<p>I think the rankings rate one thing only: prestige. This may be important to some applicants though, so I wouldn’t say that the rankings have no purpose. They were helpful for me when I was convincing my parents that the school I chose was not “not prestigious enough” for me (they thought I could’ve reached higher than I did just because the school I chose was not as well-known as others ranked below it).</p>
<p>I just ran up against this yesterday. I had a student who wants to enter my profession, ask my opinion on several schools where she was accepted. The one school that is considered “head and shoulders” above the rest on her list (for my field) was her last pick - because it was ranked lower on the stupid US News report.</p>
<p>I completely agree with you.</p>
<p>I have been accepted by Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, Berkeley, USC, UCLA, Duke, Chicago, Rice, Southern Methodist and University of the Pacific (my safety school).</p>
<p>Right now, I’m leaning towards Berkeley, with Stanford the next ‘favorite’, and then USC.</p>
<p>Other kids I’m at school with, and some of my friends, think I’m crazy because I’m not going to take up Harvard’s offer. When I applied, I was of course interested in attending, but since applying I’ve had time to consider everything that matters to me about college. Top of my list is the school feeling like a “fit” for me, and after careful consideration, I realized Harvard isn’t right for me. The same applies to some of the other schools I was accepted by.</p>
<p>I’m not going to attend a college just because a bunch of people I don’t even know, have ranked it as #1. Maybe so, but it isn’t my #1, and to me that’s what matters.</p>
<p>@anniezz - your post highlights perfectly the downside of the US News rankings. Students are missing out on attending the best schools for their desired field, because the best school for that field, isn’t as high on the US News list. Such a shame.</p>
<p>My daughter was rejected by schools ranked much lower than the ones who admit it or waitlist it her. Example: rejected from Boston College, but admitted to Tufts and waitlisted at Georgetown! We are still trying to understand the logic…</p>
<p>Frenchmother Tufts is a wonderful school and she shouldn’t be discourage by how some random people decided to rank schools they have never attended.</p>
<p>The rankings will continue to dominate the college application culture as long as the competitive culture in this country continues. How many of us send our kids on the playing field, the marching band field, the debate stage, the spelling bee, etc and say…hey…don’t worry about this…being last is as good as first!! No, we send them out, telling them to do their best, yet for those of us that are honest, we hope they excel at what they are giving their time too. We hate to see hard work yield a “last” place. </p>
<p>We see it here day in and day out…“I am upset about my kid’s results”, “rejections”, “how can I get into school A but not B”, “why did school C wait list me?” Are the ranking legitimate? Probably not, but they are publicized, sold and splashed on all the admission websites across the country. The colleges make them matter. “Come to college #1!!” Which is basically saying, “Why settle for #2”. Just my 2 cents.</p>
<p>There are lots of ratings. Don’t like one? Find another!</p>
<p>This site has Harvard ranked as #5… in the state:</p>
<p>[College</a> Rankings - Top Ranked Universities in Massachusetts - Highest Overall School Score - StateUniversity.com](<a href=“USA University College Directory - U.S. University Directory - State Universities and College Rankings”>Top Ranked Universities in Massachusetts - Highest Overall School Score)</p>
<p>Ouch! Number 22 in the country!! </p>
<p>[College</a> Rankings - Top 2000 Ranked Colleges - Highest Overall School Score - Page 2 - StateUniversity.com](<a href=“Top 2000 Ranked Colleges - Highest Overall School Score - Page 2”>Top 2000 Ranked Colleges - Highest Overall School Score - Page 2)</p>
<p>Double ouch!!</p>
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<p>What’s not to understand? If admissions were done on an objective basis (such as SAT scores over x), then of course the kid who gets into Tufts and Gtown would also have gotten into Boston College. But since they aren’t, then of course you’ll have kids who get into “better” colleges and rejected at “worse” ones (using that turn of phrase only for lack of a better one, as certainly BC is a perfectly fine school). What’s not to understand? It seems pretty simple, actually.</p>
<p>If this thread is any indicator Harvard better start worrying about it’s yield.</p>
<p>That’s “its” yield.</p>
<p>I don’t think using more rankings to debunk Harvard’s status as top in the USNWR is helpful, and if students know how the rankings are calculated it can be helpful to them. For me, rankings were fairly important because the type of school I want and need are those that fill the top of the USNWR rankings. (ie schools with top academics, strong students, good financial aid, high graduation rates etc.) Not to say that I can’t find a lower ranked school that has those things and would be a good fit for me, it’s just that the higher ranked schools are more likely to have all of those.</p>
<p>Bovertine: the analogy to participation is soccer is not about who wins and loses on the scoreboard, but how one looks at the value of participating in athletics. The biggest prize is not the trophy, it is the friendships, the health benefits, the skills for working as a member of a united team. The most important things to gain from going to college do not include the name of a school with a high U.S. News Ranking.</p>
<p>While there are a number of negative issues with the product produced by Bob Morse, the alternatives have --so far-- been nothing short of abysmal. It is also worth remembering that the USnews has been instrumental in bringing us information that might have remained kept on a need-to-know basis if left to the schools. </p>
<p>And, last but not least, for all the criticisms about rankings (and complaints about poor performance by a few favorite schools) can we REALLY state that the rankings are … inaccurate? Are HYPS really not deserving their top dog status? </p>
<p>In the end, there is a lot more to the USNews than the mere ranking. It is YOUR decision to focus on that part or to … ignore it.</p>
<p>Glido- My apologies. Sincerely. I thought you were being facetious about the intrinsic value and not keeping score…</p>
<p>Xiggi-
Is Stanford even one of the US News top four these days? I thought it got knocekd off by Columbia or some such place.</p>
<p>Pinkcoconut, if you don’t mind me asking, what were your grades, SAT scores, Extra-curriculars, HS courses, etc. that you thing made theses schools admit you? And BTW, congratutlations!</p>
<p>Before you rely on a ranking look at their methodology.Forbes only ranks 3 Ivies in the top 20 of its’ top100.USNWR is only one list and they are all suspect.</p>
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<p>I feel sad for your friends (that they are so ignorant) and have not yet developed their critical thinking skills. IMO, the only thing that BU and BC have in common is adjacent zip codes. And wrt to UCSD, there are many things not to like at that campus; thus, I could totally understand the disappointment of being rejected by LA.</p>
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<p>Stanford is the #1 Junior University. :D</p>
<p>The USNews is all over the place in terms of what it is they <em>say</em> they supposed to be measuring. The first couple of times they were published, the annual college rankings consisted solely of what later came to be known as the Peer Assessment poll, a ranking based on which institutions college presidents and deans chose as the best colleges in the country. </p>
<p>When those were criticized for being mere “beauty contests” (basically the same criticism of the PA scores have been around for nearly 25 years, now), Mel Elfin (Bob Morse’s predecessor) came up with a lot of the bells and whistles we see now except that, for all their precision, they are, pretty much, all proxies for the same thing: how much money a college spends per student. </p>
<p>Sure, spending coincides with quality to some extent, but, in reality, it’s a little bit like ranking a car by how costly it is to manufacture and the unintended result over the past twenty years seems to have been a lot of wasteful spending, especially at the LAC level.</p>
<p>You know, I found the USNWR rankings helpful for the info they provided, and to get a general sense of “bands of quality.” It’s not USNWR’s fault that there are people out there who are stupid enough to think that #9 and #16 are meaningfully different in terms of quality or that quality falls apart once you go below #25 or whatever.</p>