<p>Does anybody know where you can find US news Best colleges rankings for prior years(1990-2004)???</p>
<p>Here's top 25 for 1996-2003</p>
<p>Institution 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996
Princeton University 1 1 1 4 1 1 2 2
Harvard University 2 2 2 2 1 1 3 1
Yale University 2 2 2 4 1 3 1 2
California Inst. of Technology 4 4 4 1 9 9 9 7
Massachusetts Inst. of Technology 4 5 5 3 4 6 5 5
Stanford University 4 5 6 6 4 5 6 4
University of Pennsylvania 4 5 6 7 6 7 13 11
Duke University 4 8 8 7 6 3 4 6
Dartmouth College 9 9 9 11 10 7 7 7
Columbia University 10 9 10 10 10 9 11 15
Northwestern University 10 12 13 14 10 9 9 13
University of Chicago 12 9 10 13 14 14 12 11
Washington University 12 14 15 17 16 17 17 20
Cornell University 14 14 10 11 6 14 14 13
Rice University 15 12 13 14 18 17 16 16
Johns Hopkins University 15 16 15 7 14 14 15 10
Brown University 17 16 15 14 10 9 8 9
Emory University 18 18 18 18 16 9 19 17
University of Notre Dame 18 19 19 19 18 19 17 18
University of California-Berkeley 20 20 20 20 22 23 27 26
Vanderbilt University 21 21 22 20 20 19 20 22
Carnegie Mellon University 21 23 23 23 25 23 28 23
University of Virginia 23 21 20 22 22 21 21 19
Georgetown University 24 23 23 23 20 21 23 21
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 25 25 25 25 25 23 24 24
University of California-Los
Angeles 25 26 25 25 25 28 31 28
Wake Forest University 25 26 28 28 - - 25 -
U. of North Carolina-Chapel Hill 28 28 25 27 24 27 25 27
Tufts University 28 28 29 29 25 23 22 25</p>
<p>...because, as we all know, schools really change on a year-to-year basis.</p>
<p>::eye roll::</p>
<p>Maize&Blue22" "...because, as we all know, schools really change on a year-to-year basis."</p>
<p>Well there were some 'trends' over the last decade:
Up: Cal Tech, Penn, Wash U, Berkeley, UCLA
Down: Dartmouth, Brown, North Carolina, Tufts</p>
<p>
[quote]
Well there were some 'trends' over the last decade:
[/quote]
</p>
<p>As a result of them tweaking their methods of calculation - nothing more nothing less.</p>
<p>(Except washu's stat manipulating and ads)</p>
<p>Hormesis. They also dropped the yield ratio out, I believe that occurred in 2003, but it could have been 2004.</p>
<p>some rankings to take note of:</p>
<p>harvard, stanford, yale, princeton, MIT, duke, dartmouth, chicago, rice, virginia, georgetown, north carolina, michigan, vanderbilt, and notre dame all have stable rankings</p>
<p>caltech has always hovered around 4 to 9, but was #1 in 2000
cornell instability 1998-2000: 14, 6, 11
columbia instability 1995-97: 9, 15, 11
brown's range: high of 8 (1997), low 18 (1993) [brown has been a top 10]
penn's jump: #13 in 1997 jumped to #7 in 1998 and steadily rising
UC Berkeley: started at #13 in 1991, kept falling (low #27 in 1997), started rising back up to #20/21
johns hopkins instability 1994-1997: 15, 22, 10, 15
and again in 1999-2001: 14, 7, 15 (yes JHU has been a top 10 school)
UCLA's range: high #17 in 1991, low #31 in 1997
northwestern was #23 but jumped to the 9-14 range after that
Washington Univ has a steady rise #24 to #11
emory's instability 1997-1999: 19, 9, 16 (yes emory was a top 10 school)
tufts was a top 25 in 1996 to 1999
wake forest was top 25 in 1997 and 2003
wisconsin super-instability 1996-1999: 31, 41, 48, 36
tulane dropped from #36 to #44 in one year (1999-2000)
georgia tech's range: #35 in 2001, #48 in 1997
UCSD was #43 but jumped to #34 and its current 30's ranking
USC was #44 in 1996, jumped to #35 in 2001, jumped to current #30
illinois instability (1996-2001): 45, 50, 45, 42, 34, 41
UCI instability (1996-2001): 48, 37, 41, 36, 49, 41
among schools currently not on the top 50, rutgers, syracuse, pepperdine, and WPI have made top 50 </p>
<p>berkeley and penn both started at #13 in 1991, but penn has soared to #4 while berkeley has plummeted to #21</p>
<p>my education professor calls this CREDIBLE INSTABILITY. schools can literally fall or rise 10+ entire ranks between issues, and we still believe it.</p>
<p>Actually, the USNWR started in 1988. In that ranking, Cal was #6 (ahead of Stanford) and Michigan was #9. By 1992, both Cal and Michigan dropped out of the top 20! LOL Amazing, isn't it, how two universities that have been ranked among the top 10 since the mid 1800s all of a sudden, in a matter of 3 or 4 years, dropped out of the top 20! Actually, they did not drop at all. They remain top 10 universities where it matters.</p>
<p>Also, in 1988, Washington U was not even ranked among the top 25. In 2004, it managed to climb all the way to #9. </p>
<p>That is the main objections top intellectuals, university administrators and corporate recruiters have with the USNWR. It is universally accepted that Universities do not...cannot change over the course of a year...or even a decade. It just doesn't happen that way. Universities at the top have hundreds, if not thousands of professors, thousands, if not tens of thousands of students, very complex ties to industry and alumni bases etc... It takes several decades for a university to significantly improve its situtation vis-a-vis its peers.</p>
<p>But one thing that has remained constant over the years is the academic reputation rank/peer assessment score. That has almost not changed since 1988 and is a far more telling and accurate indicator of academic excellence.</p>
<p>Here's an interesting article written by none other than the very charismatic Gerhard Casper (Yale educated Law scholar, University of Chicago professor of Law and later on Dean of the University of Chicago Law school and finally, President of Stanford University from 1990-2000) and addressed to the Editor of the USNWR. </p>
<p>He pretty much expresses what's on the mind of many of the most respected professors, adcoms at top graduate schools and the corporate world.</p>
<p>thanks for your help</p>
<p>No university on this list makes the Princeton Review top 5 for overall undergraduate educational quality, and only 2 make the top 10.</p>
<p>Mini, the PR isn't very reliable. It is so flawed on so many levels. I think Fiske is best. He gives 20 private research universites, 6 public universities and 20 LACs the coveted ***** academic rating. And the peer assessment score of the USNWR is also pretty good.</p>
<p>Yeah, yeah, yadda, yadda, yadda - My post was a "factual one", based on what they actually reported, not whether you happen to like it or not.</p>
<p>(And the peer assessment score in USNWR is pretty much useless - the Dean at east coast engineering school knows an awfully lot less about Whitman, for example, than I do, and that's not saying much. It's basically an old boy's school dressed up as something it's not. And do you honestly think there is a "peer" virtually anywhere that can comment on the quality of undergrad ed. at Harvard independent of its graduate reputation? I seriously doubt it - which is why, despite whatever its flaws, Princeton Review is likely to be much more accurate. But that's just my opinion; what I posted was a factual matter, not an opinion one.)</p>
<p>The Princeton Review is bogus. If you think the USNews fluctuates wait until you see the Princeton Review! And the selectivity rankings need to be re-calibrated big time. Several "lower" colleges are seen on the same level as Harvard when it comes to selectivity in the Princeton Review.</p>
<p>Alexandre:</p>
<p>Thanks for the link to the Stanford letter, a fantastic read.</p>
<p>The sortable database charts and underlying information USNEWS provides is a valuable resource. But, their false precision in rankings really hurts the college selection process, IMO. I think they would do a great service by publishing all of their current data, but simply eliminating the overall score and absolute rank. Perhaps group schools into smaller "tiers" listed in alphabetical order within each tier. They could replace those columns with a few more indexes -- perhaps diversity, perhaps Mini's "preppie" index. </p>
<p>Or, a provide a bit more visibility to real-world class sizes -- their current method (thresholds of 20 and 50 student classes) is designed to obscure meaningful differences in this area, something that becomes obvious when looking at the underlying common data set filings. </p>
<p>Or, a provide some visibility to the role of TAs in undergraduate teaching, an issue that is clouded in more obfuscation than just about any other parameter.</p>
<p>Interesteddad, the sortable database charts and underlying information USNEWS provides is indeed usefull in assisting students in selecting a university. But it does not give much information about the raw excellence of an academic institution. I think the ranking should be based purely on Peer Assessments and Quality of Student Body. The other tables should be kept separate and should not have an impact on the rankings.</p>
<p>And Mini, I disagree with you. Almost all of the professors and administrators who make up the Peer assessment score studied at a couple of universities and tought/served at several other universities. </p>
<p>Gerhard Casper for example did most of his studying at Yale, most of his teaching at Chicago and Cal and was president of Stanford. He has very intimate information on those 4 universities. </p>
<p>Mary Sue Coleman, president of the University of Michigan, did most of her studies at Grinnell and UNC-Chapel hill, taught at UT-Austin, Duke and Iowa before joining Michigan. </p>
<p>Lee Bolinger, president of Columbia, did his studies at the University of Oregon and Columbia and spend 25 years at the University of Michigan, first as a professor, then as the dean of the Law School and finally, as president.</p>
<p>Charles Vest, MIT president studied at the University of West Virginia and the University of Michigan and taught at MIT. </p>
<p>Harold Shapiro, President of Princeton University did most of his studies at Princeton and most of his teaching at the University of Michigan. He also served as President of the University of Michigan from 1980-1988 before becoming president of Princeton University. Finally, he is trustee of the University of Pennsylvania MEdical School.</p>
<p>Hunter Rawlings III, Cornell President, studied at Haverford and Princeton before joining Cornell's faculty. </p>
<p>Richard Brodhead, Duke president, was president of Yale before joining Duke.</p>
<p>Jospeh White, President of the UIUC, studied at Georgetown and taught at Michigan.</p>
<p>In short, most of the intellectuals who make up the Peer Assessment Score have been very closely associated with several universities in the course of their careers. They know far more about universities than anybody else.</p>
<p>I averaged them over the 8 year interval given, and the results are typical: the three top Ivy's are the highest, then Stanford MIT Cal Tech which come in the next top group. Penn and Duke follow closely, then comes Columbia Dartmouth Cornell Northwestern and Chicago. Some combination of the three Ivys, Stanford, MIT, Cal Tech, and Penn and Duke usually make up the top 10, with 2 other ones from group with Columbia Dartmouth Cornell NU and Chicago.</p>
<p>I pretty much think they are all good schools. If Wharton was by itself, it would be ranked really high, higher than the entirety of Penn, thats one thing I noted to myself. Same can be said for only the college at Columbia, or engineering at Cornell. I also did these averages in my head, so they might be wrong.</p>
<p>Of course, this doesn't have the last two years in it, otherwise Penn would be higher, and Duke might be lower (I'm not sure what the exact rankings are from the past two years). </p>
<p>Pton 1.6
Harvard 1.8
Yale 2.1
CIT 5.9
MIT 4.6
Stanford 5.4
Upenn 7.4
Duke 5.8
Dartmouth 8.6
Columbia 10.5
Northwestern 10.8
Chicago 11.9
Cornell 12</p>
<p>I get bored at work</p>
<p>"
"And Mini, I disagree with you. Almost all of the professors and administrators who make up the Peer assessment score studied at a couple of universities and tought/served at several other universities."</p>
<p>Didn't you just make my point for me? You couldn't find a single one with an association with Whitman, or Kalamazoo, or Beloit, or Hope, or Grinnell, or Earlham, or Centre or a host of other schools associated with future Ph.D. rates as high or HIGHER than the institutions at which those you list now work. That's a pretty telling commentary.</p>
<p>As for selectivity - it doesn't matter. Take the selectivity measure out of Princeton Review, and you STILL end up with the same 5 colleges at the top, and none of them is an Ivy.</p>
<p>Link to Reed College page on Ranking Surveys
<a href="http://web.reed.edu/apply/college_rankings.html%5B/url%5D">http://web.reed.edu/apply/college_rankings.html</a></p>
<p>
[quote]
"[The editors at U.S. News] had never met with such a prominent school being so stubborn," wrote Rolling Stone in "The College Rankings Scam" (October 16, 1997), about Reed's refusal to cooperate. "So U.S. News punished Reed College. They gave it the lowest possible score in nearly every category. The school plunged to the bottom quartile. No other college had dropped so far, so fast." Acknowledging that it was wrong to punish Reed for being the lone holdout in the prestigious national liberal arts and national universities categories, U.S. News editor Al Sanoff told Rolling Stone, "Let's just say we did not handle it the right way."
[/quote]
The fact is US News is just trying to sell their magazine. Making Colleges move "up" and "down" attracts attention, regardless of the validity of the formula they use to make their list.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Reed's president, Colin Diver, cautions prospective students and parents against relying on rankings. Rankings, he says, are grounded in a "one-size-fits-all" mentality. "They are primarily measures of institutional wealth, reputation, influence, and pedigree. They do not attempt, nor claim, to measure the extent to which knowledge is valued and cultivated" on each campus. Reed doesnt rank its students. "Why should we participate in a survey that ranks colleges? he asks.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>"Actually, the USNWR started in 1988."</p>
<p>Alexandre, do you have the rankings for 1988-1990?</p>