Hi all,
What are your predictions for the US News Rankings, 2019?
My top 20 are:
I won’t argue or speculate against your list (except to note as you lay it out Duke would be #9). I think you just miscounted or are UNC alum?
I would highlight that your ranking (and USNWR) of Brown at #14 contrasts the actual selectivity results from this year that puts Brown at 7th. Brown accepted 7.2% of 35,438 that applied ahead of Duke, Penn, Chicago, Dartmouth and Cornell.
I believe that college applications and acceptances are analogous to efficient consumer markets. Students are consumers who allocate finite resources such as time, application fees and effort to those opportunities they most value. The data suggests Brown ranks well within the top 10 under this data driven criteria.
Given the disparity between Brown’s USNWR ranking and the real life actions of students I am heartened to think the rankings have less value in the top 20, then kids voting with their applications and pursuing “fit”. In the case of Brown (and my recent personal experience with my son) the draw of an open curriculum and reputation for happy students beats out higher US News rankings.
Rankings are fun & interesting but should be used for entertainment purposes only.
You might want to start again, @guitar321. It appears you meant:
My prediction is that they’ll be roughly the same as they always are, because it’s a self perpetuating paradigm.
You are all doing it wrong ! If you want to garner support for your rankings, start with #2.
I have no idea how you came up with that list. All of those schools have a weak left side to their offensive line. They will never be able to protect their quarterback.
I predict that the rankings will remain silly. I predict that the rankings will continue to examine everything except what actually happens in the classroom.
If you rank colleges & universities by size of endowment, you might end up with a list similar to US News. (And the University of Texas System & Texas A&M System combine the endowments of several universities into one so UT & A&M won’t fall in line.)
Kiplinger - Best College Majors for Your Career
Form follows Function?
In this case, Major follows Ranking…
“If you rank colleges & universities by size of endowment, you might end up with a list similar to US News.”
The size of endowment per student is more relevant. The 2018 top 10 endowment per student ranking:
The rest:
https://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/college-rankings/details/EndowmentPerStudent
@Hapworth, never have truer words been typed! I routinely smack my head when posters revere something so deeply that has so little relevance to what they will actually experience. #mindblown
@merc81 US News does it the way I did it. Ties between two schools demote them by one place.
(Side note - this is only intended for fun! I’m loving the commentary about the nature of US News rankings) 
So if two schools are tied in third place, they should both be “demoted” to fourth place, right?
Yet oddly enough, it sure seems like the current US News rankings for national universities start out like this:
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities
@guitar321: U.S. News ranks tied schools as if they all fall at the highest available slot. Subsequent schools then receive a ranking as if there had been no previous ties.
I’m gonna put Vandy number 13.
The rankings may seem silly to us, but a lot of high school students and their parents take them very seriously, and colleges have learned the benefits of gaming the rankings - even going so far as manipulating their reported admissions data, as CMC and Emory were caught doing. A laissez-faire attitude toward rankings does not help a highly selective college remain competitive with its peers, IMO.
I believe Bucknell and Colby could fairly be added to this list. The interesting point here, though only implied above, seems to be that the benefits of actual cheating, in contrast to gaming, can endure longer than the unfavorable publicity incurred from cheating.
Div 1, best ROI