<p>What do you guys think about MIT being #7 according to this new ranking?</p>
<p>I'm so p*ssed</p>
<p>Well we've visited Penn for its campus preview. The decision between MIT and Penn was a no brainer.</p>
<p>Revealing are the SAT scores (for class 2010 I think) and Peer Assessment scores:</p>
<p>SAT scores
USN Rank, School, 25 Score, 75 Score, Avg
5 U Penn , 1330 , 1530 , 1430
7 MIT , 1380 , 1560 , 1470</p>
<p>Peer Assessment scores
Penn 4.5
MIT 4.9 (same as PHYS)</p>
<p>pebbles, the -3 or -1 drop could have been a Marilee effect(?).</p>
<p>It's possible.</p>
<p>I feel that MIT is in a class apart and its order in rankings should not really matter. The contributions made by MITians over the past so many decades is not going to lose its significance if it moves 'up' or 'down' on a particular list. I am sure that the world can continue to look forward to many more significant research findings from MIT that once applied will have a lasting impact!</p>
<p>I agree with anxiousbear, but I can't help but wonder WHY it dropped... or why Penn rose.</p>
<p>It doesn't matter though. MIT's prestige is in no way drawn by some company's rankings. It was earned from what it's students and faculty have actually done.</p>
<p>I agree with differential! If someone isn't planning on going to MIT just because of the ranking, they don't deserve to be there.
U.S. News is just trying to get thousands of people to pay them money for some ranking that they made up XP</p>
<p>I can't believe this. I can't even speak right now.</p>
<p>hehehe MIT is teh pwned by Penn</p>
<p>MIT r teh suxz0rz</p>
<p>Lol pebbles, at least Harvard didn't get 1st. And for those guys it really IS A BIG DEAL.</p>
<p>I don't know about you guys, but I have a sort of an easy answer for haters who kid me about MIT being 7th and all: </p>
<p>"I got into Princeton (USNWR number 1 two years running), but I turned that down because MIT is better <insert laundry="" list="" of="" bamf="" reasons="" why="" mit="" is="" t3h="" pwn="" here="">."</insert></p>
<p>the 7th must be taken into context. MIT is so science/math driven that it is truly not comparable to most of the schools on the list. If anything, I was shocked that cal tech was ranked higher than MIT.</p>
<p>The national list is really a terrible comparison for our school. It's so different from ANY of the ivy's, in terms of interests and focus. Let's just be happy that we're (still) .2 points above Stanford and Berkeley on Engineering and throw a party.</p>
<p>In September 1996, Gerhard Casper wrote the following in a letter to James Fallows, then editor of *U.S. News and World Report<a href="%5Bb%5Dbold%5B/b%5D%20emphasis%20mine">/i</a>: </p>
<p>
[quote]
As the president of a university that is among the top-ranked universities, I hope I have the standing to persuade you that much about these rankings - particularly their specious formulas and spurious precision - is utterly misleading. I wish I could forego this letter since, after all, the rankings are only another newspaper story. Alas, alumni, foreign newspapers, and many others do not bring a sense of perspective to the matter. </p>
<pre><code> I am extremely skeptical that the quality of a university - any more than the quality of a magazine - can be measured statistically. However, even if it can, the producers of the U.S. News rankings remain far from discovering the method. Let me offer as prima facie evidence two great public universities: the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and the University of California-Berkeley. These clearly are among the very best universities in America - one could make a strong argument for either in the top half-dozen. Yet, in the last three years, the U.S. News formula has assigned them ranks that lead many readers to infer that they are second rate: Michigan 21-24-24, and Berkeley 23-26-27.
Such movement itself - while perhaps good for ** generating attention and sales - corrodes the credibility of these rankings and your magazine itself. Universities change very slowly - in many ways more slowly than even I would like.Yet, the people behind the U.S. News rankings **lead readers to believe either that university quality pops up and down like politicians in polls, or that last year's rankings were wrong but this year's are right (until, of course, next year's prove them wrong). What else is one to make of Harvard's being #1 one year and #3 the next, or Northwestern's leaping in a single bound from #13 to #9? And it is not just this year. Could Johns Hopkins be the 22nd best national university two years ago, the 10th best last year, and the 15th best this year? Which is correct, that Columbia is #9 (two years ago), #15 (last year) or #11 (this year)?
Knowing that universities - and, in most cases, the statistics they submit - change little from one year to the next, I can only conclude that what are changing are the formulas the magazine's number massagers employ. And, indeed, there is marked evidence of that this year.
</code></pre>
<p>...
Were U.S. News, under your leadership, to walk away from these misleading rankings, it would be a powerful display of common sense. I fear, however, that these rankings and their byproducts have become too attention-catching for that to happen. </p>
<pre><code> Could there not, though, at least be a move toward greater honesty with, and service to, your readers by moving away from the false precision? Could you not do away with rank ordering and overall scores, thus admitting that the method is not nearly that precise and that the difference between #1 and #2 - indeed, between #1 and #10 - may be statistically insignificant? Could you not, instead of tinkering to "perfect" the weightings and formulas, question the basic premise? Could you not admit that quality may not be truly quantifiable, and that some of the data you use are not even truly available (e.g., many high schools do not report whether their graduates are in the top 10% of their class)?
Parents are confused and looking for guidance on the best choice for their particular child and the best investment of their hard-earned money. Your demonstrated record gives me hope that you can begin to lead the way away from football-ranking mentality and toward helping to inform, rather than mislead, your readers.
</code></pre>
<p>
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Gerhard Casper was the President of Stanford University from 1992 to 2000. The full text is available at <a href="http://www.stanford.edu/dept/pres-provost/president/speeches/961206gcfallow.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.stanford.edu/dept/pres-provost/president/speeches/961206gcfallow.html</a></p>
<p>College Confidential itself has some comments:</p>
<p>YOU guys realize this uses the 06' data?</p>
<p>If anything, Marilee Jones scandal will screw MIT even more on next year's USNews rankings because that's when this year's data/PA scores will be taken into account.</p>
<p>I don't think anyone believes Penn > MIT just like most people wonder how Penn/Duke > Columbia.</p>
<p>Why does marilee jones have any bearing on ratings?
She certainly made a huge mistake, but it didn't detract from the ADCOMs ability to make wise decisions on applicants. She was a kid who made a foolish mistake 28 years ago (not a justifying statement). Don't let that decision detract from the truth that she was quite possibly the most celebrated and outspoken admission's dean in America.</p>
<p>Is a ranking of 7 really a drop? I mean, when you look at the rankings for the past few years, I think last year's 4 was anomalously high.</p>
<p>I still think it's completely absurd to publish a ranking of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, and Caltech that doesn't have a six-way tie for first. These schools are all fabulous and provide a fabulous education for undergraduates; the differences between them are mostly in student culture and in the quality of individual programs.</p>
<p>Oh noes! We only got 7th place in a completely BS, useless, sensationalist and utterly profit-driven piece of crap survey. I think I will die of shame.</p>
<p>And say what you want about Marilee, but I truly fail to see how her scandal will affect the AP scores of MIT students. That's utterly absurd.</p>
<p>i still can't stop crying</p>