While looking at colleges, I noticed some had really high ranking programs while not have a high rank overall
So should I specifically look towards the overall ranking of the school, or the eliteness of the specific program I am interested in?
It depends on the program. Read up on ranking methodology - Those “overall” high ranks might not be based on variables relevant to the undegrad experience. And you are looking for quality, not eliteness.
It’s important that any comparisons you make be homogeneous. For example, graduate department rankings should generally not be used to evaluate undergraduate colleges. Various types of “global” or “world” rankings can also serve as anti-information. USNWR’s rankings for undergraduate institutions, while often problematic in their own right, are at least homogeneously based.
“USNWR’s rankings for undergraduate institutions, while often problematic in their own right, are at least homogeneously based.”…using statistics that are geared to elevating private universities…
USNWR rankings are not biased toward private universities. They favor more selective colleges and universities as they should. All you really need is a ranking based on SATs/ACTs and graduation rates. That would probably be pretty accurate.
“USNWR rankings are not biased toward private universities”
You cannot be serious. Of course they’re biased.
Probably both, since many students change majors once or twice. Unless you are absolutely certain of what you want , I would lean more toward an overall ranking vs a program specific one. You could also widen your ranking to an general area, like business or engineering or social research.
To give your an idea of how methodologies differ, look at USNWR rankings for Michigan: #28 National, #4 Business, # 6 Engineering, #4 Public, #14 Global. How can a university be ranked #28 in the USA and #14 in the world in any logical sense?
This. If you’re really interested in math and plan to get a PhD in math, for example, the quality of the department may be your overriding concern. If you’re interested in engineering, on the other hand, you’ll earn pretty much the same salary after attending any decent engineering school.
Colleges with unusually strong programs – marine science at URI, anthropology at U Arizona, linguistics at U Mass-Amherst, philosophy at Rutgers, and so on – may be great choices if you are absolutely sure that’s what you want to study. The problem is that most students aren’t sure, even if they think they are; somewhere between 65-75% of students change their majors at least once. There also comes a point when the overall quality of the university is low enough to drag on the student experience, even if your program is a very good one. (I am speaking from personal experience here.)
Keep in mind that many (if not most) of the people getting liberal arts degrees go into careers unrelated to their undergraduate majors; a decent rather than exceptionally strong program is perfectly adequate for most people. Attending a college with an overall good reputation can have various perks, however – lots of smart young people to interact with, good advising and support, undergraduate research funding and support, strong job recruiting and placement, often good financial aid, etc.
Referring to the article linked in post #5…
The elite private colleges actively strive to accept students on merit without regard to income and try to make themselves affordable for all accepted students. Here are the percentages of students who receive Title IV aid with incomes under $75K. The elite colleges are not elitist. Robert Reich has no idea what he is talking about. The real problem is that many top students dismiss the private colleges based on sticker price without applying and waiting for the financial aid offer.
33% California Institute of Technology
39% University of Chicago
64% Harvard University
88% Princeton University
48% Massachusetts Institute of Technology
67% Yale University
52% Vanderbilt University
24% Washington University in St Louis
38% Columbia University in the City of New York
41% Harvey Mudd College
60% Stanford University
41% Northwestern University
63% Pomona College
61% Rice University
32% Dartmouth College
39% Duke University
37% University of Pennsylvania
40% Tufts University
53% Williams College
52% Amherst College
47% Swarthmore College
48% Bowdoin College
38% Brown University
44% Carnegie Mellon University
30% Carleton College
31% University of Notre Dame
42% Cornell University
41% Johns Hopkins University
41% Claremont McKenna College
60% Wellesley College
43% Georgetown University
I’m not sure if they’re biased or not, but two things to be wary of:
- Using a single article in a magazine to prove or disprove any point
- Taking advice on the issue of bias from people who are inherently biased themselves (check the posting history of people providing advice if its truly important to you)
- More proof
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/article/2014/08/26/how-northeastern-gamed-the-college-rankings/3/
pay no attention to rankings!! visit as many schools as you can and develop your own opinion.
What type of career do you wish to have?
Look at the top employers in those fields and see which schools they hire from.
I would bet there is little correlation between USNWR ranked schools and the ones getting their students hired in your desired field (in the desired market you wish to work in).
Flagship U might carry more weight with companies in their home state than a small “elite” school from across the country.
Some employers are biased against Ivy grads because they think those young hires are looking for 2 years experience and then back to graduate school. Plus the sense of entitlement vs. the more motivated non-elite school grad.
If you are going to rely on rankings, make sure you look hard at the methodology. For example, USNWR measures what percentage of students are donors to the school (there counts for 5% of the weight in ranking). Do you care about this? There are stories about students rallying to get every graduating senior to donate $1 to improve their school’s ranking. Another 12.5% is so if you can pump up the number of kids who apply and are rejected, your ranking goes up. (A number of colleges have started to play this game to improve their rankings).
The point is to be a savvy consumer. If you are going to use a list, figure out if you care what the ranking is based on, and realize that the difference between being 1st and 10th may be something you care nothing about.
Re: post #10.
Proof of what, exactly?
That one private college raised its US News ranking by improving facilities, hiring star faculty, increasing financial aid, attracting more applications, decreasing admission rates, raising average test scores, and lowering average class sizes? Good for them!
The “public Ivies” (Berkeley, UVa, UNC, UCLA, Michigan, etc.) do get rather high rankings. They are good schools that have many strong departments. From the perspective of top students shopping the national market, one of their main shortcomings is that they offer relatively little financial aid to out of state students. If that is not an issue for you, and you’re attracted to a top program at one of them (such as engineering, business, or CS at Berkeley), then you shouldn’t hold back just because it is slightly lower-ranked overall than the Ivies and other top private schools.
@tk21769 Well, some certain schools’ methods of lowering the acceptance rate are rather suspicious. Not going to give any specific names here, but 2 schools that are relatively close to each other on the U.S. news ranking list have drastically different acceptance rates at my school. One of these two schools is known for advertising and encouraging kids with absolutely no hope to apply, hence decreasing the acceptance rate drastically. For this particular school, our seniors last year went 9/14, which is amazingly “impossible”. The other one was 4/18. Stats for both schools were really similar. Well, you get the gist of it. Again, I’m not hating on any schools, and I’m going to apply to both and they are both my top choices. Again, I’m not hating.
“There are stories about students rallying to get every graduating senior to donate $1 to improve their school’s ranking.” (#13)
If they donated as actual seniors, by USNWR methodology they would not be counted as alumni donors.
Re #8
Those are misleading percentages. Most students receiving Title IV aid (federal financial aid) will be from lower to middle income families (under $75,000). But if only a few students get Title IV aid, then most (the rest) will be from high income families. Indeed, many of these schools have half of students getting no aid at all, implying very high income families.
@TrazCapDEV the disparity in acceptance rates between similar colleges from a given high school isn’t all that unusual. My son’s high school has a 70% acceptance rate at Michigan and 25% at Berkeley and UCLA. Vanderbilt is 10% and Duke is 4%. Caltech is 29% ,MIT 21%, Yale is 17%, Princeton 9% and Penn is 0%. One only has to look at the Naviance scattergrams to see which universities use data and which use holistic admissions. Holistic admission schools look like a dartboard in the upper right quadrant, data drive schools show green ‘accepted’ boxes centered around a 45 degree line which ends abruptly at the GPA/ (ACTorSAT) floor.
Perhaps different groups of kids apply to different schools. Maybe the college admissions offices ‘know’ the school, that certainly applies to Michigan and maybe Caltech for his HS. Penn and Duke might think his HS is rather lame. Maybe it is just random. It doesn’t seem to have much of a correlation with the rankings, at least among similarly ranked/peer schools.
Remember that published rankings reflect the criteria of the person or organization doing the ranking. These criteria may not be the same as the criteria that would rank the schools or major programs for you. So consider what you would like in a school and your major to come up with your own ranking.
Obviously, a suitable school must have at least an acceptable quality program in your major and any other major you might change to (as noted previously, many students change majors). Whether an acceptable quality program in your major versus a great program in your major matters depends on your interests and goals. The same goes for acceptable versus great schools.