Maybe the overall rankings are more useful for liberal arts colleges, where much of the value of the learning is in the the interrelationship of different fields of study, especially for those students who enter college wanting to explore many majors and career possibilities.
The article in the NYTimes states that moving just one spot has a noticeable impact on applications.
However, many liberal arts colleges have some focus or specialization, and small size may mean that they are less likely to have “something for everyone” than a larger school. For example, there are four schools tied at #17 in the USNWR 2020 top LACs list; it is unlikely that any given student will consider all of them equivalent in suitability.
“Evidently people DO care”
Reminds me of a saying, there are two kinds of people, one that cares about rankings and say they do, and one that cares about rankings but they say they don’t.
A couple of colleges my kids are interested in have moved down a few spots. Here’s hoping the NYT are right.
Why I don’t care about USNWR rankings:
First of all, no single number (i.e. position in rankings) can capture the complexities in evaluating a college. Different factors weight differently for different applicants and their families. More importantly, some important factors are not captured while some others that are irrelevant are included. Some examples:
- Graduation rates. They're more of a function of students than colleges. If you know your kids will more or less graduate on time (most do), do you really care about the college's graduation rate, especially a 6-year rate?
More relevant is probably whether your kid can register for the courses s/he is interested in taking. What restrictions are placed on popular courses? How do these restrictions impact her/his major?
- Social mobility. As defined by USNWR, it's a function of graduation rates of PELL-eligible and non-eligible students, so the criticism about graduation rates apply. Additionally, it's only about one class of low SES students, so it's subject to manipulation. It's only relevant if your kid is PELL-eligible *and* you're concerned whether s/he can graduate on time.
- Class size. Smaller is better *if and only if* everything else is the same. But everything else *isn't* the same. It also depends on the type of classes. Certain discussion-based classes benefit more from smaller size, while others benefit less.
- Expert opinions. These so-called experts are really administrators. Presidents and provosts either don't return the survey, or incentivized to criticize their competitors, or assign the task to their assistants. They should have surveyed experts (including faculty) in each field instead.
- Alumni giving. Alumni attachment to the school is often the result of college sports. By including alumni giving, USNWR artificially boost the rankings of schools with big sports programs. Do they have anything to do with college education?
“Why I don’t care about USNWR rankings:”
At this point in where we are, if you’re involved in higher education, you have to care about the rankings. You may hate them as many in higher ed do, but they are now part of the environment. And I’m just referring to USNWR.
"The article in the NYTimes states that moving just one spot has a noticeable impact on applications. "
That seems a little hyperbole, I read the article as well, I can’t imagine moving from say 27 to 28 would have an impact, however moving from 50 to 51 or 10 to 11, would for sure, no doubt.
Do your own research.
Choosing a college based on USNWR’s aggregated data from thousands of unknown administrators would be like choosing your next travel destination based on a survey of travel agents.
A better path would be to ask yourself, or your child, a series of questions:
-
do you intend to make a career far from your home region? If not, then the national or international prestige of an institution will not add much value. Though there is some value to spending four years outside of the region where you grew up, in truth, our society and culture are now so homogenized that this benefit is far less pronounced than it would have been 50 years ago.
=> filter your list accordingly -
do you want an urban environment, or are you fine with a small rural one?
=> filter, etc -
what areas of academic inquiry do you find most exciting or interesting?
=> create a short list of potential majors and filter again -
is it important to you to have the ability to do advanced research in the field you identified in #1?
=> if no, then go directly to Step 5.
=> if yes, then prioritize major Research Universities and start researching specialized sources including
- the NRC survey of major research programs for an insider’s view of the quality of different research-oriented programs (the last one was done in 2010)
- specialized community sites where academics discuss different programs
- By far the most important step: regardless of whether you want to do advanced research in your field(s) of interest, DO YOUR OWN DIRECT RESEARCH INTO THE PROGRAMS OF INTEREST at the colleges which made your short list using steps 1-3 (or 1-4 if you want to do advanced research).
This research should include these steps:
5a. rank the shortlisted colleges based on the breadth and depth of course offerings IN YOUR PREFERRED PROGRAM. A highly ranked LAC may compare unfavorably to a lower-ranked public research institution if you’re going to run out of advanced courses at the small LAC.
5b. determine whether your goal is to go into industry after graduating or go on to do graduate work. Consult the placement-related web pages and call the undergraduate advisor at each of your shortlisted colleges to find out which employers have recruited their graduates recently - esp. through on-campus recruiter visits - and which graduate programs they send their undergrads to.
- Refine your list further and VISIT A FEW OF THE FINAL CUT PROGRAMS. Set up meetings with the Undergraduate Advisor. They'll be delighted to talk to you and your child - and make sure it's your child who asks most of the questions and speaks for him or herself.
Perhaps this should be “do you intend to make a career far from the location of the college?”.
You forgot the most important factor in most students’ college choices:
- For each college, determine if it is affordable at list price, automatic-for-stats merit scholarships, or need-based financial aid from the net price calculator (for "ordinary" financial situations). If it is not affordable, then it may not be worth the time for further research. If it is only affordable with competitive merit scholarships, then it should be considered a "reach" (even if admission is "match", "likely", or "safety"). If it is affordable with need-based financial aid, but requires some uncertain factors (e.g. cooperation from a non-custodial parent who may not be so cooperative, or a non-custodial parent waiver is needed, or finances have complex situations not asked about in the net price calculator), then it should also be considered a "reach".
After affordability, academic offerings (your #3, #4, #5 (#1 can be considered as part of #5b)) are next priority. Note that students who are undecided between several majors or areas of interest need to consider all possible majors or areas of interest. Other factors (your #2, #6) come afterward.
So many kids don’t even end up majoring in what they expect to. I think expecting a 16- or 17-year old to be able to answer this question as well even before deciding which colleges to apply to is a little unrealistic.
Meh. I looked up my kids’ college and was pleased it moved back up. That’s it. Couldn’t name their top 10, assume it;s the usual players.
Don’t care if S dropped- it’s still a fabulous college, rigorous to the max, and will continue to be a bear to get into.
No matter how many people rave about x or y, in the end, it’s about you and your preferences and needs.
Yes, USNWR is influential, and I’d argue, to the detriment of college selection and application processes, and even to higher education generally. It’s influential because many do care, obviously. The simplicity of reducing college selection to a single number is often irresistible.
Who said the USNWR rankings, or any other rankings, “reduc[e] college selection to a single number”? The rankings certainly add some numbers to the mix of information, but I don’t know anyone, anywhere, who thinks the rankings are all the information necessary to choose a college, or even to choose a college among a set of colleges that are realistic admissions and financial prospects.
Look, the press is constantly ranking sports teams. Every week during the college football season, there are two national polls ranking teams (with different polling bases), and dozens of systematic analyses by individuals or groups and their computers, all trying to produce a ranking of college football teams as of that week. And in all of my 60+ years of watching that happen, I have never once heard anyone say, “Oh, Clemson is ranked #1? I’m going to stop rooting for Alabama!” Not to mention, “Ohio State is ranked #5 and Michigan #7. So I’m betting the mortgage money on the Buckeyes over the Wolverines this weekend.”
What’s irresistible is the human impulse to analyze and rank, even when the myriad factors worth analyzing resist reduction. What’s eminently resistible is relying on other people’s rankings to make decisions affecting your own life.
@mackinaw Reed is always underrated by USNWR because they refuse to play. Did you see the analysis their stats students did where they reverse-engineered the rankings last year to figure out one of the factors used and were able to calculate that they should be around #36? (I’m not sure if that’s overall or of LACs).
Perhaps you don’t, but they’re everywhere, even on CC. Lots of students and their families choose colleges based on rankings, unfortunately, when deciding what colleges to apply to (not only reaches, but also matches and safeties) and what college to enroll.
https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2019/09/09/uc-riverside-reaches-no-1-social-mobility
https://ucrtoday.ucr.edu/53706
@INJParent…True, if you are PELL eligible…very smart students that don’t come from wealth want the best chance for success!! 49% of PELL recipients graduate nationally within 6 years vs 67% non-PELL students. 73% of PELL and non-PELL recipients graduate within 6 years at UCR regardless of race or income class…the same rate which is very impressive. UC Riverside is one of the few college success stories in eliminating achievement gaps across income categories and ethnicities.
As a UC Riverside alumnus (was not PELL eligible), I enclosed a few links above since us Highlanders are ranked #1 Nationally on the Social Mobility Index (UCSC #2 and UCI #3). Just about ALL of the 9 UC locations rank highly on the Social Mobility Index.
Hopefully someday, the expensive Privates will move up the Social Mobility Index too!
So, I clicked on the link to my son’s school, The University of Pennsylvania, and it says in the overview “Penn has 12 schools: Five offer undergraduate and graduate studies, and seven offer only graduate studies.”
Am I missing something, as I only know of four undergraduate schools at Penn.
Could anyone shed any light on this?
@runswimyoga Annenberg takes undergrads - https://www.asc.upenn.edu/admissions/undergraduate-admissions
They matter, A LOT to people and to the colleges. I’ve always tried to move people away from the rankings but, to no avail in some quarters. That, and name recognition matters a lot, after price. Those for whom money is no object often look at these things very closely. And those are the studentsva lot of the colleges desperately need.
With the demographics such that the younger population is shrinking, including the college aged group, schools are going to be fighting for these full pay students. Not the most selective schools, not the ones with great name recognition, but the ones that are fighting for that valuable full pay student.
I think we shall be seeing a lot of discounting of private college Tuitions. I think we are already. It used to be with my older kids, $5k scholarships were about as much as we were seeing. Now $20k is not so unusual.
Thats probably what they mean. Although still part of the College of Arts and Science the communication major requires a separate application and admission. Interesting. I knew someone on here would be able to elucidate this for me. Thank You!