<p>"Ranking colleges is normal. Its easy. Just use empirical data and weight it."</p>
<p>I guess you are much smarter than me. Like I said thethoughtprocess, in all my years of analyzing universities, if there is something I have learned it is that there is no empirical data that can yield an accurate ranking. The only way a ranking can truly exist is by taking tiny and meaningless differences and blowing them way out of proportion to create tiny gaps between universities of equal calibre. I agree that not every school is equal, but there is no such thing as a definite top 10 university. There are top 15-20 universities, but if you think #7 is better than #14, you are aren't considering all the variables.</p>
<p>Tell you what. Why don't you visit the admissions office at Duke Law and ask them if they consider Duke undergrad better than say Cornell or Cal undergrad. I am sure you can talk to an advisor about it. I doubt they will tell you Duke is better than Cornell or Cal. Even if you point to all the empirical data, they will still tell you that they do not distinguish between the Ivy League, the top private elites like NU, Chicago, MIT, Stanford, Duke etc... and the top publics like Cal, Michigan and UVa. I know they told me that they consider them all equally good. Maybe they lied to me, but they would not lie to a Duke undergraduate student.</p>
<p>alexandre,
Re your comments above re school size, I disagree strongly and think that school size is a very important issue and has real significance, both positive and negative, for students as they do their college searches. </p>
<p>For example, I think that a student considering Williams College with 2000 students would have a vastly different experience than he/she might at UCLA with 25,000+. This has consequences in many areas, eg, class size, access to resources, breadth of academic offerings, social and athletic life, alumni networking, etc. One can make positive arguments for either side and it is up to the aspiring college student to determine the right environment for him/herself. </p>
<p>But given the great disparities in size (and sometimes in mission as public universities have the responsibilities to respond to the residents of a particular state), making finer divisions in university comparisons does make some sense and allows more apples-to-apples comparisons. Personally, I hope that this does not happen as I suspect that the segregation of public universities would send a signal that some might wrongly interpret as an admission that the publics cannot compete with the privates. Nonetheless, the idea makes some sense and would answer your frustration with colleges offering a wide range of undergraduate colleges being compared with others which might have much more limited undergraduate options. </p>
<p>As for your comments that the differences in the objective comparison are "tiny and meaningless" I again must disagree. Different people may make different judgments about the value of these various data points, but that does not mean that they are meaningless. These are single data points that can be evaluated along with multiple other items which cumulatively will provide a generally effective window into the quality of the undergraduate experience that a student will have. The distinctions between a school ranked 11th and one ranked 12th may be infinitesimal and preclude absolute judgments, but can you reach a similar conclusion for a broader gap, eg, 14th vs 24th or 24th vs 34th?</p>
<p>Just for the record - I was right about Biola. It moved into the 3rd tier.</p>
<p>Hawkette, where did I say that the size of the university does not matter? I agree that some people have specific preferences. Most people do not, mind you, but some people have special needs and others have strong personal preferences and that's perfectly fine.</p>
<p>Again, I agree that there could be a small but not so significant difference between #4 and #14 or between #14 and #24. But there isn't a difference between #7 and #17. I am sure you have noticed by now that I do not believe in rankings, only in groupings. For example, group I has 5 universities, group II has 12-13 universities, group III has 10-11 universities etc... . </p>
<p>There is no real distinction between universities in the same group and only a small difference between the universities in one group and those in the group immediately above or below. Of course, depending on personal preference, geographic bias or academic/professional interests, schools in the same group will have varrying levels of recognition and in many cases, a school in one group will enjoy more recognition that universities in a group above.</p>
<p>harvard should be first, then mit</p>
<p>blah blah blah.....</p>
<p>
[quote]
ranking universities is ridiculous. There is no way one can accuately rank universities because there aren't clear cut criteria that determine the quality of a university. Even if there were a set number of criteria that determined quality of education, there would still be major issues.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>...and yet if CC banned "rank the universities" related threads, 8 out of 10 threads would consist of "how are my chances" threads (which, lets face it, are way less interesting and invariably involve a 17 year old genius who is worried that the one A- will dent his chances at Harvard, but he's got a good excuse since he's taking 10 APs in one semester, Quarterbacked his team to the State Championships, comes from the projects, is the first person in his family ever to go to college and just wrote a speech for Barak Obama) with an occasional "which campuses are the nicest" thread and, of course, the good old standby "Ivies are overrated" thread.</p>
<p>I think that Mr. Keating had the right attitude in Dead Poets' Society. He simply instructed the boys to rip out the page of the textbook that contained the "Rating of a poem on the greatness scale." Perhaps we could all learn something from him and just enjoy college life for the fantastic four years that it is. We will all begin competing with each other again in about four years time anyway. Besides, Andy from the office "Went to Cornell," and I wouldn't call him a particularly gifted individual. :)</p>
<p>tier-organizing is much 'better.' Then ppl won't say, what? omg!!! i never knew penn was better than MIT?!?!?!</p>