@circuitrider, for comparison, here are the “adademic reputation” rankings (from 2018):
https://publicuniversityhonors.com/2018/09/25/academic-reputation-rankings-for-155-national-universities-and-what-that-means-for-honors/
Then don’t you start doing things like using graduate programs as a proxy for undergraduate programs? Being a professor who’s good at research doesn’t mean you’re good at teaching. It always seemed to me like what was needed was a way to judge overall teaching quality of a program, which unfortunately, is almost impossible to do. Thus, all these different ranking systems, none of which is close to ideal.
Totally agree, there’s way way too much fluff included with these rankings. Alumni donations? Peer assessment? Financial resources? I might use these as tiebreakers, but these factors really don’t mean much as it pertains to the education itself.
Well, USNWR definitely ranks liberal arts colleges very differently from Forbes.
The simplest way to resolve this pressing issue of “who is number 1?” is to have every school that wants to play set aside 3 spots for sale by auction every year. The ranking is then determined by the aggregate sales price. Harvard is not allowed to buy its own spots.
You failed to come up with any logical refutation. Education is what should drive the rankings, and if Berkeley is at the very top in virtually every important major, how did 21 schools do better? If UCLA and Michigan were in the top 10 or 15, which arguably they could be, would you say the same thing? And BTW, Stanford and Harvard have 700-800 person classes also, don’t let the private school part fool you.
My kid’s school dropped very slightly, but his school dropping 1 spot should only cost him a couple of interview slots, right? That’s the way I understand the process, i.e. hiring managers across the country are adjusting how many students they will hire this morning from each school based on the latest rankings?
I actually am a bit disappointed, usually it seems like there is more angst about someone’s favorite school dropping 3 slots. I’ve seen a bit, but not much. US News needs to do a harder tweak next year, so I can be entertained by everyone who is lamenting that their kid who used to go to a top 15 university now only goes to a top 20 university, so is basically unemployable.
@sushirito Yes, I noticed Alabama is going in the opposite direction of Florida State which was ranked closer to 100 just a few years ago. Alabama gets a lot of love on these boards due to the amount of money they have offered to top-notch students, For whatever reason, it is not helping with its rankings on any publication.
No matter what we think of these rankings or any other publication for that matter, they are very helpful with the data they are able to attain.
On the other hand, how many people can even afford these schools unless of course, they happen to their own State schools? Affordability usually dictates where these kids will go to school. Unfortunately, a school reputation can be made or broken with these rankings to the point that it dictates its future. It will be interesting to see what happens to Alabama and FSU in the next few years when it comes to applications, selectability, retentions, etc The one good thing about Alabama is that it continues to rank really high when it comes to Football and that is their big marketing machine.
“ The one good thing about Alabama is that it continues to rank really high when it comes to Football and that is their big marketing machine.”
Imagine what will happen to ‘Bama’s ranking next year if they don’t make it to the NC game!
Look, I’m not a rankings maven or anything, but Alabama has tweaked their scholarships at the high end downward recently. While they’re now offering scholarships at the 3.0-3.4 GPA level, IIRC, the academic high-end scholarships have receded. I would think that would denote that they’re getting too many high stat kids and they’re tweaking the scholarship money downwards now.
Maybe there’s diversity or other problems, which kills their ranking, but I keep reading on the Alabama threads/posts about how wonderful the school is; however, #77 (2013) to #153 (2020) has got to be the single largest drop, or one of the largest, drops in the past 8 years. And their football program maintains at a high level.
I have a disclaimer, I have no skin in the game when it comes to Alabama but According to their data:
“Enrollment at The University of Alabama reached 38,392 for fall 2018. Approximately 40 percent of UA’s freshman class scored 30 or higher on the ACT, and more than 36 percent were in the top 10 percent of their high school graduating class. The entering class in 2018 carries an average high school grade-point average of 3.71, with more than 34 percent having a high school GPA of 4.0 or higher. The class’s average ACT is 27”
You would think that it would be closer to the high 90’s low 100’s
But like someone pointed out, these rankings can make or break a school reputation when it comes to their target market which is students and parents.
Financials and fit should be the priority vs chasing the “it” factor. I do not believe anyone should go into debt for an undergrad degree.
Graduate departments do not constitute a component of this ranking, nor, in any case, would they necessarily comport with parallel undergraduate programs in terms of quality.
When CS classes at Berkeley have over 1000 students and are taught in a theater I don’t care if its dept is ranked number one, the student experience must be terrible. And if you don’t have Regents its not unusual to graduate in seven years because you cannot get the classes from those “number one ranked” departments.
I would like to see the actual stats on this bold statement. I know a lot of kids going to Berkeley and none of them are taking 7 years to graduate because they can’t get the classes they need.
It’s only a sample of one, but a relative of mine just recently graduated Cal and it took 4 years. I believe an Econ major, but I’m not 100% sure about that one.
@jzducol That can’t be true. Berkeley has a good 4-6 year grad rate and a very high freshman satisfaction rate. Freshman must not mind even though you seem to mind.
For Berkeley, 75.5% graduate in 4, 89.3% graduate in 5, and 90.7% graduate in 6. Also note there is a 96.9% retention rate after Freshman year.
One of the other schools that kinda sticks out to me is Georgetown. #20 in 2018, #22 in 2019 and #24 in 2020.
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/ranking-criteria-and-weights
Many of these criteria favor the richest private schools (not necessarily all private schools, many of which are struggling financially and cutting costs which reduce their desirability). For example:
22% graduation rates – note that many state flagships are not that selective, particularly for in-state students, and selectivity is a strong correlate to graduation rates
20% peer assessment survey – a direct measure of prestige, at least among whoever the peers doing the assessment are
20% faculty resources – since public universities often have to make do with shrinking state budgets, they tend to be much more economy class than the richest private schools
10% student selectivity
10% financial resources per student – again favors the richest private schools
5% alumni giving – favors those with wealthier alumni, which the richest private schools have because they tend to admit scions of wealth who get recruited by consulting companies, etc.
[ul][]20% Peer assessment
[]17.6% Average of the percentages of the entering classes (2009-2012) graduating within 6 years
[]10% Financial resources (per-student spending on instructional/research expenses)
[]8% Class sizes
[]8% Graduation rate performance (actual compared to predicted based on student body composition and stats)
[]7.75% SAT/ACT scores
[]7% Faculty salaries
[]5% Percentage of alumni who donated in 2016/17 and 2017/18
[]5% Social mobility based on percentage of Pell Grant recipients and their graduation rates
[]4.4% Average percentage of first-year students (2014-2017) returning for their sophomore years
[]3% Percentage of faculty with terminal degrees
[]2.25% Percentage of entering class ranked in the top 10% of their HS
[]1% Percentage of full-time faculty
[]1% Student-faculty ratio[/ul]
I’d personally weight the percentage of full-time faculty much more heavily. More importantly, USNWR should consider the **percentage of classes taught ** by non-TT faculty. People tend to greatly underestimate how many courses are taught by non-tenured/non-TT faculty even at highly selective colleges. From the Chicago Maroon:
https://www.chicagomaroon.com/article/2018/2/13/support-faculty-forward/