The BEST US Colleges

College Search & Selection
1

<p>After careful selection of criteria and assigning weights for each criterion, I was able to rank a more acceptable ranking of US colleges. </p>

<p>The criteria includes the ff:
30% - School Prestige
25% - Instructional / Teaching Standard
20% - Quality of Products
15% - Quality of Faculty<br>
10% - Financial Resources</p>

<p>I made this ranking to prove myself wrong. But it turned out my previous assessments of the top US colleges was correct. I was stunned and couldn't believe at first. But then again, the ranking result came almost identical to what the assessment of several thousands of faculty, deans, college presidents, provosts and employers all over the US, so it was somehow relieved by the outcome.</p>

<p>Here's the result:</p>

<p>98.00 Stanford
97.15 Harvard
96.80 Princeton
96.30 Yale
96.30 MIT</p>

<ul>
<li>huge drop -</li>
</ul>

<p>90.60 Berkeley
90.25 Penn
90.00 Columbia
89.85 Chicago
89.70 Duke
89.45 Caltech
88.15 Dartmouth
88.05 Cornell
87.00 Brown</p>

<ul>
<li>huge drop -</li>
</ul>

<p>** 85.50 JHU
85.10 Michigan
84.65 Northwestern**</p>

<ul>
<li>drop -</li>
</ul>

<p>** 83.25 UCLA
82.00 Notre Dame
81.20 Washington USL**</p>

<ul>
<li>drop -</li>
</ul>

<p>** 80.75 Rice
80.45 Uva
80.10 CMU
80.00 Vanderbilt
79.60 Georgetown
79.40 Emory**</p>

<ul>
<li>drop -</li>
</ul>

<p>** 78.20 USC
77.60 UNC
76.30 Tufts
75.60 NYU
73.70 Wake Forest**</p>

<p>About 90% of my data were sourced out from US News and World Report. A few data I used came from Washington Monthly and a very small portion of the data were gathered from THES-Qs (for faculty). </p>

<p>As it came out, I am now convinced that there is such a thing as HYPSM, though the order varies sometimes, which it doesn't really matter as all the top 5 schools have pretty close average grades. </p>

<p>Stanford came out number 1 overall and is also number 1 for School Prestige (30%), Quality of Faculty (15%) and Financial Resources (10%). Harvard, which came in 2nd overall, was tied for number 1 with MIT for Quality of Products (20%). </p>

<p>On the second group, Berkeley came out on the top of the list having been ranked number 5 for Quality of Products (20%) and 4th for Quality of Faculty (15%). It's lowest were on Teaching Standard (25%) and Financial Resources (10%) where it ranked 15th for both categories. The result only reinforces my previous claim that - overall - Berkeley is indeed superior to Emory, Vanderbilt and Notre Dame. It even came out #6, though quite far from HYPSM overall. </p>

<p>Penn did very well too, but still short of several points to rival HYPSM. Overall, it has .08 point ahead of Caltech. </p>

<p>The ranking result also showed that there are several schools that are as good as Caltech, so the word CHYPSM or HYPSMC to denote to the top US schools is still unjustified.</p>

<p>I will post the ranking for each category later on. Meantime, enjoy the ranking! :)</p>

2

<p>What did you use to measure School Prestige and Quality of Products?</p>

3

<p>School prestige - was derived from Peer Assessment (20%) and the schools’ overall ranking by USNews (10%). </p>

<p>I incorporated the overall ranking of the colleges (based on USNews) to normalize the bias of faculty towards research-led universities. As a result of doing that, some schools moved up and some went down a few notches. Berkeley for example, went down 4 places while Notre Dame moved 5 places up. But then again, the overall ranking of colleges of USNews is a prestige factor by itself.</p>

<p>School Prestige:</p>

<p>1 Harvard 30.00
1 Princeton 30.00
3 Stanford 29.70
3 MIT 29.70
5 Yale 29.00
6 Caltech 28.70
7 Columbia 28.10
7 Chicago 28.10
9 Penn 27.90
10 Berkeley 27.00
11 JHU 26.90
12 Cornell 26.80
13 Duke 26.70
14 Brown 26.10
15 Dartmouth 26.00
16 Northwestern 25.90
17 Michigan 25.00
18 Uva 24.70
19 UCLA 24.10
20 Rice 24.00
20 Emory 24.00
20 Vanderbilt 24.00
23 CMU 23.90
24 Georgetown 23.40
24 Washington USL 23.40
26 UNC 23.30
27 Notre Dame 22.70
28 USC 22.30
29 NYU 21.60
30 Tufts 21.50
31 Wake Forest 21.30</p>

4

<p>Stanford came out number 1 overall and is also number 1 for Quality of Faculty (15%) and Financial Resources (10%). Harvard, which came out 2nd overall, was tied for number 1 with Princeton for School Prestige (30%), and with MIT for Quality of Products (20%). It was also 2nd for Quality of Faculty, 4th for Financial Resources and 7th for Teaching Standard, its lowest in all categories.</p>

5

<p>Your prestige ranking seem to favor big research universities with renowned graduate programs, thereby not reflecting general perceived prestige of undergraduate programs. In general opinion of the public and of cc, Dartmouth and Rice undergrad programs are more prestigious than quite a few schools above them. I suggest you also incorporate usnews counselor’s ranking to make your prestige ranking reflect less on schools’ grad programs.</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/780865-usnews-high-school-counselor-rankings-vs-usnews-pa.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/780865-usnews-high-school-counselor-rankings-vs-usnews-pa.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

6

<p>^</p>

<p>Do you have the data for HS Counselors’ Ranking?</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Well, if what you’re saying is true, then that’s probably a fact of life. If smaller schools want to be prestigious, they have to work on that specific area - to get themselves involved in hi-tech researches across major fields of academia. I think some of the smaller schools are doing their best now to improve on that specific area. Brown, for one, is trying to become a powerhouse in research and it’s graduate studies programs have been improving quite a lot lately. </p>

<p>However, some of the criteria I used don’t favor large schools or research-led schools too. The Teaching Standard doesn’t favor large schools in particular and that constituted 25% of the overall score. So it makes things even that’s why I suggest that you look at the overall ranking result rather than just the ranking for every category.</p>

7

<p>Well, that’s why the PA score has came under so much criticism. Would employers think of Columbia undergrad as more prestigious than Dartmouth undergrad? No.</p>

<p>There are here:
[Best</a> Colleges - Education - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/national-counselor-rank]Best”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/national-counselor-rank)</p>

<p>I think the prestige list will reflect the undergrad prestige a lot better if have 10% Counselor’s rating and 10% PA instead of 20% PA. Doing this would take a lot of criticism for PA away from your list.</p>

8

<p>Thanks for the link. :slight_smile: </p>

<p>I will readjust the criteria to include that category. I will assign a weight of 10% for that one and deduct 10% from the PA, and let’s see what will happen.</p>

9

<p>I agree with johntonishi, with the PA taking up 20%, your list will absorb much criticism aimed at usnews’s list.</p>

10

<p>The Revealed Preferences Ranking does a better job of ranking the schools by prestige according to the students would actually enroll at these schools.</p>

11

<p>Quality of Student Body: 0%
Acceptance to Professional Schools: 0%</p>

<p>Finally … a college rating system that completely ignores students!</p>

12

<p>Revealed Preferences Ranking is a good indicator as well. Both Revealed Preferences Ranking and counselor ratings measure undergrad prestige better than PA.</p>

13

<p>I’m curious what the OP used to measure quality of product. Greatest criticism against the usnews is its subjective PA. To have list that’s harder to be criticized, it’s good to use measurements that are objective statistics. Two such measurements that come to mind are WSJ’s feeder school ranking ([The</a> Wall Street Journal Classroom Edition](<a href=“WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights”>WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights)) and Payscale’s data on how much each school’s undergrads make after 10/20 years ([Top</a> US Colleges ? Graduate Salary Statistics](<a href=“http://www.payscale.com/best-colleges/top-us-colleges-graduate-salary-statistics.asp]Top”>http://www.payscale.com/best-colleges/top-us-colleges-graduate-salary-statistics.asp)).</p>

14

<p>Yawn, just another anonymous internet user with another arbitrary ranking system.</p>

<p>Nothing to see here.</p>

15

<p>I take issue with both the Quality of Product and Prestige sections. I disagree with the way IvyPBear suggests changing the product section, because WSJ feeder school ranking is both outdated and highly subjective (they picked 15 “top” grad schools, almost all in the Northeast/Stanford). Payscale data is also not necessarily an adequate way to asses students, because, as crazy as it may sound, not all students want to make absurd amounts of money. Some would, dare I say it, rather pursue their passion, making enough money, while simultaneously not selling their soul. If you really want to look at “quality of product,” you should probably look at student surveys from each respective university.
Furthermore, I’m not convinced that the very top schools actually make a product. They take in incredibly talented and driven individuals, then spit them out 4 years later, having taken some classes, maybe written a thesis. However, this could happen at any of the say top 100 schools. It just so happens that the “product” came in at the highest quality. Does that really reflect how “good” the university is?
Why don’t we look at something like, say, student happiness for once? Is going to college all about prestige and making a lot of money eventually? I would say no; kids should enjoy their college experience.
Also, pretty much anything to do with prestige is highly subjective, and not substantive of how good a university is. Perhaps there should be 3 separate rankings: 1 for prestige, the other for objective aspects, and another for student happiness. Then we could separate these various aspects from each other and allow prospective students to see what each college is really about.</p>

16

<p>I also second NewHope’s point. You spend the most time with your peers when in college. They better be of high quality; that is where the real learning takes place</p>

17

<p>I think if the OP make the changes, the list would be pretty good.
WellSaid714 - You criticize WSJ’s feeder schools. Do you have better data? No.
You criticize payscale. Do you have better objective data? Besides, nothing suggest students of one school are more interested in making money compared to students of another school.</p>

18

<p>No, I don’t have a better data set, but that does not mean we should settle for a bad data set just because there aren’t others out there. That is misleading to students.
Different schools have different personalities. Extremely pre-professional schools and the top IB/consulting feeder schools are going to fare much better on payscale ranking system. Schools that send more kids into academia, ngos, etc, are more likely to do worse. Does that mean these students aren’t doing what they want to do and aren’t better individuals than before they got to college, getting the most out of their college experience? No.</p>

19

<p>Well, not having complete information doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use any good data.</p>

20

<p>This is stupid…yes let’s all tweak the U.S News weightings to get the ranking we want
-____-</p>

<p>I don’t even want to know how you measured “school prestige”</p>