Yeah USNWR pushes it too far, and people will start ignoring it as a measure of desirability.
I thought I’d post this since it confirms my son’s experience when he graduated from Bama and was interviewing.
According to a new national survey of employers commissioned by Strada Education Network and conducted by Gallup, 90 percent of hiring professionals say they don’t focus on college rankings when making hiring decisions.
Based on interviews with 2,108 business professionals who assess and hire new employees at their companies, the majority (56%) said that college rank is “Not at all important” when making hiring decisions about an applicant. An additional 34 percent said that college rank is “Not very important.” Together, that’s a whopping 90 percent of hiring professionals who say they don’t focus on college rankings when considering a job candidate.
So, what are they looking for when hiring?
Employers are looking at skills according to the Strada-Gallup survey. Hiring and managing professionals place priority on a job applicant’s personal and technical skills, their interview presentation, and previous work experience. Beyond considering college rankings, students should consider what colleges do to develop the skills and experiences that employers value. Do they offer strong internship programs, experiential learning, career-relevant coursework, co-op job opportunities and professional mentoring? How do they connect academic content to the world of work?
Not only is “college rank” not important to prospective employers, grad programs, med schools, law schools, etc…in most cases, they don’t know what the rankings are anyway. Sure everyone knows that school like HYPS end up at the top, but once below around 25, it’s a friggin blur of fog.
UA’s overall score of 44 in U.S. News places it in a notably dense area of the distribution curve. This placement will magnify apparent changes in its ranking from year to year.
But higher ranked colleges have much better job placement, more employers recruit at them. so the rank does reflect the job at the end of the day. Look at where U of Alabama students get placed. Compare it to a school like Williams College and you will see that some schools have high placement into some types of jobs, like Management consulting and stock and bond trading, corporate banking management programs in bigger NYC banks etc.
Williams College has approximately 2,000 undergraduates while University of Alabama has around 33,000. I’d be willing to consider the proposition that Williams has a higher percentage of students that are placed into management consulting and corporate banking but I think in overall numbers of student placements UA would probably come first. It would be interesting to see a link if you have one for Williams College.
Niche is a better indicator of overall ranking as it lists all colleges. They are ranked #157 “Best Colleges in America”.
No point debating with those who presume that elite = better outcomes. I know that my ds is in a tippy top grad program; he has friends in incredibly competitive grad programs at tippy top schools (like 1 of14 students selected for a MD/PhD program); he has friends who graduated and went on to great jobs. Give me the #157, full-ride, great college experience every single day. Ds’s college education and experience was fabulous.
Real life outcomes or biased opinions of elite or bust posters?? Real life.
Based on Naviance, everyone from our public high school in Texas has been admitted to UA over the last 10 years. I guess UA like the OOS tuition.
Maybe the scholarship money is too concentrated in a select few (NMSs). Some other universities are diversifying the scholarship money because the vast majority of students with the NMS funds are from OOS.
Everyone from that public school in TX? Really? How big is that school? UA rejects almost half of all applicants so your public high school must be one of those rare schools where every kid is above average.
UA’s scholarships are most generous ( in terms of what the student must still pay after accounting for the scholarship) for in state students.
Admission rates can be misleading I think, since the applicant pool can be quite different from school to school. For example, the admission rate at a top 25 school might be 30%, but keep in mind that the students who choose to apply are typically super high stat students to begin with, so it’s even harder to get into those schools than the 30% number suggests. At public universities, the admission rate might be 50%, but the applicant pool will have lots of low stat students. So I guess what I’m saying is that I can see a situation where, at a really good high school, every student who applies to Alabama would get in. I know that for my son and his friends, everyone who applied to Alabama was admitted, although not all of them received merit scholarships.
Ranking all colleges is the least useful indicator. This type of ranking will combine liberal arts colleges, public research universities, and universities which have a strongly technical, pre-professional focus. For example, which is “better”
College A: Small liberal arts college with strong emphasis on literature, history, social sciences and has a track record of getting its graduates into grad school and non profit/social justice type jobs.
College B: Large public research university which admits students on a holistic basis, accepts transfer students, and offers a large number of majors. Outcomes are all over the map in terms of what kinds of jobs their graduates take after graduation.
College C: Known for training in a specific field. Think Colorado School of Mines, Embry-Riddle, Cal Maritime. Graduates go into the field for which they have trained after graduation.
How can you tell which one of the above is “better” than another? It depends on what kind of education an individual student is seeking. Ranking by number is completely useless. The data that is gathered is useful however, but you have to look “under the hood” and delve deeper into what in particular is relevant to your student. For example UC Riverside jumped 39 places in the US News rankings in 2019. Did it suddenly become a “better” university overnight? The reason for the jump is that US News decided to place a strong emphasis on social mobility and specifically number of Pell grant students an institution graduates. If you are a family with a Pell student it might well make it a better university, if not it will probably make no difference to you.
It is important to look deeper. If a university has a low four year graduation rate is that because it is hard to register for classes, or is it because they have a strong co-op program where students take longer to graduate because they are getting valuable paid work experience?
Look at the methodology used for the rankings and ask yourself what aspects of it are relevant to your situation instead of being impressed by a number.
It’s a top rated and wealthy high school. Only 10% yield but it’s popular and certainly not all get merit funds to offset OOS tuition. Better than Ole Miss, LSU and Arkansas and not as far as Auburn or Florida. Helps fund NMF program. 
Amongst full ride offers, it’s certainly hard to beat UA’s program, especially if you like SEC sports.