<p>....soo who wants to guess a few of the up and coming schools?</p>
<p>
[quote]
....soo who wants to guess a few of the up and coming schools?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It depends on how they change/add rating factors. Without changes, the rankings wouldn't change significantly, which would reduce sales. Sales drive the rankings of all of the US News rankings from universities to hospitals. If the rankings didn't change, why would people buy the magazine?</p>
<p>what schools in the top 20 do you guys think will have the biggest moves upward and downward? I definitely see Emory having a big rise in its ranking this year while Wash U will fall several spots. Thoughts?</p>
<p>Here are my predictions:</p>
<ol>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Cal Tech</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Chicago</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Penn</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>Northwestern</li>
<li>Georgetown</li>
<li>Johns Hopkins</li>
<li>Washington U.</li>
<li>Rice</li>
<li>Vanderbilt</li>
<li>Notre Dame</li>
<li>Emory</li>
<li>Carnegie Mellon</li>
<li>Virginia</li>
<li>Berkeley</li>
<li><p>USC</p></li>
<li><p>Michigan</p></li>
<li><p>UCLA</p></li>
<li><p>Tufts</p></li>
<li><p>North Carolina</p></li>
<li><p>Wake Forest</p></li>
</ol>
<p>^Wow your list is filled with jumps.</p>
<p>I'll say! You have Duke dropping five spots from #8 to #13 (has Duke ever been out of the top ten?), Wash U from #12 to #17, Emory from #17 to #21, and Berkeley from #21 to # 24. Any particular reason for these rather bold predictions? Were you rejected by these schools?</p>
<p>I think it's quite silly that both Cal Tech and MIT are being consistently ranked higher than Columbia, Chicago, Penn, (Insert any decent liberal arts university here). Cal Tech and MIT are very specialized places, only focusing on the sciences, so it makes little sense to juxtapose them with other schools that offer broad, liberal-arts curricula. It just seems to me that a top-ranked university should encompass as many areas of study as possible, and Cal Tech and MIT exemplify a much more specialized and parochial approach towards education, so it just fails to add upno pun intended. Dont get me wrong: both of them are top-notch schools, but only in engineering and math and technical subjects. For instance, if one cannot study history, political science, literature, or philosophy at all within a certain university, should it then be considered with the same standards to be ranked among all the other schools that offer such educational paths? I am a firm believer in the concept that the students best educated and prepared to follow successful and rewarding lives are those that embrace a broad spectrum of subjects within a liberal arts setting, yet such an education is missing at places like Cal Tech. Perhaps technical and engineering schools should be ranked in their own category that would better display awareness for the fundamentally different nature of academics that can be found at those places. Such a method would provide more clarity to the rankings, because I refuse to accept that a Cal Tech graduate, who may very well have gone through the school without reading literature or learning how to write well, is on par withno, is placed abovea prehensile, liberal-arts graduate (lets say from Columbia or Chicago), who can read, write, and has had the opportunity to study a medley of subjects, thereby satiating his or her intellectual curiosity more completely. I would like to see Cal Tech and MIT immediately taken off the list, since I don't think they deserve to be where they are, and that's the he and the she of it.</p>
<p>Possible ranking given such conditions:</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Princeton (Harvard+Princeton tied, so it would come down to whether one prefers Boston or the armpit of America)</li>
<li>Yale </li>
<li>Columbia (I would even dare to rank Columbia higher than Yale, since New Haven is no New York)</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>UPenn</li>
<li>Chicago (where fun comes to die)</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>Cornell (I love how the other Ivy League schools always **** on Cornell)</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>Washington University (underrated--this school truly is the Harvard of the Midwest)</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>Northwestern</li>
<li>Johns Hopkins</li>
<li>Georgetown (underrated in 2008 rankings, much better than Notre Dame)</li>
<li>Emory (this schools is getting better and better+raising endowment well)</li>
<li>Rice</li>
<li>Berkeley (if it only wasn't so hard to get into from out of state!)</li>
<li>Vanderbilt</li>
<li>UVA</li>
<li>Notre Dame</li>
<li>UCLA (all aboard the soul train!)</li>
<li>Michigan--Ann Arbor</li>
<li>Tufts</li>
<li>USC</li>
<li>NYU</li>
<li>UNC</li>
<li>Brandeis</li>
<li>BC</li>
<li>Miles College (best marching band in the country!)</li>
</ol>
<p>WOW students at Caltech and MIT can't read and write well.</p>
<p>Lowesttax:</p>
<p>You obviously have no clue about what you are talking about. </p>
<p>MIT students, whatever their major, are required to take at least a quarter of their courses in non-science related subjects including litterature, languages or the arts. Most take susbtantially more. They also have multiple writing requirements.</p>
<p>MIT is also far from just an engineering or science school. It has the top economics department in the country and among the best philosophy, linguistics and political science departments. </p>
<p>Before making comments without any basis, get informed. Your post just reeks of pretentiousness. BTW, welcome to CC!</p>
<p>cellardweller--
Thank you for your coy response to my comments! If you would have read my post, you would have seen that I didnt go into details regarding what people at MIT do, but, believe me, Im well aware of their writing requirements as well as the distribution requirements elsewhere. In fact, music is the most popular minor at MIT, which has got to count for something, right? Maybe Im a bit foul because my freshman writing teacher last year was from MIT and all she did was get stoned and wouldnt grade my papers or do her job, but thats another story. You are correct in saying that MIT has a good economics department, and its linguistics department ought to be just fine with Noam in there. Yet, economics is essentially watered down math, and linguistics has many elements closely related to semiotics, symbolism, and logic, so, naturally, MIT students will be very adept when it comes to such subjects. I DO like some of the things MIT is doing at its media lab: very out of the box and progressive thinking and integration of technology. But you seemed to have looked over the main point I was trying to make: MIT, despite its iota of non-scientific requirements, still predominantly focuses on scientific and technical fields like the economics and linguistics you pointed out. People dont go to MIT to study the humanities, and thats why I raised my argument; I dont think it lacks a basis. Why do you think the most popular minor at MIT is music? Because many people who are good at math happen to be good musicians as well. And you seemed to have focused on MIT, but I focused more on Cal Tech in my post.</p>
<p>First off, it's not as though we don't have humanities requirements. 12 courses - 4 humanities, 4 social sciences, and 4 advanced courses - are required, which comes out to one per term. They all have writing requirements too, which makes the statement "gone through the school without reading literature or learning how to write well" completely ridiculous. Sure, nobody goes to Caltech to study humanities, but nobody goes to Harvard to study engineering either. Secondly, our average verbal SATs are right up there with those of the Ivies - in fact, higher than most of them. Implying that we can't read or write is downright insulting. We can certainly "satiate our intellectual curiosity" with the excellent humanities courses we've got.</p>
<p>P.S. One word, little t. Thanks!</p>
<p>Actually 23% of MIT students major outside of science and engineering. </p>
<p>There is a big difference between claiming that the focus of a school maybe more science oriented and somehow inferring that it provides a less well rounded education. I take complete exception to the statement that MIT only provides an iota of non-scientific requirements. I can't speak for CalTech but I don't believe they suffer from an an impoverished humanities curriculum either.</p>
<p>A biology major at MIT for instance would face very similar humanities requirements to a biology major at Harvard. Both schools have equivalent graduation requirements of 32 courses. At Harvard, the core is 25% of the total or 8 classes. About 50% are taken in the field of concentration (major) and 25% are electives. As a science major the core classes will need to be taken outside of math and science. </p>
<p>At MIT, there is a minimum requirement of 8 humanities classes distributed in several groups including literature, the arts, social studies and foreign languages and history. There is simply no option for students to opt out of any of the humanities requirements or get any credits as they may in math or science for instance. Most students end up taking well over the minimum requirements of humanities classes as they are generally in high demand. They are all in small groups in seminar format and taught by world renowned faculty, Pulitzer prize winners and National Academy Members. </p>
<p>While not as broad or as deep as many of the Harvard humanities departments, the MIT humanities offerings are certainly outstanding and top notch in areas well beyond just economics and linguistics. Again the political science and philosophy are among the very best in the country. The fine arts offerings in combination with the School of Architecture are outstanding. The anthropology, history and literature departments also have very high quality offerings.</p>
<p>I am afraid that you are the one subscribing to a parochial view of a well-rounded education. MIT believes that today's complex society requires an education system providing not just a strong foundation in the humanities but also in the sciences. The rate of scientific illiteracy in the US compared to most other developed countries is simply astounding and stretches to the highest levels of government. The basic lack of knowledge by decision makers on issues such as global warming, alternative energies, stem-cell research or evolution has created a environment where every scientific fact is negotiable. Our education system is rapidly becoming the laughingstock of the world. The only remaining area where every country, rich or poor, is still sending its best and brightest to be educated in the US is in science and technology. In the meantime, American students shy away from these disciplines because they are just too hard!</p>
<p>I did not apply to several of the schools I listed, with a few exceptions (Stanford alumnus here). But I think my rankings are reasonable and reflect several recent trends: e.g., Berkeley having a precipitous drop in SAT scores over the past decade, Penn being vastly overrated (reflective of the obvious infatuation among US News staff), some schools being underrated (Chicago and Columbia vis-a-vis Duke), and other trends at the rear (e.g., USC on the rise, Michigan and UCLA on a downward trend). Other schools are truly stagnant and likely won't move up or down much (most of the Ivies).</p>
<p>I agree that Cal Tech and MIT have no place among the national university rankings, but are more akin to the military academies.</p>
<p>hahahaha the idea of Caltech or MIT being anything like a military academy is pretty amusing to me.</p>
<p><-- Caltech</p>
<p>By DEFINITION, Caltech and MIT are both universities. University doesn't mean "has a broad focus". It means "an institution of higher learning providing facilities for teaching and research and authorized to grant academic degrees". Essentially, we give out PhDs. </p>
<p>The US News list you refer to is a ranking called "National Universities". </p>
<p>Not that I really care whether Caltech or MIT is on the rankings to begin with. There is a good reason for them to be there, though--many of the other top universities offer competing programs to ours. If we were on an entirely different list, how would students looking to major in math/science/engineering compare schools on one list to another? No one looks at the rankings and says, Oh, Caltech is ranked higher than Duke. This must mean that I should go to Caltech to major in English.</p>
<p>EDIT: Caltech, not Cal Tech</p>
<p>I think Duke's going to go up.
It's SAT range is 1340-1570!!! (According to Forbes..)
It's going to have a ridiculously high student selectivity ranking.</p>
<p>Watch Notre Dame and Carnegie Mellon go up!
Dartmouth is going to get farther away from the Top Ten and probably tie with Cornell and Brown.
Harvard will take Princeton's spot as #1 this year.</p>
<p>^ Sorry to break it to you, Mondo, but the 2009 US rankings have leaked (some early copies sold on newstands in NYC), and most of your predictions are wrong. Duke stands pat at #8. Actually a little worse than that for Duke because Columbia and Chicago both moved up from a 9th-place tie into a 3-way 8th-place tie with Duke. Carnegie Mellon stayed the same at #22. Notre Dame did move up one slot, from #19 to #18, but so did Vanderbilt; meanwhile Emory dropped from #17 to #18 so those three schools are now tied; hardly major progress on Notre Dame's part. Dartmouth stayed the same at #11. But you were right about Harvard: it moved up to #1, bumping Princeton to the #2 slot.</p>
<p>General comments re: the US News list.</p>
<p>The first time around we took it all in. With S2 starting college search this year, their list will be largely ignored. The rankings and minor changes from year to year can be picked apart and rationalized, but in the long run they mean very little to us. What we DID find helpful was the "extra" info, like student-teacher ratios and endowments.</p>
<p>Any speculation as to why H and P traded spots in a year where both abandoned "Early" programs? Wasn't there some thought that Y might pick up a spot or two this year? Of course, it's splitting hairs but kind of interesting.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Any speculation as to why H and P traded spots . . .
[/quote]
Maybe H did a better job of marketing:</p>
<p>Some colleges market hard to increase the numbers of applications they receive to increase their rank and 'selectivity' ratings. From an article published in Business Week:
[quote]
The first phase begins in the spring, when Harvard mails letters to a staggering 70,000-or-so high school juniors . . . Harvard received a near-record 23,000 applications. . . . The real surprise, however, is how hard Harvard works behind the scenes to achieve these stellar results. . .
[/quote]
</p>
<p>70,000 flattering recruiting letters; if 1 in 3 respond, thats 23,000 applications. With such marketing, more students are motivated to apply, thinking they are somehow being recruited. While flattering at first glance, the letters are part of a marketing plan to increase H's application numbers. More applications means more rejections, which increases the 'selectivity' percentage, increases the ranking, and makes people think H is the 'most' selective college. A tricky business . . .</p>
<p>Online</a> Extra: How Harvard Gets its Best and Brightest</p>
<p>mammall:</p>
<p>I belive that the USNews data is one year old, i.e., they use the published common data sets from last year's class, so the dropping EA/ED should not have been a factor. (CDS for this year's class won't exist for a few months until the matriculants actually show up on campus.)</p>
<p>Of course, if my assumption is incorrect, there are plenty here on cc with the correction. :)</p>