Top 5 in US News

College Search & Selection
1

<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Stanford, Penn (tie)</li>
</ol>

<p><a href="http://www.kwch.com/sns-bc-us--collegerankings,0,653034.story%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.kwch.com/sns-bc-us--collegerankings,0,653034.story&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>That's all the piece revealed.</p>

<p>At long last, Columbia can take Penn's crown for "why the $%&# is that school ranked ahead of Stanford?" ;)</p>

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<p>^^ The link does not work on my computer?! …</p>

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<p>At least there’s still "“why the $%&# is that school TIED with Stanford?” :p</p>

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<p>A local news channel from Kansas?
Link broken, can’t find on their site</p>

5

<p>That Penn would be ranked ahead of MIT is laughable. Obvious ■■■■■ is obvious.</p>

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<p>I think they took down the link…</p>

<p>but it was entitled “Harvard regains spot atop US News College Rankings”</p>

<p>… not entirely sure if this was legit.</p>

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<p>They must have accidentally violated the embargo on the press release, and then realized their mistake.</p>

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<p>

SURPRISE! That very thing has happened at least a couple of times in the recent past:</p>

<p>[U.S&lt;/a&gt;. News Rankings Through the Years](<a href=“http://web.archive.org/web/20070908142457/http://chronicle.com/stats/usnews/]U.S”>http://web.archive.org/web/20070908142457/http://chronicle.com/stats/usnews/)</p>

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<p>It seems that they have taken the page down. I still had the page up in my browser … the following was cut and pasted from their page: </p>

<p>Headline:
“Harvard regains spot atop U.S. News college rankings, focus on grad rates spurs movement”
ERIC GORSKI
AP Education Writer</p>

<p>Text of the report:
"Harvard tops Ivy League rival Princeton in the latest edition of the influential U.S. News & World Report university rankings, while a stronger emphasis on graduation rates drives other changes in the Top 10.</p>

<p>Harvard has topped the list two of the last three years, and tied with Princeton a year ago.</p>

<p>Yale was the No. 3-ranked university this year, followed by Columbia, and Stanford and Penn tied at No. 5.</p>

<p>Williams College in Massachusetts was ranked the nation’s top liberal arts school, repeating its feat of last year.</p>

<p>The most closely watched of a growing number of college rankings, the U.S. News & World Report offering is both credited for helping students and families make college choices and criticized by those who say it’s too arbitrary."</p>

10

<p>Wow, I guess that’s that. As predicted, the hard universities (MIT and Caltech) got pushed out of the top 5. The other reputedly difficult university, the University of Chicago, will probably get pushed out of the top 10.</p>

<p>I’m actually happy with this ranking. This means that MIT and Caltech can be ranked no higher than 7. No one in their right minds would take that seriously. US News’ reputation will be seriously hurt by this.</p>

11

<p>Just posted in another thread:</p>

<p>

</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/913331-us-news-rankings-2011-a-73.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/913331-us-news-rankings-2011-a-73.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Why do slight shifts in the top 10 cause so much angst?</p>

<p>It was surprising to see Harvard ranked 4th in past years, though - I don’t follow such reports closely and for some time ascribed to the general notion that it has always topped the charts. That was very interesting.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>…for it to be true. :)</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>Not exactly.</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>-.-</p>

<p>I think it’s safe to say that there are no liars on this thread.</p>

15

<p>Looks like there’ll be some celebrating up in Morningside Heights. :)</p>

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<p>MIT lost 3 spots. Caltech lost 3 spots. Chicago lost 4 spots.</p>

<p>We can safely say that US News is a beauty contest that cares nothing for university difficulty anymore.</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>How would one account for difficulty?</p>

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<p>I think its good that MIT, Caltech and Chicago went down, simply because they are not well rounded universities</p>

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<p>and along the same line, Cornell has all their specialty schools so that hurt us as well.</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>It’s not about emphasizing difficulty. It’s nearly impossible to discover difficulty through objective statistics. It’s that US News has altered its methodology to emphasize EASE via graduation rate.</p>