When I was in high school, the general view students had about the UCs was:
1st tier: UCB & UCLA
2nd tier: UCSD & UCD (in that order)
3rd tier: UCSB & UCI (in that order)
4th tier: UCSC & UCR (in that order)
5th tier: UCM
However, this was when USNWR ranked UCD and UCSD higher than UCSB and UCI.
@ThankYouforHelp Also Cornell University and Boston University among others offering guaranteed sophomore transfer to freshman applicants. This hurts the retention and graduation rates of the school where the student attends freshman year.
@Scipio I’m with these rankings except UCSC is definitely a notch above UCR, even though their acceptance rates are about the same. Greater out of state and international applicants probably indicates a better national and global reputation.
@prezbucky actually I saw a video on one of the sites reporting the new rankings where they interviewed the president of USNWR rankings and he said that the reason Princeton slightly edged out other schools was they have the highest rate of alumni giving. I actually think this is a quite valid metric because it measures both satisfaction with the college experience and the financial success of its graduates. I might try to find the link I think it might have been ABC
@emory323 I think your UC ranking is still the most accurate in terms of perception. Over the past 20-30 years the UC’s have become much more distinct with respect to their areas of excellence. For example agriculture science programs were clustered at UCD and UCR, allowing expansion of other programs on other campuses. Each campus has several departments which are regarded much more highly than the school as a whole. This is perhaps irrelevant to the undergraduate experience unless students participate in research projects. All of the lower tier campuses benefitted when UCLA and UCB became ultra-selective over the past 10 years, favoring high paying out of state students over CA residents.
I checked the student makeup at the Ivy League schools, plus Stanford and UChicago, simply to figure out each school’s percentage of population that is undergraduate.
Turns out Brown is about 70% undergrad, Dartmouth is about 68%, Princeton is about two-thirds, and Cornell is about 65%. All the rest were at or below about 50%. So relative to those elites, Princeton has more undergrads (relative to total student pop) than all but two, and it has the highest percentage – by some margin – among the HYPSMCC group
At times it seems proposed tiers correspond to only perception, as they appear to ignore external sources to a large degree. When LACs are sorted by two important characteristics, their order bears only a rough resemblance to that suggested:
By Standardized Scoring
(“The 50 Smartest Colleges,” Business Insider.)
By “Best Undergraduate Teaching Programs” (US News)
Colleges Appearing on Both Lists
Harvey Mudd
Pomona
Williams
Swarthmore
Amherst
Carleton
Haverford
Grinnell
Hamilton
Wellesley
By Standardized Scoring (correction)
Sure, but, like Harvey Mudd and other specialty schools, it suffers in the rankings because of what it doesn’t do.
@marvin100 “Sure, but, like Harvey Mudd and other specialty schools, it suffers in the rankings because of what it doesn’t do.”
Why do you think that issue does that not extend to the lacs? They don’t seem to be penalized for lacking engineering, business, access to graduate level classes, sub-matriculation ability, many have more limited offerings.
I am not saying they should or shouldn’t penalized, but questioning why it is a one-way street.
Maybe that’s why LACs are in their own list rather than in direct comparison to Nat’l Univs, @Much2learn .
Of course, it’s not only those three. At UM-College Park nearly 1/4 of a recent class were spring admission. I think Cornell defers 125 students or so. Berkeley supposedly deferred 2400 incoming students the year before last. USC is about 700, I saw someplace. Others that seem to do it: Brandies. Elon. Northeastern. UNC. BC. MSU. WUSTL. UMiami. Northeastern. And, I’m sure many others.
And you have all sorts of different admission anomalies at different schools. Articulation agreements with CC’s for spots at the UCs or other State U systems via reserved CC transfer slots for instance. GE students at some schools being able to move into the main student body at some schools. Spring transfers.
Realistically though, if anyone is parsing these USNews result to the point where those kind of small anomalies are affecting their application or offer acceptance decisions. (My school slipped 6 spots?! That’s it, I’m transferring) they are probably putting a little too much faith in Mr. Morse and friends and not enough in their own decision making powers.
Sure, if “deferring to spring” 2400 students is “gaming.” Or if being able to not count the test scores of the “articulated” slots a UM or UCLA has to give to CC transfers is “gaming.” But if anyone thinks this “game” is fair to start with, they are deluding themselves.
When rankings become consumers end game and not a data point, the cart is pulling the horse.
There are far worse forms of “gaming” going on–see [CMC[/url] and [url=<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?]Emory](Claremont McKenna College inflated freshman SAT scores, probe finds)'s recent test score inflation scandals…
@prezbucky Kind of agree but I do think Chicago and Columbia belong in tier 2 along with Penn and maybe Duke and the rest of your tier 2 is a tier 3. Chicago and Columbia do not have the same prestige, perception, rep as HYPSM and applicant choice, general perception shows they belong more in tier 2 than with the HYPSM schools. Also in my opinion a distinction is starting to show within the HYPSM schools between Harvard, Stanford and the rest
So in my opinion:
Tier 1a -Harvard, Stanford
Tier1b - Yale, Princeton, MIT
Tier 2 - Columbia, Penn, Chicago, (Duke)
Tier 3- (Duke), Hopkins, Dartmouth, Brown, Cornell, Northwestern
@phoenix1616 Also that’s nuts @Much2learn, picking Duke or Penn over Chicago in anything except very specialized areas (business most notably) is pretty much unheard of now. Princeton and Yale are also firmly ahead of Stanford.
You must be kidding! You realize that for undergrad slightly more cross admits choose Penn over Chicago? (Even with Chicago s merit scholarships). Penn has a better medical, engineering, business school and quite a few other departments too. The schools are very different but pretty much on par. Saying choosing Penn over Chicago is unheard of is completely out of touch and nonsensical and completely unsupported by facts.
And so is the fact that Yale and Princeton are above Stanford. Nowadays Harvard, Stanford are the two top dogs of higher education, Yale/Princeton come second. Also globally Harvard, Stanford are widely recognized as the very best US universities.
A couple thoughts about Stanford. In addition to everything else that has been said (academic strength across the board, reputation, CA weather)-
It is the only “meets 100% need without loans” in the West. The Claremont colleges meet need, but they are LACs, and at least in 4/5 schools, loans are included. Reed and Occidental are on the “meets 100% need” list, but their average indebtedness is a good deal higher, so they probably include loans. Stanford stands out like a sore thumb in the western half of the US.
If I’m a high stats middle income (truly middle income) kid, I am applying to Stanford most likely. Crapshot maybe, but big time payoff if I get in. No wonder the admissions rate is so low.
As to its test scores being lower-it’s also big on athletic recruits and legacy (not that athletes or legacy always have lower stats, but it’s probably an ok assumption).
In Korea and China, this isn’t exactly accurate. Here, people place HYPS & MIT at the top, with H substantially above the others. In fact, in 15 years working in this industry in Seoul I’ve seen many, many students choose H over the others, or one of YPSM over the other YPSM schools (I’ve seen students choose Oxbridge over YPSM and vice versa as well), but I’ve literally never seen an admitted student opt not to attend Harvard.
Unlike Princeton, Harvard and Yale, Stanford is not need blind for Internationals.
I’m talking about very privileged kids whose parents have already spent over 100k on education, @texaspg .