIELD. Others could care less where you went to school, and want to see your ABILITIES and EXPERIENCE. It matters alot less than the people on these forums emphasize.</p>
<p>Indeed. In those industries where where you go to school matters, often it’s more because of the network than the name. In those cases where the name makes a difference, it’s often idiosyncratic and regionally-biased. One guy said that he got hired because he studied chemistry at IIT (Illinois Institute of Technology). Evidently, the guy who hired him had a high opinion of IIT chemistry grads because he had hired a few and they had shown that they knew their stuff. That employer probably would have taken an IIT chem major over a Harvard or Princeton chem major because to him, IIT was a known quantity in his field and he regarded the training there highly. No one in the real world actually cares about prestige. They care only about tangible stuff like networks and reputation/brand (often based on how well folks from certain schools had performed before at a certain place).</p>
<p>@Findmoreinfo:</p>
<p>At least Forbes tries to measure the stuff that matters: results (however imperfect they may be).</p>
<p>I want to know how successful people from certain programs in certain schools are in the real world after they graduate. How much they earn, what percentage get PhDs (or get in to top b-schools) or win awards, how many go to found start ups, etc.</p>
<p>The only criteria that USN uses that I believe are useful to know are the alumni giving (because if alums acheive results, they would be happier and give more & it’s a measurement of the strength of a network) and endowment (and even there, they shortchange the public schools because state-support is sort of akin to endowment income). Stuff like average class sizes and even incoming test scores tell me nothing about how much an education there would improve <em>me</em> (some folks like the challenge of being among smart people; some folks thrive more as a big fish in a little pond).</p>