“This ranking of top computer science schools is designed to identify institutions and faculty actively engaged in research across a number of areas of computer science, based on the number of publications by faculty that have appeared at the most selective conferences in each area of computer science[.]”
“These are the top computer science schools. Each school’s score reflects its average rating on a scale from 1 (marginal) to 5 (outstanding), based on a survey of academics at peer institutions.”
Here is one attempting to measure “graduate employability”:
“The QS Graduate Employability Ranking is an annual ranking of universities around the world, celebrating institutions which are committed to and effective in preparing students for the workplace.”
The entire Student Selectivity metric is worth 12.5% of the total score.
There are three part to that:
Test scores (65%)
Percent of admits in the top 10% of their HS class (25%)
Admit rate (10%)
The admit rate is only worth 10% of the Student Selectivity metric. 10% of 12.5% is 1.25%.
So admit rate is worth just 1.25% of the USNews total score. Trying to game USNews by increasing the number of apps (thereby letting in a lower percentage) won’t get you too far. The Test Scores part is worth 6.5 times as much…
One of the reasons I would want to go an elite University is because I want to signal something about my raw smartness to people before they get to know me better. I could go to a community college and still do fine in life because of my talents but it doesn’t hurt if I start out with a “little halo” around myself. Its not that I am looking for validation. If a top tier school rejects me, I will just shrug it off and move on, but if they accept me, I will go because of the “halo” effect.
So for me personally, I want a ranking that somehow gives me a view of which schools recruit the smartest students, which is an “input measure”
I personally admire a student for getting into Caltech more than for getting into Stanford or Harvard, because in my mind, getting into Caltech took more academic gravitas than getting into Stanford and Harvard. Not that smart kids don’t get into Harvard and Stanford, but they also recruit other kids: Athletes, legacies, etc etc, so you can’t tell whether somebody who goes to these schools is “academically talented” or is there to satisfy an institutional priority anymore. They could very well be quite academically gifted, but then again they may not be. So that signal is weakening at these schools. Its no longer about raw brain power, which is the criteria I personally care about.
Now somebody else might laugh at my criteria and prefer to be around “future movers and shakers” of tomorrow, in which case a “output based ranking” may be more appropriate.
Since this somebody else and I will not agree on the basics of what matters, we will never agree on which University is better than the other. That is why we have endless discussions about this.
Any ranking, and especially UsNews college ranking only serves to create tiers. There is no way to rank universities spot by spot.
For example in the USNews college rankings the top 10 is a meaningful distinction, the spots within the top 10 change and they rarely reflect the actual perception of most people. People see HYPSM as the top 5 of the top 10 but HYPSM has never really occupied the top 5 on USNews. Also Harvard and Stanford are widely seen as the top 2 schools but they have never occupied the top 2 spots together in recent memory.
@Penn95 Finally – I was hoping to get the chance to disagree with you again. The HYPSM is used by some and not others. There is also just HYP. There has been been for some time, the “Ivy plus” – Stanford, UChicago, MIT. USNWR Is more credible and meaningful than these. But believe me when I tell you that when a school is on a consistent roll, the high schools, students, graduate schools and employers all notice. UChicago’s ranking ascency over the past five six years is a perfect example.
@Chrchill haha we are back to normal. I definitely disagree.
HYPSM is very reliable,while many people might not recognize the acronym they do know that these are the most prestigious universities. The Ivy plus as a term/brand has very little equity compared to the Ivy League brand but of course most people do realize that there are schools just as good or better than some ivies. HYP is used to refer to the top tier of the ivies.
For Usnews I think history shows that I m right. Penn was ranked for many years in the top 4, yet never was thought if in the same breath as HYPSM. Columbia has been ranked for many years in the top 4 and more recently Chicago too has clocked in many years in the top 4, yet they are both not considered in the same breath as HYPSM either. Princeton has always been ranked higher than Harvard and Stanford on Usnews, but Harvard and Stanford as seen as more prestigious/desirable.
The ascension of schools in the us news ranking helps them if they manage to crack the USNews top 10 for example, like Chicago did. If they do that and manage to sustain their top 10 spot they do establish themselves in the public consciousness as a true top 10 school. But once they enter the top 10 there is a myriad other factors that determine the pecking order and the pecking order had been pretty fixed: HYPSM first in some order or another, Columbia, Penn, Chicago, Caltech, Duke in some order or another.
The most important thing about the university is the type of student it attracts, which of course is determined by opportunities the college offers. Top students want to be with other top students.
@Penn95 your persistent attempts to denigrate Uchicago is driven by your well founded insecurity about Penn. Uchicago leads Penn by a lot in world university rankings. It has eclipsed Penn in the US news ranking in the past 5 years consistently. You increasingly sound like a member of the flat earth society.
If you’re concerned about quality of education, read the parents forum thread on are more selective colleges more academically difficult. If you’re interested in outcomes, look at the equality-of-opportunity data.
@Chrchill lol keep telling yourself that. maybe it will rationalize the crazy things you tend to say. hate to break it to you but i am not hating on Chicago, i am just being objective. Btw you didn’t address any of the points i made, you just deflected and somehow you deduced from my post than i am hating on Chicago and accused me of being insecure, while all i am doing is being objective. Someone sounds really butthurt. The fact still remains what i said above is true.
For the millionth time, individual positions in the top 10 do next to nothing to affect actual perception, and there are many cases to prove that, many of them I mentioned above. Re: world rankings Chicago does slightly better than quite a few schools, Yale, Columbia, Penn. This doesn’t mean Chicago is more prestigious or stronger or whatever. The difference is usually small and it largely depends on what metrics you use. (For example on ARWU if ones takes away the nobel awards measure, which has been heavily criticized in many cases, Chicago drops by quite a bit). If you looked at innovation, entrepreneurship, partnerships/funding with industry, and outcomes Penn probably comes in higher.
But I digress, unlike you I am not going to turn this into a Chicago vs Penn post. I didn’t do so above (despite what you are saying), and i won’t do so now. That shows your insecurity rather than mine, and your well-documented tendency to say outlandish things in favor of Chicago.
I admire what chicago stands for and has accomplished with much less money than other elites. You can continue living in a parallel universe and are entitled to your alternatives facts and perceptions. Now, UChicago, will never be Harvard. No school ever will. But Chicago is a major power house and an absolute peer of H, S, M in numerous fields and graduate school disciplines. And I can tell you with authority that in circles that count – elite employers, graduate school admissions and academic circles – Uchicago is right up there with H and S. In fact, their graduates have a reputation of being very hard and disciplined workers.
Penn and UChicago are two outstanding schools. Can’t we leave it at that? Each can have his/her own opinions as to which is “better” and find stats to back it up. You guys are monopolizing the thread and taking it way off course. If you want to continue your “discussion” why don’t you do it as a PM?