US News 2017 rankings

[UCBChemEGrad]

@uclaparent9

it is so funny the way you put Michigan and UVA one tier above UCLA!

I agree.

National Publics

Tier 1: Berkeley

Tier 2: Michigan, UVA, UNC, UCLA, Wisconsin, Georgia
Tech, Texas, Illinois, Washington, UCSD

[Much2learn]

“I am just speculating, but can we look at the rankings by age of the institution? Is it reasonable to expect older and more established colleges will fare better in the ranking system?”

7 of the 8 Ivies were founded in the 1600’s or 1700’s. Cornell is by far the newest and was founded in 1865. Being some of the oldest institutions is a big advantage. Perhaps because of that head start, the Ivies not only make up 8 of the 15 top ranked undergraduate programs, but also make up a big chunk of the top Medical, Business, and Law graduate/professional schools.

It is a big advantage.

[Much2learn]

There are 5 schools that appear in the USN top 10 on four key lists: undergraduate education, medical school, law school, and business school. Those five schools consistently have outstanding programs and four of the are on the east coast.

1. Harvard
2. Yale
3. Stanford
4. Penn
5. Columbia

[PrimeMeridian]

Here’s my analysis of USNWR’s ranking criteria & weights. I’ve rearranged the criteria and regrouped them into themes that lend perspective on the rat race, and I added my thoughts on how colleges can (or cannot) manipulate the criteria.

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19943962/#Comment_19943962

[guitar321]

Can’t tell if you’re biased @UCBChemEGrad! Not like your username says you’re a UCB grad

I’d say it’s:

Tier 1: Berkeley Michigan UCLA
Tier 2: UVA UNC

Jump
3: Wisconsin, Georgia Tech, Illinois, UCSD

[PrimeMeridian]

An article about Northeastern in the Boston Globe:

How to Game the College Rankings
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/article/2014/08/26/how-northeastern-gamed-the-college-rankings/3/

Instead of relying on the Endowment Fairy to magically put money under its pillow, NEU came up with creative ways to increase revenue:

Northeastern has essentially created a blueprint for any school that can stomach following it, but gaming the U.S. News rankings has its costs: According to a study published this year by Research in Higher Education, a mid-30 school like the University of Rochester would have to spend an extra $112 million on faculty salary and student resources alone to rise a total of two spots. To feed the beast, Aoun has tapped several new streams of revenue, including satellite graduate campuses in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Seattle, as well as online education. Nasella calls them “very important” and claims they are “very profitable” for the school.

“There’s no rankings problem that money can’t solve,”

[TomSrOfBoston]

“There’s no rankings problem that money can’t solve,”

If Harvard lost all but $1 billion of its endowment it would begin to fall in the rankings.

Boston Magazine is not the Boston Globe BTW.

[rjkofnovi]

National Publics (with a medical school)

Tier 1:

Tier 2: Michigan, UVA, UNC, UCLA, Wisconsin,
Texas, Illinois, Washington, UCSD

[ThankYouforHelp]

I’m a Californian. I don’t think there is any East Coast bias at all.

The West doesn’t have remotely close to the numbers of elite private schools that exist back East. The private schools that do exist out here generally have less money and are generally less rigorous (there are a few exceptions like Stanford, Caltech and Rice, but they are not numerous). Traditionally, top students in the East went to small private schools in the East, while top students in the West went to their large public universities in the West or traveled back to smaller private schools in the East. They still do that.

So, the great public universities of the West like Berkeley, UCLA, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, UWashington - those tend to get the high rankings that they deserve vis a vis large public universities back east.

But there is no Western private university equivalent to the depth of quality of the Ivy League plus UChicago, MIT, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, etc. And there is no Western LAC equivalent to the depth of quality of the old Eastern LACs like Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, Wellesley, Middlebury, Bowdoin, Haverford, Smith, Vassar, etc. Sure, Pomona, CMC and Reed are excellent, but for each of them, there are a dozen more back East.

I just can’t see an anti-Western bias given the history, alumni, programs and endowments of those well-established Eastern and Midwestern universities. It’s history and proven results speaking there, not bias.

[guitar321]

@rjkofnovi Wisconsin etc aren’t as good as Michigan UVA and UNC

[prezbucky]

That depends on what you deem most important. UW outranks UNC and UVA, for instance, in most majors, so we could say that Wisconsin is at least UVA and UNC’s equal academically. Michigan is a hair better than all three academically, IMO. Berkeley is top dog academically, by a hair over Mich.

Alas, academic strength is not the only variable, allowing (in my eyes) Mich and UVA to join Berkeley on tier 1 at the undergrad level, while UCLA/Wisc/UNC and several other outstanding public schools are Tier 2. Barely.

[PrimeMeridian]

@ThankYouforHelp

But there is no Western private university equivalent to the** depth of quality **of the Ivy League plus UChicago, MIT, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, etc. And there is no Western LAC equivalent to the **depth of quality **of the old Eastern LACs like Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, Wellesley, Middlebury, Bowdoin, Haverford, Smith, Vassar, etc. 
…
I just can’t see an anti-Western bias given the history, alumni, programs and endowments of those well-established Eastern and Midwestern universities.

Define “depth of quality”.

Also, when building an endowment fund, it helps to have a 100 year head start.

[marvin100]

it helps to have a 100 year head start.

This.

[myyalieboy]

Or 350 years. I don’t think there’s a west coast bias but I do think there is a lack of familiarity. Far fewer Easterners come to California than you would think. There are more foreign students by far at Stanford for instance than there are students from New England.

[merc81]

As Stanford’s enrollment goes, 51% appear to be domestic out-of-state.

[sbballer]

Higher Times Ranking just came out for 2016-2017… shows a much different picture of world rankings from USNWR.

1 2 University of Oxford United Kingdom
2 1 California Institute of Technology United States
3 3 Stanford University United States
4 4 University of Cambridge United Kingdom
5 5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology United States
6 6 Harvard University United States
7 7 Princeton University United States
8 8 Imperial College London United Kingdom
9 9 ETH Zurich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich Switzerland
=10 13 University of California, Berkeley United States
=10 10 University of Chicago United States

[ThankYouforHelp]

Higher Times is a British outfit that bases its rankings in part on “international outlook” which really means “percentage of international students enrolled.”

That automatically pushes down American universities which have a domestic pool of 350 million wealthy American citizens to draw from, and primarily add only small percentages of international students for diversity purposes. Meanwhile, it bumps up all the British universities, which accept a large percentage of students from overseas, especially from the former British Commonwealth. It also boosts schools in the European Union in general, because it is very easy for students in the EU to travel and attend schools elsewhere in the EU. There are no visa requirements, etc.

Higher Times likes to pretend that percentage of foreign students enrolled at a school is a proxy for how well regarded the school is internationally, but in reality, that statistic only reflects the ease of admissions for international students, which is a completely different thing. Harvard could be 100 percent international students tomorrow if it wanted to - it doesn’t want to.

As a result, 32 of the top 100 universities on their list are British. Obviously, Oxford and Cambridge belong high on any list, but some of the rest of the decisions seem questionable to me.

[OHMomof2]

@ThankYouforHelp there is no Western LAC equivalent to the depth of quality of the old Eastern LACs like Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, Wellesley, Middlebury, Bowdoin, Haverford, Smith, Vassar, etc.

Not Pomona and the other Claremonts? My kids didn’t look at them but I have always been under the impression that they are equivalent to the eastern top lacs.

[TomSrOfBoston]

@OHMomof2 The Claremonts, Reed and Colorado Colleges are top lacks but they lack the endowment of the east coast schools. And they are it for western LAC’s.

[dfbdfb]

Well, there are a number of other Western LACs, just not as widely known or respected—consider Westmont, Puget Sound, Fort Lewis, Linfield, Lewis & Clark, Westminster (Utah), Willamette, Pacific Lutheran,…