<p>Nay. They're very misleading, especially for those that don't bother to delve into their methodology (like Asian parents, heh).</p>
<p>
[quote]
I think US News, with its emphasis on selectivity and strength of student body, exposed Berkeley and Michigan for what they were: universitites with strong graduate schools but academically inferior undergraduate programs. The students in the graduate programs are top, but the undergraduate students are very below par. Since a school is no better than its students, Berkeley and Michigan cannot break the top 10 with their inferior student bodies.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yeah, Berkeley undergrads are just mental midgets, even though they go on to get PhDs like crazy. God, what to do with such an inferior body of students...SIGH</p>
<p>And Michigan? JFK fondly called Harvard the "Michigan of the East." Yeah, crappy school.</p>
<p>Please leave the trolling to the people with Dragon Ball names, ubermensch, you're boring.</p>
<p>Berkeley students are measurably inferior to students at the very top schools. US News recognized this, and ranked Berkeley accordingly. It wouldn't make sense to rank Berkeley alongside HYPS any more than it would make sense to rank CSU Chico alongside Berkeley. US News puts Berkeley in its rightful place.</p>
<p>I won't even qualify that with a thoughtful response. Pure idiocy.</p>
<p>ubermensch never knows what he is talking about.</p>
<p>"I think that the USNWR Rankings can be useful. It lets you know how well a school is according to ITS SPECIFIC RANKING METHODOLOGY. When I look at the rankings on USNWR, I look at them, and I take them with a grain of salt, like I do other rankings. My only problem with USNWR is that it has become like a bible for many of those applying to colleges. Many won't apply to school A because its ranked number 20, but will apply to school B because its number 10. Or, when choosing colleges that they have been accepted to, some will choose one school over another because it's ranked higher. I personally look at a variety of different college ranking guides, including USNWR, THES, the Fiske Guide to Colleges, etc., and gather knowledge from each and every one of them. For instance, a school may be ranked highly on USNWR, but may not be reviewed as highly on another ranking guide such as THES, Fiske Guide to Colleges, etc. Basically, I think that it's good to look at the USNWR rankings, but no one should use it as a sole method of saying whether a school is good or not."</p>
<p>That is the perfect post to answer this question and I could not have said it better myself.</p>
<p>Their rankings are pretty messed up.</p>
<p>It would be nice if there were other widely accepted rankings to consult as well. But for starters, it's pretty accurate. A little heavy on the non-educational facets of a school's operation.</p>
<p>Ubermensch should be commended. He has somehow become an expert at ranking universities without ever having attended one. Quite a feat.</p>
<p>Not overrated.
Let's face it; higher ranked colleges are more well known, meaning more success after graduation</p>
<p>yea yea, job placement depends on the individual and colleges are different for every person, but ranking is importanat.</p>
<p>I don't like that alumni donation part either...well its just some of the things are weird</p>
<p>There's another aspect of the rankings that makes them useful. Rankings are useful because they can expose the weaknesses of a particular school and shame the administrators of the school to do something about those weaknesses. </p>
<p>I remember the year when Berkeley completely dropped out of the top 25. There was a lot of hand-wringing and protests and gnashing of teeth by the Berkeley administration at the 'injustice' of not qualifying for the top 25, and how rankings don't really matter anyway (however, if rankings really don't matter, then why complain so much when you get dropped out of the top 25?). However, at the same time that all that was happening, there were moves by the administration to fix some of the problems that caused Berkeley to drop out of the rankings. It's too bad that it required a ratings drop to spur the Berkeley administration into doing something, but hey, at the end of the day, at least they got spurred into doing something. It's better than doing nothing. And I am fairly sure that if the USNews ranking didn't exist, then that is exactly what the administration would have done - nothing. </p>
<p>Many Berkeley administrators have made an entire career out of doing nothing to improve the school. If it takes a big stick like USNews to compel them to do something, then so be it. USNews isn't perfect by any means, but without it, lots of administrators at Berkeley really would go back to doing nothing.</p>
<p>I'm going to say yay so everybody below me for the next few posts will suddenly take up my opinion</p>
<p>nay, it helped me guide me to which schools were safties, matches, and reaches in terms of stats.</p>
<p>nay. a lot of people seem to be saying yes and then that it's a good guideline to start with, but shouldn't be used to decide what school you go to. i don't think that's really an issue. it is a good guideline for people who are just starting to look at schools, or who want to compare the schools they're already thinking about applying at. as far as i know, not many people look at the rankings last when choosing between schools.</p>
<p>you have to also remember that the average student doesn't even know what the USNews is. I didn't hear about it until right before i started sending out apps. Most people learn which schools are the best through heresay, not the USNews, although I will admit that they have made an impact.</p>
<p>however screwed up they might be , usnews rankings are the only well known semi-official ranking out there so you just got to live with it</p>
<p>actually alot of students here have heard about the US news rankings, and my school isn't even that good (average SAT's in high 900's)</p>
<p>like when I mentioned Duke or Columbia they would say "thats like the 7th best college in the country" or "thats like a top 10 Ivy league, isn't it"</p>
<p>Similar with Cornell - everyone seemed to associate it with the gorge lol</p>
<p>no one really heard of Dartmouth or Williams though, probably since they are farther away</p>
<p>I vote yay! It has some valuable, but it mostly a smart marketing strategy by a magazine that's barely staying afloat. What else is USN&WR known for? Nothing.</p>
<p>"I don't like that alumni donation part either..."</p>
<p>originally, this was supposed to measure how happy alumni are with their college!!!! how misleading!</p>
<p>"It has some valuable, but it mostly a smart marketing strategy by a magazine that's barely staying afloat. What else is USN&WR known for? Nothing."</p>
<p>the rankings issue is EQUIVALENT TO 6 MONTHS WORTH OF PROFIT.</p>
<p>if you hate the game, but you can't change it, then its better to play along.</p>