The problem with this whole ordeal is really defining what you mean by ">" - nobody agrees on what that means so this talk of overall rankings for universities is just silly.</p>
<p>US News attempts to do quantitatively define ">", but their weighting scheme appears completely arbitrary and is obviously reverse-engineered to give mostly predictable results (Princeton, Harvard, Yale in the top three). </p>
<p>That said, we don't need to ponder why Penn beat out MIT: US News provides most of the massaged data and outlines how it formulate its ranking. Any legitimate and meaningful criticism of the results for a particular year should come as a specific critique of that year's weighing system. </p>
<p>For instance, MIT likely (I would never buy US News, so I don't have the breakdowns) loses out to Penn in terms of things like alumni giving rate and graduation rates, while Penn loses out on things like student selectivity and perceived quality of the faculty (peer assessment, sort of). So what you could argue is that, in general, US News undervalues either selectivity or PA, and if you were to define ">" you would put a greater emphasis on those categories. Or, you could figure out if US News is not considering all of the data available: are the other metrics that provide an additional angle on the 'quality' of a research institute which US News is missing?</p>
<p>Overall, it's just important to remember that the final ranking is just an arbitrary weighting of several, reasonably logical factors associated with 'good things' for universities to have. Having a large endowment, high SAT scores, or a well recognized faculty are all individually good things for universities and make for informative comparisons between schools: its the combination of these that leads to arbitrariness. Hence, I think people would get a lot more out of US News if they would just ignore the overall ranking and only compare the specific breakdowns for each sub-category.</p>
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I can't believe this. I can't even speak right now.
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i still can't stop crying
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<p>MIT is overrated this year. They should've been ranked in a spot between 10 - 20. Everyone who has seen MIT problem sets and the strength of MIT students (e.g. pebbles) would agree.</p>
<p>What's funny is how everyone is always saying how 'rankings don't matter' and 'rankings are bullsh*' and then go crying whenever they're ranked low. When I first saw the rankings, I thought to myself, "Oh boy, I can't wait to see those sissy MIT kids complaining tomorrow. It'll light up my day." I don't think these rankings matter at all either, but when you complain like this, you're just proving how much they *do matter to yourselves and everyone else.</p>
<p>Nobody who cares about a first-rate education is going to knock MIT off their application list because it is arbitrarily #7 on a list.</p>
<p>If anything it will cull out all the status-hounds who will only apply to the top 6, no matter what they are. And I wish all of them well.</p>
<p>MIT will continue to attract the applicants with the highest hopes and dreams of a challenging college life that also happens to be a hell of a lot of fun.</p>
<p>Me, I want to purchase a tshirt at the Coop that says</p>
<p>Quotes from [url=web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/usnews-0817.html]Friday's MIT news article<a href="and%20oh%20look,%20they%20even%20mention%20the%20change%20from%20#4%20overall%20to%20#7">/url</a>:
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MIT's undergraduate engineering program remained the best in the nation this year, according to U.S. News & World Report's annual rankings guide released today.</p>
<p>MIT has held the top spot in the magazine's overall undergraduate engineering rankings for the last six years. . . .</p>
<p>The MIT Sloan School of Management's undergraduate business program ranked overall as the nation's second best, according to the report. MIT's undergraduate business programs in production and operations management and in quantitative analysis also took top honors this year, and both programs have held the top places for at least six years.</p>
<p>MIT continued to rate as one of the best universities in the nation in the U.S. News survey. The magazine listed MIT as the seventh-best university in America. Last year, the Institute was tied for fourth with two other schools.</p>
<p>The U.S. News ranking formula gives greatest weight to the opinions of those in a position to judge a school's undergraduate academic excellence. The peer assessment survey allows presidents, provosts, and deans of admissions to account for intangibles such as faculty dedication to teaching. Ranked by its peer universities in this category, MIT shared top and equal standing with Princeton, Harvard and Stanford. . . .
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What's funny is how everyone is always saying how 'rankings don't matter' and 'rankings are bullsh**' and then go crying whenever they're ranked low. When I first saw the rankings, I thought to myself, "Oh boy, I can't wait to see those sissy MIT kids complaining tomorrow. It'll light up my day." I don't think these rankings matter at all either, but when you complain like this, you're just proving how much they do matter to yourselves and everyone else.
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I probably don't need to say this, but pebbles is being facetious.</p>
<p>None of the sissy MIT kids are actually complaining (at least, we're not complaining any more or less than we did last year, when MIT was ranked 4th).</p>
<p>If we are to assume that people who edit wiki articles about a school attended that university..maybe my conjecture may shed a little light on this whole issue on rankings. If one goes on wikipedia right now and searches for MIT, it still bears the ranking of number 4. If one goes on wikipedia right now and searches for UPenn, it now bears the ranking of number 5. Basically, people care way too much about these rankings (and you can't really deny that...otherwise this thread probably wouldn't have been created...), even though most people know it means nothing.</p>
<p>gah, if only i were one year older. then i would have been there for the #4 MIT EXPERIENCE. at sports games, i could have bought huge foam hands with four fingers up! now i need two foam hands to get seven up in the air ;(</p>