<p>I've said before, peer reputation is strongly correlated with recruiter reputation. There is educational quality in the rankings, I'm just saying it should not be the sole basis. I did not CLAIM at all that Usnews should not try to measure quality. I'm just saying educational quality is not what it should all be about. Usnew's current formula is not perfect but it is the best that I've seen and it addresses a medley of issues from educational quality to prestige and all the things an individual could basically want from a college. </p>
<p>Not everything is black and white, there is a grey area in college rankings that I believe Usnews has captured pretty well. Is it perfect? No. Is there a better rankings system out there? Not that I've seen.</p>
<p>People should not live and die by the rankings, but realize that there is justification for them and that the top colleges are within reasonable distance within each other. </p>
<p>PS: How does yelling at students quantify as research? I do not care about your spelling. I care about the way you logically approach posts and arguments. You also do not read entire posts but focus on parts, something most people learn in undergrad college not to do. I do not want to quote your past posts here but I think you know what I am referring to.</p>
<p>i'm personally a fan of group rankings- there is often such little difference between the schools quality of say the 20th ranked school and the 30th ranked school, but a lot of people are afraid that going to a lower ranked school will hurt their future. I think grouping the schools in categories, without specific rankings, would provide a greater spectrum of possibilties for many people.</p>
<p>accepted...
i have no idea to what you are referring. I think it is your logic that is lacking, but I guess we will have to agree to disagree. I leave it to others to decide
for themselves if my arguments and advice have merit.</p>
<p>huskem55,
I like that idea as well. Alexandre, who is a frequent poster, does this as well... whenever he is asked to rank schools, he groups them in categories, say, "excellent", "very good", etc.
I think that reflects the fuzziness much more accurately than worrying about exact numeric rank. Also, there is a danger with ranking once you get outside the top 50 or so. Hypothetically, let's say you have 10 schools tied at #50.
Then you have another school that is just a tiny bit below, yet it's ranking will appear as #60... the differences in ranking can often exaggerate the differences in quality. The very fact that USNWR has made up this formula deceives people into believing that there is scientific rigor to what they are doing, and that any of these factors can be quantified and measured in such a way.</p>
<p>Oh, I am well aware that there is a negligible overall difference (in academic quality) between UVA (#23) and Michigan (#25). However, there's a significant difference between say, PSU (#48) and Temple (third tier).</p>
<p>I think the bigger factor of importance is not the overall ranking of one's university (unless they are completely undecided on their major), but rather, the particular department they're interested in. For example, Penn is rather low on political science (#42) while Ohio State is in the top 20.</p>
<p>I would say that departmental rankings really only matter in graduate school.
For undergrad, it is far better to pick the best overall university or college.
Department rankings matter more for PhD programs.</p>
<p>That's why Berkeley is not in the top 5 of USNews. Because it's measuring undergraduate, not graduate quality. Berkeley would be in the top 3 if the latter were the case.</p>
<p>I think US news is an alright measure of the caliber of average students attracted by school. Does acceptance rate indicate quality, for instance? Alumni giving rate has something to do with satisfaction? A high proportion graduating clearly means high quality what? Perhaps high quality workers, motivated students, and profs not giving failing grades.</p>