<p>The rankings are complete bunk. The percentages are completely arbitrary. But I still want to see who comes out on top, for curiosity only.</p>
<p>As Phead128 states, education is an expensive commodity. Some see the rankings as important because they want to feel they have that benz or beamer. Theres more to it, as Sarah Wald notes in a Boston Globe article:</p>
<p>
[quote]
. . . students and their families want a guarantee. They want to feel like all that preparation in high school and all that tuition money will reap them a tangible reward. . . .</p>
<p>But these ratings can't provide that assurance. Not everyone who goes to a top school gets the job of his or her dreams -- or even any job. More important, a satisfying and productive education comes from the right fit, not from a number rank. . . .</p>
<p>We don't make the most important decisions in our lives -- whom we marry, where we live, what job we take -- based on an arbitrary rank from a newsmagazine. Let's hope we'll stop doing it for colleges.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Dismissing</a> school rankings - The Boston Globe</p>
<p>Baelors got it right:
[quote]
The rankings are complete bunk. The percentages are completely arbitrary.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>What you guys say. Rankings are important to a lot of ppl. Lets hope we'll stop doing rankings for college is an insane proposal. This is not dental school where we all choose not to do rankings. Rankings are perpetuated because they are confirmation by the universities themselves that they are the pinnacle of excellence. Why else did Dr. Drew Faust, President of Harvard flaunt that out of the top 25 schools in the world, 17 are American (by Times ranking) during the Harvard commencement speech? (I was there)</p>
<p>if the President of Harvard is doing it...then you obviously know the importance it holds in society.</p>
<p>I mean, he president said this in front of some 3,000 ppl, Harvard grads and alumnis a like. How the heck can one refer to Times rankings anyways in any speech, especially given the stature of harvard... damn.</p>
<p>I never said it wasn't important for people. I'm saying that the rankings tell one NOTHING about the quality of different institutions. There are so many random factors that are all weighted so arbitrarily that you can't even decipher how the ranks are assigned, let alone what they signify. Why is Peer Assessment 50%, for example, instead of 40%? Why are college presidents and faculty being trusted to know about the quality or even reputation of OTHER schools? </p>
<p>Again, I can poop out results that are just as reliable as USNWR (although it would be painful). All they show is that our society is ranking-obsessed. HYPS is at the type, with MIT and Caltech! What a shocker! Because, I wouldn't even think that they were good institutions without the rankings! They don't offer anything new. They are there to sell issues of the magazine.</p>
<p>Every kind of ranking uses arbitrary percentages - it's impossible to have a set of percentages that satisfies everyone. Some people think peer assessment is more important, while others place more emphasis on research quality in their school selection process. So why not this: have USNWR place an interactive ranking application on their website to let people design their own criterion weightages and generate rankings using USNWR's data set? They can adjust the percentage given to each criterion according to their preferences and come up with their own rankings.</p>
<p>Screwitlah, great idea! A college book I have read suggests taking the data and doing whatever you want with it (they did acceptance rate and SAT only as a simple example). You can weight it however you want as well. </p>
<p>The best ranking is the one FOR YOU. Clearly, some schools are better than others. But what does ranking measure? How rich it is? How many PhDs these universities produce? It's important for some, but not for others. I agree with there are "tiers" of schools in terms of academics, sports, etc. But those don't, and shouldn't, matter for everyone. If I want a school with large class sizes, for example, then the current USNWR rankings wouldn't give me what I wanted. That's the problem.</p>
<p>^wow upenn must be pretty low on your list</p>
<p>S
H
P
M
-- What's up with Yale?? Besides a big endowment and great humanities... What else does it offer for Undergrad? I'd take those four over it anyday.</p>
<p>Princeton as #1, I really have no problem with. I disagree, but I must admit -- for UG rankings and UG alone, Princeton isn't that controversial of a choice. For overall uni rankings, it's just outside my top five.</p>
<p>^^ Yale has a much greater undergraduate focus than Harvard and arguably Stanford. Although you may not feel that it is that desirable, yale has one of the top 3 yield rates in the country (and it does not practice yield protection).</p>
<p>Also, big endowment = ridiculous amounts of funding and opportunities for research, international work/service, etc.</p>
<p>In addition to humanities, Yale is phenomenal [read the best of HYPSM] in the Fine Arts and is [arguably] stronger in some basic sciences (i.e. biology and chemistry) than Princeton. Yale is investing $1 billion into the sciences and has bought an entire new campus just for research. "Yale’s new West Campus, a former pharmaceutical research and manufacturing facility, covers 136 acres and has 1.6 million square feet of floor space."</p>
<p>I'm so sick of defending Yale against HPSM when there is absolutely no reason to.</p>
<p>I agree. Yale does have a much greater undergraduate focus than Harvard. It's got great advising, mentoring, accessible professors who teach -- a great academic experience.</p>
<p>Michigan
UCLA
Florida
Texas
UNC
UVA
University of Washington
Illinois
Wisconsin
Minnesota
Penn State
Ohio State
Indiana
Georgia Tech
Georgia
Penn State
VaTech
Purdue
Michigan State
Clemson
Maryland
Texas A&M
Oregon
Temple :)
Auburn</p>
<p>Does it count that HPY all had to dip into their wait list this year, while Stanford was over-enrolled?</p>
<p>Not necessarily. HYP may have accepted a smaller proportion of their class, and Stanford may have accepted a larger proportion.</p>
<p>LOL, Florida is not gonna jump 25 spots.</p>
<p>If U.S. News is just (actually, I don't mean to be so haughty, but here goes):</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Caltech</li>
<li>UChicago</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>UPenn</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>Cal-Berkeley</li>
<li>Duke</li>
</ol>
<p>Also I'd expect AWS, with Bowdoin moving up quite a bit.</p>
<p>Yes it will.</p>
<p>1.Harvard
2.Stanford
3.Yale
4.Princeton
5.MIT
6.U of Chicago
7.Columbia
8.Caltech
9.UPenn
10.Brown
11.Dartmouth
12.Duke
13.Johns Hopkins
14.Cornell
15.NorthWestern</p>
<p>butchokoy...I'm confused...in your 'rankings', why is there a 2A and 2B, but no <slight gap=""> between them? If there is no <slight gap="">, shouldn't they all just be Group 2? And you must really be able to discern very, very slight differences between schools if you have 20 schools listed, then a <slight gap="">, and then a Group 3 of only 3 schools....</slight></slight></slight></p>
<p>Sorry, I just don't buy someone being able to split up schools like this, based on their opinion.</p>
<p>Opinions are like a**holes...everyone has one and they all stink.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Group 1 - Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Princeton, MIT</p>
<p><slight gap=""></slight></p>
<p>Group 2A - Caltech, Berkeley, Columbia, UPenn, Cornell, Duke
Group 2B - Rice, Brown, Northwestern, Chicago, Dartmouth, JHU, UMich, UVa, Georgetown</p>
<p><slight gap=""></slight></p>
<p>Group 3 - Emory, Vandi, CMU</p>
<p><gap> </gap></p>
<p>Group 4 - UCLA, USC, NYU, UIUC, Texas-Austin, UCSD, Tuft, Tulane, Rutgers and the like </p>
<p><gap></gap></p>
<p>others
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Stanford was ranked #1 throughout the 80s by USNWR. Then, all of a sudden, in 1989 it dropped to #6. </p>
<p>Realizing the absurdity of this sudden drop in rankings (and I'm sure having to discuss it ad nauseum at fundrasing evnets, their president joined a movement in the early 90's (by which time they were back to #2) that criticized these types of college ranking as... I'm paraphrasing now... idiotic.</p>
<p>All one has to do is change the weighting put on certain measures in the data to result in completely different rankings.</p>
<p>these rankings, beyond broad strokes, are more about the weighting of criteria than the univresities themselves. It also has the unfortunate side-effect of causing the marketing divisions of schools to solicit more and more applications so that the admit rate goes down each year.</p>
<p>It's really a disgusting charade if you think about it.</p>
<p>There are only two rankings which are really relevant to most aspiring college students: 1) how do adcoms of the graduate schools rank them, and 2) how do hiring companies rank them.</p>
<p>All the other criteria like school size, size of classroom, breath (or not) of class offereings, personal fit, culture, style, atmosphere and the like are better evaluated by each individual student and cannot possibly be numerized.</p>
<p>For example, how is it relevant in the ranking of UCB, UCLA, UVA, UMich that the alumni donations are low? Of course they're low.. .most alumni consider the taxes paid by their parents, and by them, to be "donations". Only about 25-35% of alumni feel a need to donate beyond the contributions their taxes make. USNWR does not give these alumni 100% alumni donation score, but shouldn't they? There are several other completely irrelevant criteria that comprise the final score in USNWR.</p>
<p>
[quote]
It also has the unfortunate side-effect of causing the marketing divisions of schools to solicit more and more applications so that the admit rate goes down each year.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Although I agree with you for the most part, many schools that do very well in the rankings aren't trying to play them. Yale and Princeton are both increasing their undergraduate bodies by a significant amount, because they feel they are rejecting too many qualified applicants. There is a chance (although not a certainty) that the admit rate for these two schools will increase slightly. </p>
<p>Also, admit rate caries a very small weight in the rankings.</p>