<p>Yes, it is a year behind. I have a premium subscription and all the data is dated 2006-2007 statistics.</p>
<p>This is my shot:</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Princeton (or tied for first)</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Caltech</li>
<li>MIT/Duke</li>
<li>Penn</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>UChic</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>Wash U at STL</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>Northwestern</li>
<li>Johns hopkins</li>
</ol>
<p>I'm not expecting to see any changes because they are not going to milk me out of my money for that trash.</p>
<p>I see princeton falling. It's yield probably went way down after taking away ED. It won't fall far though, but probably behind yale, which probably saw a greater increase in number of applicants (remaining early program of HYP).</p>
<p>Based upon what I saw from last years stuff.</p>
<p>(1) Harvard
(2) Princeton
(3) Yale
(4) Stanford
(5) Penn (actually could see being 4th)
(5) Cal-Tech
(7) MIT
(8) Columbia
(9) Duke
(10) UChicago</p>
<p>Two years from now/this admissions cycle
(1) Harvard
(2) Yale
(3) Princeton
(3) Stanford
(5) MIT
(6) Cal-Tech
(7) Penn
(7) Columbia
(9) UChicago
(10) Dartmouth</p>
<p>I don't know much about the data for all the categories, but I could see Duke falling out of or tying for 10th place.</p>
<p>I think top three will change from PHY to HYP. Just a hunch.</p>
<p>what school do you think will take the biggest jump/biggest fall?</p>
<ol>
<li> Harvard</li>
<li> Princeton</li>
<li> Yale</li>
<li> Stanford</li>
<li> Cal Tech</li>
<li> MIT</li>
<li> Penn</li>
<li> Duke</li>
<li> Columbia</li>
<li> U Chicago</li>
</ol>
<p>Chicago will go up because their acceptance rate dropped some 7% this year and their enrolled students would thus be theoretically be more qualified. I don't know of any other top schools that had such a drastic change.</p>
<p>i agree u chicago has a good chance of going up a couple of notches from 9 to 7, maybe but a big maybe to 6. i said chicago had been underrated in the past for quite a few reasons, despite the fact that it had been one of the few elite schools that still maintain their liberal arts education in almost every sense of the word. noble prize winners, good solid academic standing, small classes, gothic architectural bldgs, excellent profs n students. </p>
<p>all the ingridients were there but in the past, they seemed happy (both the school and the students) just to recruit or seek prospective students who shared the same philosophy, deep analytical thinking, didn't care much about sports, learn-hard play-hard, enjoyed talking about big issues and things of that nature. weather's another factor, gutsy wind and stuff. maybe neighbourhood around u chicago was not all that nice and safe but it's been much improved. different forms of app, sometimes kind of crazy essay topics, out of the world. so only u chicago-minded students applied to u chicago, self-selected type. applicant pool was small, acceptance rate had been high until recently. most top students would rather go to ivies, for prestige and repute, or to stanford, for prestige, repute, the weather and laid back atmostphere and to many other elites.</p>
<p>above all, u chicago was traditionally never highly praised by uswr rankings, perhaps due to methodologies/creteria (like high applicant pool, low acceptance rate, high yields and alumni giving). but somehow they now want to go into high profile, using common apps, doing more high profile publicities and reach out. i think they got the momentum going now and uc should be top 5 in coming years.</p>
<p>chicago is top-notch no doubt, but their students aren't quite the cream of the crop, at least for now. one could also argue this reason for why berkeley and michigan, two great public institutions, are ranked below johns hopkins, northwestern, emory, vanderbilt, etc.</p>
<p>US news is not a good indicator of the "quality" of education, but rather the selectivity and yield. even then, it doesn't account for the self-selective applicant pool (chicago, MIT, caltech, CMU, etc.). I mean seriously, how can penn be more selective than MIT (as indicated by the current US news ranking).</p>
<p>i don't understand why WashU is ranked so high though. can someone fill me up on this?</p>
<p>I think that many posting here don't understand the USNWR methodology. Yield is NOT a factor in the rankings and acceptance rate is a very, very minor factor (1.5% of total score). A change in a school's acceptance rate, up or down, is unlikely to have a material effect on their ranking.</p>
<p>In the case of U Chicago, they get hurt by their 6-year graduation rate of 90%. This factor is worth 16% of their total score and is a large reason why the school only ranks 20th in USNWR's retention/graduation measurements. If you expect U Chicago to move up, then I would look more closely at year-over-year changes in their grad rate.</p>
<p>Here is the whole methodology for USNWR:</p>
<p>25% Peer Assessment (measures the schools reputation according to other academics)</p>
<p>20% Retention (two factors comprise this ranking)
6-year gradutation rate (80%)
Freshman retention rate (20%)</p>
<p>20% Faculty Resources (six factors comprise this score)
% of classes with fewer than 20 students (30%)
% of classes with more than 50 students (10%)
Faculty Salary (35%)
% of profs with highest degree in their fields (15%)
Student-faculty ratio (5%)
% of faculty that are full-time (5%)</p>
<p>15% Student Selectivity (three factors comprise this score)
SAT/ACT Test Scores of Enrolled Students (50%)
% of enrolled students who graduated HS in top 10% and top 25% (40%)
Total Admittance rate (10%)</p>
<p>10% Financial Resources (measures average spending per student at the school)</p>
<p>5% Graduation Rate Performance (measures diff in 6-yr graduation rate and the predicted rate)</p>
<p>5% Alumni Giving Rate</p>
<p>I dont think the US news report will be affected by acceptance rates. Columbia for example had a very low acceptance rate last year and their ranking did not go up as it should.
Many ivies this year played with the numbers and accepted a small number of applicants and waitlisted a large number. They did this to protect the yield. They could not predict who was going to come or go elsewhere. This way, they go to the waitlist and ask someone if they will come if accepted off the waitlist, and if the applicant declines, they dont have to list it as a student who was accepted who said no.
Many think that Penn will drop because their acceptance rate was lower than Brown, Dartmouth, and most of the ivies. I do not believe that will be the case. Many schools played with their numbers and decided to still take a small number and have a much larger waitlist. Playing with the numbers does not result in a higher ranking on US news report.</p>
<p>It's all a game the colleges play. There are so many exceptional, talented students going to non-Ivy/Stanford/etc. Those colleges receiving these top students are forced to better their programs/education to keep them and attract more. I hope that more and more parents/students will eventually realize this- it's all a game the colleges play. High schools need to recognize that top colleges per US News/Newsweek tend to accept a higher percentage of students from certain high schools. It's who knows whom and all about connections. It's a game and do you want to play their game or yours?</p>
<p>US News is highly unreliable because of their conditions. For example, at my college (Bard), there is a low graduation and retention rate. That is not because of the school itself neccessarily. I know alot of kids who dropped out because, although bright, they decided they wanted to live life a bit longer before entering college. Many, many kids leave here for reason independant of the school.</p>
<p>
[quote]
US News is highly unreliable because of their conditions. For example, at my college (Bard), there is a low graduation and retention rate. That is not because of the school itself neccessarily. I know alot of kids who dropped out because, although bright, they decided they wanted to live life a bit longer before entering college.
[/quote]
Okay, but notice how that doesn't happen at other schools as often.</p>
<p>That's what makes a good school - when that nonsense doesn't happen.</p>
<p>It's not nonsense, it's the self-selection of applicants due to the flavor of the school. Notice the difference in the social groups dominating a school like Bard and a school like Georgetown. Bard students are much different than typical students, and there are straight A students here who graduate in 6 years simply because they want to take a year off and travel Europe. This has nothing to do with the quality of the school. It has to do with the type of student that attends the school.</p>
<p>hawkette: now i totally agree with you. thks for verifying. top notch schools like caltech, u chicago get hurt badly by 6-yr retention rate, which comprises a significant 20%, which comprises a significant 20%. but as u chicago had moved from #15 (06) to #9 (07 & 08), with better retention (from #22 to #20), acceptance rate n alumni giving (from 29% to 33% and likely more so this year and future as they're campaigning hard), when all these elements are factored in plus momentum going for them (meaning larger applicant pools and better peer assessment), their rankings should be better by a couple of notches. you'd be surprised by how peers could be influenced by all this. i think it's gonna be interesting to see the uswr rankings coming out in august.</p>
<p>A major (and legitimate) complaint that I hear and share about the USNWR rankings is that the rankings communicate a precision that is not intentional nor possible. For example, in the 2007 edition U Chicago tied for 9th with Dartmouth and Columbia as all had total scores of 89. For U Chicago, their Freshmen Retention rate (a 4% factor in the rankings) was 96% vs 97% at Dartmouth and 98% at Columbia. This tiny factor was the difference in their being ranked alone at # 9 or not. IMO, pretty ridiculous and as good an argument as I can find for not taking the rankings too literally. Differences of 5-15 places can be meaningful depending on the underlying data, but small differences often convey superior/inferior positions when equivalence is a more appropriate conclusion.</p>
<p>As much as people on CC hate any non Ivy/SM, schools that have been ranked in the top 10 for the past 10/20 years will not drop out or change rank that much.</p>
<p>Acceptance rate doesn't do much, yield does nothing. The some school will move the usual 2-3 rank range, then move back up/down in a year or two.</p>
<p>I can really see Chicago moving up in the future, perhaps WashU due to their genuine desire to climb up the rankings.</p>