Post your personal university rankings here – college-level.
In my ranking, I am taking into account academic rep, comprehensiveness of academic offerings, class sizes/prof interaction, undergraduate focus, and the overall experience (based mostly on CC posts):
Princeton
Yale
Harvard, Stanford
MIT
Chicago, Columbia
Penn
Brown, Caltech, Dartmouth, Duke, Northwestern
Cornell, Johns Hopkins
Berkeley, Rice, Washington U
Carnegie Mellon, Emory, Georgetown, Michigan, Notre Dame, UCLA, Vanderbilt, Virginia
North Carolina, NYU, Tufts, USC
Boston College, Boston U, Brandeis, Case Western, Georgia Tech, Lehigh, Illinois, Rochester, Texas, Tulane, Wake Forest, Washington, Wisconsin
Florida, Fordham, Miami (FL), Northeastern, Pepperdine, Purdue, SMU, UCD, UCSB, UCSD, Villanova, and about a dozen more strong flagships....
Please post your ranking and a description of your formula, and remember, we’re talking about the undergrad/college level.
The schools are loosely ranked according to each variable (relative to one another…) and the overall ranking is an approximation of the overall result. The most important variable is academic rep.
For instance, let’s look at Caltech:
Huge academic rep -- world-class in STEM
Among the least comprehensive in terms of the majors and courses they offer.
Mostly small classes, strong prof interaction
Decent undergrad focus
OK overall experience -- mixed reviews: some lament the workload and lack of social scene; others mention the nice campus, weather, and strong academic vibe.
The faults land them a bit below where their academic rep probably is.
My top 30 for undergrad (in my mind i am thinking of many different factors: selectivity, prestige, academic quality & access to top research opps in many different fields, outcomes, student/social life)
Stanford will overtake Harvard in a few years. The incredible strides they have made in the last fifteen years to make themselves a world class university will push them to be the best in the US and the world. I may be bias because D was accepted to class of 2021.
Rank by USNWR-like Admission Selectivity
Formula: 65% for SAT M+CR, 25% for Percentage in HS Top 10%, 10% forAdmission Rate
(following the current USNWR weightings).
Uses 2015 numbers or closest year found (I collected them a while back and haven’t updated).
A weighted average selectivity rank (WASR) is calculated; schools are sorted by WASR; a blank line indicates a 1-point drop in the WASR. E.g. “3” for Cal Tech indicates the average of its SAT score rank, class rank rank, and admit rate rank is 3rd.
This is formula-driven. It doesn’t necessarily represent my opinions about quality or even about admission selectivity. It only suggests what the USNWR ranking might look like if you removed every factor other than selectivity *as measured/i, and if we included both national universities and national LACs. It’s based on many numbers; mistakes can happen. So, trust (if you like) but verify.
If you think US News ranks (for example) UChicago/WUSTL/Vanderbilt too high, or Stanford/Berkeley/Michigan too low, this table may help you understand why … although selectivity only counts for 12.5% of the overall US News rankings.
Just a reminder, this thread isn’t taking grad or PhD into account. Try to make it undergrad-only, s’il vous plait. We should be separating the levels – some schools do grad better than undergrad and vice-versa.
@simba9 Best laugh-out-loud comment ever (#6) on one of these ranking threads!! I quoted you (anonymously, of course) on my FB page for levity as May 1 approaches. And, I have a friend who went there, so he agreed wholeheartedly.
I told my friend my D must go to a mid-ranked school since it’s located in the Midwest.
What are your opinions on scholarships/honors colleges in these rankings? In that say someone went to Berkeley as a regents scholar, would they be considered equal to a higher tier school, or the same as normal Berkeley kids?
@prezbucky as usual I – almost – agree with you. I think MIT, Cal tech, Carnegie Mellon, Georgia tech etc are sui generis and do lot belong in a general college ranking. Hence, without MIT And Cal Tech, I would rank purely for undergraduate college as follows:
@Chrchill I think its because it identifies a value for us. It provides a second identity and value for those who do not have self value. Its easy to say you are ranked 5 or something in us news and people will be impressed with you, even if you have no other redeemable qualities. It is essentially free prestige and self-worth
