<p>I don't think CC is set on US News...I personally don't use US News; I use Princeton Review's. The only thing this post proves is the fact that most CC-ers think THES London Times does not rank Undegraduate colleges very well.</p>
<p>If you need assistance in a general way in your college search, I would go with Fiske and Princeton Review.</p>
<p>Westside,</p>
<p>for the record, Princeton Review gives the following Academic ratings:</p>
<p>Berkeley-92
Emory-94</p>
<p>OUCH!</p>
<p>That might give you some sense of what some people think of Emory.
Have fun with it.</p>
<p>^ Sure thing. BTW, can u go over the methodology that Princeton Review uses? </p>
<p>So US News emphasizes financial resources
THES London Times emphasizes professors and faculty/university reputation and research</p>
<p>And Princeton Review's methodology does... ??? can anyone give some insight?</p>
<p>Princeton Review does not rank the "Best Colleges", but ranks colleges by other categories. They collect all their data by surveying and doing research.</p>
<p>They have a lot of different lists in the front of the book which ranks schools by different cateogries, such as: "Best Overall Academic Experience For Undergraduates", "Prof's Make themselves Accessible", "Best Bargains", "Toughest To Get Into", "Dorms Like Palaces", etc, etc.</p>
<p>Their book provides a 2-page description on what they consider to be "The Best 357 Colleges." In my opinion, it's really done well.</p>
<p>Oh, by the way, the "Academic Rating" (the closest thing to a scale of good the colleges are in comparison to one another in the book) is rated on a scale of 1-4 stars; it is determined by: how many hours students studied, the quality of student the school attracts (admissions statistics, such as SAT/ACT/GPA/etc), student's assesment of their proffesors, and how hard students work/how much they get back for their efforts.</p>
<p>The US News does not emphasize financial resources. It is only 10% of the entire methodology. There is Peer assessment (weighted by 25 percent), Retention (20 percent in national universities and liberal arts colleges and 25 percent in master's and comprehensive colleges), Faculty resources (20 percent), and Student selectivity (15 percent) that have more weight than financial resources.</p>
<p>And Kalidescope, West Sidee is going to go off on you now that you dissed his alma mater.</p>
<p>I think the laissez-faire ranking is fairly good (although it hasn't been updated for a few years): <a href="http://collegeadmissions.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/laissez-faire-1999-2000.txt%5B/url%5D">http://collegeadmissions.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/laissez-faire-1999-2000.txt</a></p>
<p>West Sidee just posted these idiotic rankings because he is mad UCB is rated so low in USNEWS and this is his attempt to make Berkeley look good.</p>
<p>Its like that kid who says "top catholic schools like Georgetown, Notre Dame, or Holycross." People here are completely biased.</p>
<p>Black Belt</p>
<p>So Princeton Review didn't address the SAT one sitting vs. Best math+ best verbal methodology between privates and publics either? </p>
<p>Does Princeton Review take into account the quality of major and its respective departments? For instance, no one in their right mind would hire a Yale engineer over a UCLA engineer. How is departmental quality of major reflected in the rankings for Princeton Review?</p>
<p>Who are you to say a Yale engineer wouldn't be hired over a UCLA engineer. See, that is where you seem to be wrong in this entire argument and your other posts on CC: You just make wild assumptions. </p>
<p>It seems like every thread that you are on people start arguing with you because you believe that only your way works, but your "way" is based on your supposedly self-contained knowledge that usually is created out of thin air. I'm not necessarily saying you're wrong (I certainly don't agree with you though) because a ranking is not something that can be proved right or wrong, but by saying that others are wrong you are automatically inviting criticism on yourself. </p>
<p>I think it's obvious that the only reason you are pushing this ranking is because Berkeley is so high. If you need to validate to yourself that Berkeley isn't as bad as people put it out to be then so be it, but you can't honestly believe that UMass should be that high!</p>
<p>^ uc_benz - good luck at NU. Retention and faculty resources is pretty much autocorrelated with financial resources. So overall there are three or four categories that emphasize financial resources. What good is all the money in the world when you have dumb professors and ****ty majors? </p>
<p>Slipper - Its because ALL public schools have taken a bashing in these rankings. I really see THES as being less politically motivated than US News is. And THES does a much better job of ranking international universities and giving us a picture of how we are doing internationally.</p>
<p>Like I said, there are no "rankings" for Princeton Review..There is a 2-page summary for every one of the Top 357 schools in the nation (which is hard to argue with, since most schools deserve to be on the list). The two-page summary includes: Survey responses, Academics (opinion of Princeton Review, Alumni, current students, etc), Student Life, Student Body, Admissions Requirements, "the inside word", Financial Aid Info, and direct info from the Admissions office of the school.</p>
<p>As far as majors and quality of departments of a specific school, it does talk about it in the 2-page summary. It also states the most-popular major for every school, and which schools applicants sometimes prefer....It shows the average/range SAT verbal, Math, ACT, TOEFL, HS GPA, and percentages of how many graduatedat a certain decile of their hs class.</p>
<p>Oh, they also show the affiliation of the school, the environment (town, city), male/female percentages, students from public/private, ethnicities of students, and what their survey said...</p>
<p>
[quote]
Who are you to say a Yale engineer wouldn't be hired over a UCLA engineer. See, that is where you seem to be wrong in this entire argument and your other posts on CC: You just make wild assumptions.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You can go ahead and ask the head recruiter for Intel, IBM, etc... who they are more likely to hire. a UCLA engineer or a Yale engineer.</p>
<p>
[quote]
As far as majors and quality of departments of a specific school, it does talk about it in the 2-page summary. It also states the most-popular major for every school, and which schools applicants sometimes prefer....It shows the average/range SAT verbal, Math, ACT, TOEFL, HS GPA, and percentages of how many graduatedat a certain decile of their hs class.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Ah. Ok. I guess they must use university reported SAT scores then. most publics use the best one sitting SAT score to report, while most private schools use best verbal + best math to report. The same student will usually report a difference of 30-50 points on their SAT with these two different methodlogies. The Princeton Review sounds good, but I just wanted to point out these statistical errors they use in their data.</p>
<p>Sure didn't take you long to edit:
[quote]
good luck at NU. I hear it rains a lot in Seattle this tiem of year.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>If that post was intended as a joke, you forgot to include the punch line.</p>
<p>Top 10 North American universities</p>
<p>1 Harvard University 1000
2 University of California, Berkeley 880.2
3 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 788.9
4 California Institute of Technology 738.9
5 Stanford University 688
6 Yale University 582.8
7 Princeton University 557.5
8 Chicago University 444
9 University of Texas at Austin 421.5
10 Columbia University 384</p>
<p>Look at the numbers for your glorious THES rankings. Anybody who believes that Columbia is 40% the quality of Harvard please raise your hand. And what's this Chicago University, I'm not familiar with it?</p>
<p>The most outrageous part is that Berkeley is being ranked number 2. Did they forget a zero somewhere? Berkeley being ranked #20 sounds more believable. Also, what's this business about ranking UT Austin above Columbia? Garbage.</p>
<p>Westsidee or Kalidescope,</p>
<p>How are things at Berkeley? Everything I seem to be hearing sounds like Berkeley has fallen on hard times. Can it have gotten that bad?</p>
<p>I know Emory is a very good school especially in pre-med and I'm very surprised that anyone could be so into these ranking-thingys and not at least know that. </p>
<p>I know that Berkeley is a very large school; a friend of mine at Stanford always refers to Berkeley/Cal as a very good safety school. Another friend of ours ended up at Berkeley after being rejected from Stanford, UCLA and UCSD, but she says it's not that bad really, and she has made a few friends their.</p>
<p>At least they seem to think highly of Berkeley on Londons West End, although that is some cold consolation.</p>
<p>Wow, this is a really heated discussion on the simple introduction on a different ranking system!! I don't think ANYONE was claiming this should replace US News, which shouldn't be used as an absolute bible anyway, they're just pointing out the wide difference between US and European views on universities. </p>
<p>For all you US News zealots, please throw that next issue in the trash if you must take it so literally!! Honestly, no university in the course of a year will move up or down five places (Caltech, UPenn, Columbia), it's simply not possible! No college is going to go that downhill in the eight short months between US News surveys, geez! Quoting exact ranks and numbers a nd ratings is useless, because guess what? Next year who knows who might have jumped a million places to wreck havoc and chaos with your us news-induced egotism!</p>
<p>And how much do you think the Prez of Harvard reallllly knows about all 1000+ schools he ranks? Uh huh, that's what I thought. If Phds are really ranking these schools t hen they will know the best schools in their department because they have to work with such people ALL THE TIME. Besides, people rank things they know nothing about all the time. You think the editor of US News has a ph.d in college rankings or something?</p>
<p>And as much as you can bash that London Times rating on this board, that's not going to change that other 3/4ths of the globe that's reading it and believing it. So unless you're going to sue Britain for demoting your beloved school, get used to the fact that not everyone in the world thinks as wonderfully of your school as you, and your US News teddy bear, do.</p>
<p>^ uc_benz, University of Chicago is a very highly rated school. Sure, they make you study your ass off there, but it is a very good academic school. </p>
<p>Fountain Siren - Sure. Whatever u say. The London Times takes into account universities and faculty reputation from all over the world. Not just Britain. </p>
<p>Like I said, I think you guys are getting too emotional in your arguments, and not looking at the real facts. Ranking methodology, statistical errors, and political purposes of rankings. I wanted to foster a genuine discussion. The fact is that research wise, Europe and Britain are fast catching up to the US. More students are choosing to attending European schools now more than ever. If all you can think about are your undergraduate rankings while you are at school right now, then all I can say is that its time for you guys to mature a little bit and think of our country for once.</p>
<p>"More students are choosing to attending European schools now more than ever."</p>
<p>Westsidee, do you have the statistics on that, or do you just have a "feeling."</p>
<p>red_dragone,
It seems that if you want to get your propers in London, Bulgaria, Albania or Cyprus you're gonna need to do UMass or Stony Brook, not Emory, Duke or Brown. It might be a little harder to land the job or grad school you wanted in the USA, but just think how proud you'll feel on that Bulgarian cruise wearing your UMass/Stony Brook sweatshirt.
Who knew?!</p>
<p>^ Fountain siren. Everything I have said I can back up with evidence. I don't go around spreading misinformation to gain an edge. The times I have been wrong, I admit it. I say a lot of controversial stuff, but none of it is false. </p>
<p>
[quote]
A report by the New York City-based Institute of International Education found a 2.4 percent decrease in the number of international students enrolled in the nation's universities. There were 586,323 students here in the 2002-03 academic year, compared to 572,509 students in 2003-04.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>
[quote]
March 28, 2004 (AXcess News/SHFW) Washington - Each year, thousands of foreign graduate students come to the United States in pursuit of the American dream. Often, they are inspired by democracy and motivated by capitalism.</p>
<p>For many, in 2004, the dream is fading.</p>
<p>More than 90 percent of American colleges and universities report declines in the number of applications they received from foreign scholars for next fall's classes, according to a report published this month by the Council of Graduate Schools. Colleges reported admitting 32 percent fewer foreign grad students than for the current academic year.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>
[quote]
''This is one of America's most effective forms of diplomacy,'' said Douglas Kincaid, vice provost for international studies at Florida International University in Miami, where foreign enrollment is down 10 percent. ''We're educating people who will be in influential positions in science and industry and government around the world.''
[/quote]
</p>