<p>In case you haven't seen it: </p>
<p>Top</a> 50 Colleges Ranked For 2009 - The best colleges & universities in the United States</p>
<p>Interesting read, but I think we can all agree that this list is a bit… well, wacky. Penn State ahead of Berkeley? Cornell and Brown ahead of Columbia and UPenn? Lol</p>
<p>Most non-USNWR college rankings are a bit wacky. The reason that USNWR can get it right is only through its peer review system. Otherwise, it would be just as screwy as College Crunch’s list.</p>
<p>Actually, this seems like one of the less wacky lists out there. There are perfectly good arguments for Brown and Cornell ahead of Columbia and Penn (and vice versa). Cornell in particular gets irrationally undervalued on CC, and Columbia irrationally overvalued. It’s an interesting list; I wish they had been more forthcoming about what generated the particular order. (And I love Chicago to pieces, but I’m not certain I would rank it ahead of Harvard and Yale.)</p>
<p>I agree with JHS. UC Berkeley deserves its place. One of my junior friend at Berkeley is a pre-med, and he has not gotten a single research opportunity. Berkeley deserves it. I also agree that Cornell is somewhat undervalued. In fact, many of its niche majors are ranked first in the country. </p>
<p>I would say that this ranking is the most accurate one in existence. 
The order is dead on!</p>
<p>haha because chicago is ranked first?</p>
<p>^^ Yeah, lol. I think that’s the only reason they’re supporting it. I don’t care what anecdotal evidence you have, but Penn State will never be considered better than Berkeley nor will Chicago be ahead of HYP.</p>
<p>^ Perceptions or stereotypes like what you just made are seriously troubling. I was surfing the Class of 2013 Facebook group yesterday, and one reply was particularly interesting.</p>
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<p>Before you refute this guy’s perspective, and keep in mind that he did not apply for any of the Ivy League schools, it is important to note how some of the alum of Ivy League support, at least partially, his positions. To put it bluntly, the administrations at many of the Ivy League institutions do not care about their undergraduate students. It’s like Microsoft. If everyone is using its Office and has very few choices, is the corporation going to strive for excellence? The market is realistic, so are the universities.</p>
<p>[The</a> Truth About Harvard](<a href=“http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200503/douthat]The”>The Truth About Harvard - The Atlantic)</p>
<p>“Before you even invent a ranking, you already know that Harvard, Princeton and Yale will be top three.” - straight from the inventor of US News and World Report College Ranking. I think your attitude is quite similar to that guy’s</p>
<p>I applied for many colleges; I applied for some for a sense of (financial) security. I applied for the other because they really appealed to me, academically or socially. Not surprisingly, I sat down for many interviews. For me, the worst interviewers were the ones graduated from highly prestigious universities. They harbored a prevalent sense of superiority, as if they were some sort of higher power.</p>
<p>There is something fundamentally wrong about such presumptive attitude, as if their Alma maters will forever be prestigious, and as if some “know-nothing scums” need them in order to succeed in life.</p>
<p>All in all, I learned a lot from those interviews. I finally recognized that prestige isn’t everything, and what it has done to people like some of my interviewers. When it was time for me to pick a college to attend, I decided not to go with the ones that were more well-known to the general public, but with one I truly loved (and still do).</p>
<p>At the end of the day, quite unfortunately and tragically, university ranking does matter, for the wrong reason.</p>
<p>If you honestly believe in everything that guy has to say, then I have no comment because it was completely unfounded. And it was pretty short-sighted of you to base your opinions on entire universities based on ONE alum that interviewed you!!! That is completely unfounded and illogical. It’s true that HYP gets a ridiculous amont of hype, but they have their reputations for a reason.</p>
<p>Oh, and just for my own curiousity, how many of these universities that you say are good for nothing but prestige did you get in to? Forgive me if I’m wrong, but you sound like someone who has quite a bit of bitterness stored for those top schools.</p>
<p>Sorry if I am wrong, but you sound mighty bitter that someone does not agree with your way of determining, without looking at the experiences of many alums from a specific school, which school is “better”.</p>
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<p>And you seem to be perpetuating that hype stereotypically.</p>
<p>What I was simply saying, was the fact that people should not immediately assume HYP are somehow “better” than other universities simply because they’re prestigious, and they will forever stay that way, and that school A “will never be considered better than” schools XYZ. It is a very myopic statement (and assumption) to make.</p>
<p>How do you define “better”?</p>
<p>Why can’t we just all respect this ranking as the way it is and appreciate its values and judgments, while we also consider other sources for consultation. Take a step back and weed out the school-A-should-be-ranked-before-B attitude, and appreciate the nuances among them as well as their valuable contribution to the academic arena.</p>
<p>By the way, I found this pretty good website that contains what alums have to say about their Alma Maters.</p>
<p><a href=“Shopping Online at Shopping.com | Price Comparison Site”>Shopping Online at Shopping.com | Price Comparison Site;
<p>And yes Combine, those impressions derive from interviewers, but you cannot deny, and people who specialize in marketing (i.e. hyeonjlee) will agree, that impressions of a product do matter.</p>
<p>By the way, just to add, this isn’t the first time UChicago is ranked first.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp_YVt7CfJI[/url]”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp_YVt7CfJI</a></p>
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<p>This is about equivalent to say that MIT > Caltech, since MIT is considerably more well-known than Caltech among the general republic. You know, despite the fact that Caltech has a better class than MIT, the students at Caltech get more research opportunities than those of MIT, Caltech produces considerably more PhDs (per capita) than MIT, etc. Why is MIT more popular than Caltech? Honestly, I don’t really know. It probably has more to do with the fact that Caltech’s size is much more modest than that of MIT. But the perception of the general public has NO correlation with the actual quality of schools.</p>
<p>I know very many students from HYP, and I have talked to many of them about their perceptions of their school. The smarter ones I personally know (for instance, from high school) are often incredibly disappointed with their education and wish they went elsewhere. But there are some who are rather satisfied, and unfortunately, I have to brand these students as a bit ignorant. For instance, I once knew someone from Princeton who was very excited to be entering a certain math class. He claimed that it was, indeed, the hardest math class in the world. I inquired further, and finally got a link to some of the course material. It was a real analysis class that was about equivalent to a real analysis class at a state flagship, and of considerably less quality than even the regular analysis courses taught here. It seems that these views are particularly common among HYPers, thinking that their classes are of an extremely high quality even if they aren’t, and even if they’re particularly low-quality. I have to concur with Divine Comedy that this is a common trait among HYPers, even if it’s not true among the majority of the students there.</p>
<p>I, for one, have never heard anyone complain about the lack of quality of Chicago courses (with the exception of one really pessimistic poster here at CC a while back). However, I am always being told that the quality of some classes at HYP (and the rest of the Ivy League) can be exceedingly low, from the students themselves. That isn’t to say that Chicago > HYP, but I do believe that HYP get too much attention for the kind of education they offer. If they were really as high quality as their reputations suggest, they wouldn’t have so many disappointed students.</p>
<p>(This is from a person not bitter from getting rejected from the Ivies, seeing as how I never applied to any of them. :D)</p>
<p>Just because prestige doesn’t equal amazing quality, it is ignorant to say that all kids from these schools do is sit around for four years and enjoy their diploma. It is useless to point out anecdotal evidence of what friend A or B said about it, because for every student that dislikes their experience at one school there are probably 10 more who would praise their shcool to no end. </p>
<p>The only thing I said was that I thought this particular list was a little bit skewed. Frankly, if you can’t see certain questionable choices on this list, then it is just your bias talking. I guarantee Divine wouldn’t be putting down the more hyped up schools if this list didn’t show Chicago as being 1st, which, although it is undoubtedly an amazing school, is just not a common opinion.</p>
<p>“How do you define better?”
Sure if you say that a certain school is better than another, there will be a dozen people who pop up from that school and try to refute it. But when looking at a school OVERALL, there is a certain accepted hierarchy that rarely changes. But seriously, give me one person who will agree that Penn State is better than Berkeley (who doesn’t attend Penn State) or that Cornell (while I agree, is under-estimated) is overall a better institution than Columbia. Naturally any school can be better than any other school for a certain type of person. I wouldn’t be surprised if a guy who got into Harvard turned it down for Penn State or some other less-prestigious school, simply because they fit better. Naturally not everyone agrees with any ranking list because the highest ranked schools might not be the ones that fit them best. That’s why most reputable rankings go by overall quality, and not just by looking at 1 or 2 aspects that vary greatly by school. Which is why you might argue in favor of your bias and what you consider best. I agree, the peer review thing that USNWR does is most effective to at least make their list somewhat reasonable.</p>
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<p>Not really. You’re perpetuating the stereotype harbored by the founder of U.S. News and World Report, by arguing that certain institutions are (and will always be) better than others. </p>
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<p>I was encouraging you to keep an open mind about different ranking systems and appreciate their methodology (although I would like to see College Crunch release its methodology in a more explicit way). </p>
<p>For example, I appreciate how College Crunch puts student life in the center of its methodology, while U.S. World and News puts class size into account. All of these pieces of information matter when it comes to college selection. Use websites like epinions ([Colleges</a> and Universities - Product Reviews, Buying Guides, and Consumer Advice - Epinions.com](<a href=“Shopping Online at Shopping.com | Price Comparison Site”>Shopping Online at Shopping.com | Price Comparison Site)) to look for anecdotal opinions from alum. Visit schools of which you are accepted.</p>
<p>When I was “praising” how accurate this ranking is, I was conveying in a humorous (and even sardonic) way.</p>
<p>There is really no such thing as “school A is better than school B”. I would argue Penn State University Honor college offers more research opportunities than Berkeley, and Cornell Engineering is arguably one of the best in the country. It also depends on where you live. Cornell is widely considered a better institution than Columbia in my motherland in Asia, where IT industry is so dominated. Therefore, I would not make the two claims you just made.</p>
<p>And the anecdotal stories phuriku and me mentioned aren’t just one or two random examples. We’re experiencing them and hearing about them so much (from so many people) that their credibility is almost unquestionable.</p>
<p>Let’s do a test. </p>
<p>When you see [this</a> ranking](<a href=“http://www.arwu.org/rank2008/ARWU2008_A(EN).htm]this”>http://www.arwu.org/rank2008/ARWU2008_A(EN).htm), you’ll probably point out that Brown and Dartmouth are ranked so low! This is unacceptable! Why is Brown ranked 71st or so in the world and Dartmouth even further down the list!?!? <em>gasp</em> Dartmouth should be ranked ahead of school B and Brown before school C. This ranking sucks!!</p>
<p>This is when keeping an open mind becomes important. This is arguably the most widely used ranking in the IT industry in Japan, China and Taiwan.</p>
<p>Of course you’re going to notice “anomalies” shaped by our preconceptions and stereotypes, but you just have to accept these “anomalies” as merits and insights of this ranking.</p>
<p>I think you completely missed certain points of my post, so I will reiterate them here.</p>
<p>-I agreed that any school can be a better fit than any other school FOR A SPECIFIC PERSON!!! Which is why these rankings are flawed and there is no use analyzing them to death.
-Like I said (in capital letters no less), I was emphasizing OVERALL quality of each university. I realized that you could point out Cornell’s engineering strength, and bringing up the Honors thing in Penn State shows how you missed my point of how I was judging institutions OVERALL, since obviously any school can be a dream school for the right person.</p>
<p>“We’re experiencing them and hearing about them so much (from so many people) that their credibility is almost unquestionable.”
-Regardless of how many accounts you think you may have heard, what you say is still ANECDOTAL evidence, unless you somehow have contacts with at least over 50% of the undergrad student bodies of those top schools, which is unlikely. You say I’m perpetuating a stereotype, yet you classify a whole tier of schools simply from stories you have heard, which any reasonable person would clearly deduce as being either a minority opinion or simply just ■■■■■■■■.</p>
<p>Like I said before, you would hardly be arguing the merits of this list (which I have never heard of before), or using any other as evidence to back up its querks, if U of C wasn’t listed as 1st here. Anyways, this argument is completely moot so I will end it here. Unless you actually got into those other schools and rejected them for U of C, you come off as simply bitter at said schools for no apparant reason. </p>
<p>Oh, and I should note that World Rankings are a COMPLETELY different source than naitonal rankings, since they are based on reputations internationally (hence Berkeley’s top rank), so your use of ARWU is completely meaningless. Shows how much you know! (Face Palm! :))</p>
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<p>20% of Harvard graduates regret having matriculated into Harvard. Evidence enough?</p>
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<p>Any reasonable person? I suppose, if you define reasonable to be “accepting the status of the Ivy League as composing the best universities in America, period”, which I believe you are. Also, I might put in that I know quite a few professors here who have told me that HYP aren’t terribly great schools.</p>
<p>In fact, during O-Week, our house had a guest speaker who was a professor in the humanities here. He was a Princeton professor for about 20 years until he came here a few years ago. He said that although the people at Princeton were smart, very few even had the desire to learn, which made classes boring and low-quality, with very little interaction. He claims to have decided to come here based on a weekend he spent here observing the heated debates between students outside of the classroom.</p>
<p>A professor in mathematics told a lecture hall of graduate school applicants last year that they should not attend Princeton or Harvard, because they were schools where the professors didn’t care about the students and that all they wanted to do was push research out of you. This was from a man who received his PhD from Princeton. </p>
<p>Is this minority opinion or ■■■■■■■■? I have two strong opinions from professors at a top 10 world university telling me that Harvard and Princeton are not very good schools. Anecdotal, yes. But, in my opinion, considerably more meaningful than any student opinion, especially that of an outsider that only knows the Ivy Leagues from their reputations.</p>
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<p>No, they’re UNIVERSITY rankings, not COLLEGE rankings. (It has nothing to do with international reputation.) This is why Dartmouth is ranked so low, and why schools like Swarthmore are not even on the list. Because Dartmouth produces very little in the way of research and Swarthmore doesn’t have a graduate school.</p>
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<p>Actually, this is a silly argument. I advocate for Caltech all the time, despite the fact that they rejected me. I also criticize MIT all the time, and they rejected me as well. It’s funny to see that I am often accused of being bitter toward MIT when I argue against their actions, despite that I often advocate the actions of another school that rejected me.</p>
<p>The University of Chicago may well be a higher quality institution than any of HYP. In fact, I believe Chicago to be at least of the quality of each of HYP if we consider academics (and not career preparation) alone. Some people have trouble accepting it because the attitude of the general populace indicates that HYP are much greater schools. I’m reminded of the story where a young student argues that Christianity can’t be wrong because how could all those people be wrong? Using an objective perspective, it’s clearly a flawed argument.</p>
<p>Objective? Hmm, and what school do you come from that you are so impartial I wonder!? And of coure those professors are gonna praise the school they went to in front of its students. If they said otherwise, they wouldn’t have a job for much longer there…</p>
<p>The fact that you keep bringing up some weird debate between MIT and CalTech despite the fact that nobody here has mentioned it shows that you have some sort of hidden issues there somewhere. As for ARWU, any World ranking is based on an international perspective, which isn’t very helpful for undergrads here. It was created by some school in China and is based solely on each school’s research capabilities as seen from CHINA! This is hardly relevant here.</p>
<p>I’m happy for you that you take pride in your school, as it should be number 1 in your mind; otherwise you would have been foolish to have chosen it. Just don’t make yourself sound too biased by advocating your opinion to others.</p>
<p>“20% of Harvard graduates regret having matriculated into Harvard. Evidence enough?”</p>
<p>I won’t even try to guess where you got that figure from, but if you read my post you would clearly see that it isn’t enough evidence (for those mathematically challenged, 20<50 since that still shows that the majority of students enjoy their time there.</p>
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<p>Just because you’re looking at the situation from the inside doesn’t mean you can’t make clear-minded, objective decisions. Also, professors generally don’t make statements against other universities at random. They do it very carefully and only when they find it completely necessary. Professors are, after all, switching universities all the time, and if they’re criticizing all other universities, they’re not going to have a place to go to after their current position.</p>
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<p>It’s the universities I can bring to mind, since I have experiences with both. Unlike you, who has experience with… well, no universities, since you’re still in high school. I myself have learned a few lessons here, and the first one I learned was to never mention something unless you are thoroughly familiar with what you are talking about. </p>
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<p>Actually, I was the first intelligent poster to criticize the rankings system if you’ll look back one full page. I have never in our conversation claimed that Chicago was #1 nor would I ever. I have merely claimed that HYP are not as godlike in reality as they are in your mind. And you apparently have very little patience in argument. Don’t be so quick to ad hominem attacks.</p>
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<p>Yes, because measures from China don’t use hard statistics. That’s only something that Americans can do, right? To each rankings system, there exists a methodology. Each methodology is made in its unique way, but all methodologies use hard statistics. So whether a ranking is conducted in China or America or Bumfsck is completely irrelevant. Also, it’s the most respected world rankings system, so that should give you a clue to how relevant it is to us Americans.</p>
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<p>It’s from a study. I’m sure you could find it if you looked hard enough. Also, by your logic, if 49% of students regretted that they matriculated into Harvard, it’s still sufficient evidence for you that it’s the best school in the world. It’s just not correct. Harvard’s dissatisfaction rate is one of the highest among top universities. To me, it’s a clear indicator that something’s wrong. From an unbiased perspective, it would probably mean the same to you.</p>
<p>Interesting. Then I would venture to ask what you, personally, consider to be the top 5 schools overall in the nation. You say HYP ain’t all that they’re cracked up to be and that Chicago could be considered superior, yet you claim that you aren’t saying Chicago is #1. By that logic, you must think there are others that are clearly better than all 4. And if the only experience you have with MIT and CalTech is being rejected from those schools, how can you call that experience at all?</p>
<p>“Since 2003, Shanghai Jiao Tong University has produced the Academic Ranking of World Universities[5] which analyses the top universities in the world on quality of faculty (40%), research output (40%), quality of education (10%) and performance vs. size (10%).[6] Its ranking is exclusively of research, mainly in the empirical sciences.”</p>
<p>I don’t care if this is the most respected world ranking. We’re talking about national univeristies here, as in in the U.S. I don’t know why we’re still referring to ARWU on this thread when it is primarily based on research and sciences! We’re talking about overall here, so enough of that. So what if it’s is the best ranking in China or whatever because it isn’t pertinent whatsoever to the average college applicant in the U.S., which is the only type of person who should care about these rankings.</p>
<p>I’m not arguing that Harvard is the end all be all of schools; I’ve said repeatedly that everybody is different when it comes to the type of school they prefer. It is just faulty to make the statement that those top schools are worth nothing academically and are only good for their diplomas. And I don’t care what you say: If you come from U of C and you’re arguing that it’s superior to HYP, you’re biased and if you don’t see that or if you don’t see how other people could see that then you’re being naive.</p>
<p>Seriously, this discussion is going nowhere…</p>