<p>If a school isn't ranked for a certain major then does that mean the school's program for that major isn't good at all? I'm mainly talking about programs that liberal arts schools offer.</p>
<p>Rankings are overrated :)</p>
<p>While you can certainly look at a schools rankings by various people, that should probably be a small portion of the equation on whether to attend a school for a given major. There are a ton of reasons to look at schools and ‘rankings’ are very low on the list of things that define whether they are right for you or not. An example would be a school that doesn’t participate in rankings by US News & World Report, but whose graduates have ease in finding work in their fields because that school is well respected and known regionally. </p>
<p>Beware getting caught in rankings envy…Keep in mind that all of those rankings are very subjective and certainly up for argument.</p>
<p>@stanatedj what would make a school’s program for a major good in your case?</p>
<p>Schools are ranked primarily on their research output. In my field, a few LACs offer a much stronger undergraduate education than many highly ranked universities (IMO), but because the research done is mostly inconsequential to the greater scientific community, most research institutions ignore the LACs. </p>
<p>What schools are you looking into for which major(s)? Keep in mind that most students change their majors. </p>
<p>I’m going to use a local school I’m familiar with - Lindenwood University - It is a midsized (11,000) school near St. Louis that does not participate in US News’ rankings. Its Education department is highly regarded locally and almost all students graduating with degrees in any of the Education fields are getting employed easily in the St. Louis/Missouri/Illinois corridor because so many schools have faculty who attended the school. It’s Business degrees are regarded well in the St. Louis area where there are home offices of 3 or 4 major financial institutions which employee many LU graduates. I would doubt that any of its graduates in those fields feel like their degrees ‘aren’t any good’ since they are employed and doing well in their fields after attending the school. </p>
<p>You asked, so I thought I’d give an example.</p>