Link: http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities
Chicago is now #3 in the land!! lol
and for the Liberal Arts Colleges
Source: http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-liberal-arts-colleges
Is that 13 in a row for Williams?
Sparkeye: tOSU is still not top 50.
14, it turns out.
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Sparkeye: tOSU is still not top 50.
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Indeed, my friend… Unfortunately, tOSU does not game USNWR methodology by shifting class sizes and alter ratios in order to moving into the Top-50, such as that of Northeastern, Miami, BU…, etc. which all have ‘jumped’ in the ranking in the last few years. In addition, although Villanova is elevated to the Doctoral categories this year for the first time via Carnegie’s classification instead of a Master-centric institution for the longest time is in no way comparable to tOSU in terms of research prowess and accessibilities for both undergrads and graduates levels. Yet, it is ranked ahead of Ohio State, a school well regarded as one of the premier academic power houses in the nation if not the world. http://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/rankings
Despite all, tOSU is still hanging strong alongside traditional academically solid school such as Washington and AHEAD of Texas. The acceptance percentage is now dropped to the 40s and the ave ACT for the incoming freshman is nearly 30 with roughly 50,000 applicants this year. Moreover, school is currently investing over $1-billion in total investment for the new facilities and faculty recruit - not including major projects such as the new gateway art district on High St and the upcoming completion of the north campus dorms which should put tOSU on the map as one of the best dormitory systems in the country for a major public university. https://pare.osu.edu/news/2016/06/20/campus-partners-unveils-comprehensive-plans-15th-and-high
In short, I am extremely optimistic in terms of tOSU moving up in all the academic rankings in the near future not limited to USNWR. Go Bucks!!! 
MSU has fallen as well Sparkeye. Michigan went up two spots. I do agree with you about the gaming done at some private schools.
^^ rjk, in order for State to make a significantly advance on USNWR ranking, something drastic has to happen since he school is still lagging behind in terms of public perception in terms of its long-held position academically as one of the lower tier B1G institutions. Therefore, it is my opinion that will only happen a few years from now - after the billion $ initiation of FRIB. http://frib.msu.edu/ Go State!!
Pretty surprised that UT-Austin is ranked so low
^UT-Austin is just one more example of a college or university I would go to in a heart-beat before several dozen of the ones ranked above it.
Look, there is nothing mysterious about any of this: 10% of a university’s score consists of “expenditures per student”. USNews doesn’t break it down in so many words, but, the biggest expense for any school, after salaries for professors is financial aid, right? All that is really, is the difference between a university’s sticker price and the amount it discounts the price in order to stay competitive. If you are fortunate enough to be able to cater to the needs of a constituency that is essentially price insensitive, you can stay at the top of the USNews rankings almost indefinitely by continually raising tuition.
For the past couple of years, Frank Bruni has been peddling this notion that college rankings don’t matter at all. It helps sell his book. It also comforts nervous students and parents. But… Frank Bruni himself is a graduate of UNC Chapel Hill and Columbia. Others on CC have also posted summaries of the educational credentials of the NYT, which are overwhelmingly “elite.” There is a heavy dose of hypocrisy in anything that Frank Bruni and the NYT write on this subject. BTW, don’t most universities essentially rank applicants? None that I know of admit students by pulling names out of a hat, irrespective of SAT/ACT scores, GPA, HS course rigor, etc.
^The larger research universities tend to rank students according to numerical scores. However, the better SLACs tend not to.
@circuitrider I’ve always wondered if they do that and the logistics of the student ranking. Any insights into how it works or an example of the student ranking components? I’m surprised more info on this has not been “leaked”. With thousands of applicants there MUST be a systematic way schools are quantifying/classifying applicants.
Yes, it defies logic that there isn’t an initial screen and that every application is “read” in its entirety. Why waste time on applicants that are obviously not academically qualified?
One data point in support: Dartmouth admissions used a numeric academic index, circa 1997. This was exposed by Michele Hernandez, an ex-AO at Dartmouth.
I agree that it’s remarkable that the inside scoop has not been revealed by more AOs that have worked at elite universities. The reason may be that they’d henceforth be pariahs in the admissions community.
A few years ago, I think it was a former Princeton admissions officer had a college advising roadshow, and talked about applicants in terms of a points system, for academics, test scores, and ECs. The highest score in each category is a 7, and his power point showed what kinds of ranges in grades/rigor, scores and ECs fell into each score. I found it particularly interesting to see where ECs fell – 7s were reserved for Intel finalists, musicians winning national competitions etc. As I recall, Varsity captain, editor of the yearbook etc. were 5s – helped put in perspective the tunnel vision we tend to have about our kids who do wonderful things in our local community but are not making an impact on a national scale.
Well, I’m not sure where to put Dartmouth on the spectrum of big/school/small/school, but, there’s really no secret that NESCAC, Swarthmore, Pomona and other SLACs use what’s called a holistic approach to the admissions process. We know this because every Supreme Court affirmative action case since Grutter v. Bollinger refers to it:
http://amherststudent-archive.amherst.edu/current/news/view.php?year=2002-2003&issue=15§ion=news&article=01
Yes, the term “holistic” is de rigueur in admissions at all highly-selective universities (not just at LACs). But that doesn’t preclude that unqualified applicants are filtered out using some academic metric. It just doesn’t make sense to apply the labor-intensive holistic process to thousands of applicants who have zero chance of being admitted.
For instance, at MIT, there is a first pass and “If you don’t have sufficiently high SAT scores, you’re out.” http://■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■.com/qa-former-mit-admissions-officer/
Note that the interview quoted above was actually with a work-study student in MIT’s admissions office (to find the full article, search for “Q&A with a Former MIT Admissions Officer”). Here’s something from the actual assistant director in the admissions office. It doesn’t totally negate what’s said in the previous article, but it does offer some nuances to the described process: http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/the-difficulty-with-data