US News College Rankings 2012

<p>@Exengineer: The QS ranking you quoted is not very reliable. The more prestigious THES World Ranking seems to correlate well though with USN&WR’s ** PA ranking ** as far as the [top North American universities](<a href=“THE World University Rankings: Measure by measure: the US is the best of the best | Times Higher Education (THE)”>http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2010-2011/north-america.html&lt;/a&gt;) are concerned.</p>

<p>Anyone have the extended list of the best engineering programs?</p>

<p>I guess it depends on your definition of ‘best’…these topics get endless discussion every year. Do people really apply to colleges based on rankings???</p>

<p>I agree about Stanford, but I would put Chicago number 2 using the same criteria.</p>

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<p>What else do you expect? </p>

<p>Start with a questionaire that have little to no definition or rules, allow responders to answer the question on a totally whimsical (and dishonest) basis , and then pretend the resulting garbage means something about undergraduate education.</p>

<p>Except for providing a bit of organization (and that becomes a stretch) the USNews is quickly losing the modicum of validity it used to have. It has become just as much of a joke at the junk produced by Vedder or the Chinese pseudo-scientists.</p>

<p>Maybe. However, USNWR references the QS rankings when it lists the top world universities. This is perplexing–and demonstrates the absurdity of the USNWR rankings–because the QS rankings are very different.</p>

<p>For instance, UCLA ranks 34 and USC is a virtual no show. In fact USC is a virtual no show on every ranking system except USNWR. Even on USNWR grad school rankings and individual program rankings, USC only places in the top 40 or so in three or four areas. On the other hand, UCLA consistently places in the top 15 in pretty much every single category.</p>

<p>USNWR contradicts their own ranking system! I would love to hear the explanation for this.</p>

<p>This thread is about the USNWR rankings. Extensive discussions about other rankings will be moved to the appropriate forum or deleted. </p>

<p>My post was about the USNWR rankings. Did you not read it?</p>

<p>None of the schools i’m interested in rank at the top.
Except for Stanford.</p>

<p>Trinity: So you’re saying that comparing the USNWR rankings with the QS rankings is not allowed? You do realize that the QS rankings are listed right inside the USNWR rankings report correct? It seems fair game to me to mention them since the USNWR does.</p>

<p>Rankings obsessed people abound here on this website every year at this time, like the swallows returning to Capistrano every year. Its hilarious. And students/kids/some parents obsess about their favorite school’s ranking as if its somehow a judgment on their own personal intelligence or character, which is totally absurd on its face.</p>

<p>These rankings sell magazines and otherwise have no intrinsic value. They are merely a preliminary guide for students and parents in the search process to determine the relative selectivity of the schools they are seeking and perhaps to make an assessment of their likelihood of success in admissions. But judging a school by these rankings is like judging a book by its cover and media hype. Its a fool’s errand.</p>

<p>You aren’t more intelligent or less intelligent if your school rose or fell in the rankings. It has nothing to do with you. I also think the editors of USNWR get a certain joy out of tweeking people by making schools go up or down. </p>

<p>The most important factor is if you qualify and fit in with that university, followed closely thereafter with whether you can pay for it or not. </p>

<p>Everyone likes to be recognized. So congratulate the winners and move along.</p>

<p>Yes. But unfortunately the collective opinion of one’s quality of education is determined by these rankings. And the simple fact is, some schools are better than others based on selectivity, academic contributions, and the strength of their curriculum. </p>

<p>Many students work very hard to be the most deserving among their peers to attend some of these top tier schools; and so it means a lot when your school is given its due and proper. It is also equally infuriating when every year there are universities given top tier status for reasons unknown to any serious member of the academic community. Many private schools ranked in the top 25 fall into this latter category. I mean we’re talking about institutions who’s alumni, faculty, and research facilities leave very little to be excited for other than fat endowments that are apparently wasted.</p>

<p>Due to legacy programs and inflated grades, half of these Ivy League types wouldn’t last a semester or a quarter at Berkeley or UCLA.</p>

<p>It’s about competition. Its about being the best. USC has a great athletic program. Everyone would agree on that. But in terms of their academic student body, their level of research production, and type of citizenry they churn out; USC simply doesn’t measure up.</p>

<p>Now, the question remains: Why does USNWR give precedence to schools like USC, Brown, Colgate, Notre Dame, Emory, etc., over some of the true academic behemoths in the public sector?</p>

<p>This is a question that I have never been given a satisfactory answer to. Can someone please enlighten me?</p>

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<p>Don’t forget about the top-10%-of-graduating-class sub-variable of selectivity. This carries much weight in USN’s rankings. But everyone cheats on this measure including all of the UC’s which claim 97% or greater, which is absolute nonsense. The real figure for UCLA which claims ~ 98% is probably ~ 80%. For many other u’s, the difference between reported and actual would be far greater.</p>

<p>Wrt stats of students from excellent high schools, UCLA matriculants out-perform USC’s, including scores on the SATI and II. But where USC catches up with UCLA and might surpass it wrt scores is in the students UCLA takes (and USC wouldn’t even ever consider) from underperforming high schools with good grades, 3.75 uw is ~ 25th-%-ile, but really pedestrian scores, the scores you noted at the 25th for UCLA, all for the sake of “diversity.” (After all, it is a public u. Diversity wrt UC and the state of CA is based on economics not race, though the latter is taken care of when poorer students are admitted with lower scores from poorer underfunded high schools.) If UCLA admitted with a high weight to SATI’s, then the 25th would probably be ~ 2000-2050 because it rejects numerous students with high scores with equally excellent grades from excellent high schools. </p>

<p>And add that USC superscores and UCLA does not. Add as intimated earlier, that scores most often run commensurate with wealth and it’s easy to see why, along with the above, USC probably has higher scores even after normalizing, either superscoring or unsuperscoring all u’s reported scores.</p>

<p>UCLA undoubtedly admits the most at-risk students of all the u’s within the top 30 or so, correct. But it’s banking on the extensive tutoring and mentoring services the U has in bringing these students up to speed, and sometimes it succeeds with great rewards within the various communities added to the incredible amount of bootstraps stories, but sometimes it fails miserably with a great amount of sunk cost.</p>

<p>I would like to see a unified and unbiased ranking of ALL schools based solely on the quality of **undergrad **programs. I believe that such a ranking does not exist because some or many of the "name’ schools would suffer as a result. </p>

<p>Remember, it’s all about marketing a brand.</p>

<p>USWNR has declined in quality.</p>

<p>And for ranking lovers–FYI, the people who matter, you know, employers, don’t gave a crap about rankings.</p>

<p>BruinsLife- it’s sometimes hard to compare UCLA and UC Berkeley to the other ranked schools, because at both those schools (where admission is non-race based by law) white students are becoming a minority. It is obvious that most top 20 schools on the east coast do have racial quotas and have student populations that reflect that. With all things being equal, why would UCLA and UC Berkeley have such a different ethnic makeup than those other schools? So I think it can be hard to explain the intensity and competitiveness at Cal and UCLA to outsiders, who just don’t get it (or have never experienced it directly)</p>

<p>As for USC, I think when comparing it to UCLA, you can’t forget how rabid Trojans are about their school, and this translates into an incredibly strong alumni support network that can be very helpful in terms of career connections. Because the UC alumni base is so huge , networking gets diluted and alumni groups just don’t have that tight connections that Trojans have.</p>

<p>But bottom line, we know Cal and Berkeley are the coolest, most amazing schools, with the most beautiful campuses, close to great beaches and surfing; you can drive for 2-3 hours in winter and go snowboarding. No need to dwell on these ranking, when you put all of the pieces together. At my UC med school, UC grads outnumbered Ivies 2:1. Go Cal!</p>

<p>Just 364 days to go!!!</p>

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<p>It’s right here (and the top two spots and five of the top ten are held by “name” schools):
[Best</a> Undergraduate Teaching | Rankings | Top National Universities | US News](<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/undergraduate-teaching]Best”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/undergraduate-teaching)</p>

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<p>Huh? The rankings barely move year to year or even decade to decade, especially near the top. How many years in a row now have Harvard and Princeton been swapping the lead spot or tied for it? The rankings are as good (or bad) as they ever were.</p>

<p>IMO rankings 1-10 are all pretty much all amazing, 11-25 are great, 26-50 good, 51-100 decent.</p>

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<p>No, it does not exist because it is impossible to do. Heck, it took the National folks over a decade to even attempt it for grad programs… not only were the best and the brightest working on that study years late with the results, but they couldn’t even agree on a methodology, so they chose two.</p>