<p>I caught it too obviously. But it’s kal to everyone else, jcb… ;)</p>
<p>Everyone knows that the top 13 schools are the 8 Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Duke, Chicago and Caltech. USNWR can shuffle their ranking system as much as they want but this heirarchy is ingrained in the minds of employers and academia.</p>
<p>
Academia thinks otherwise.</p>
<p>^ good for academia. </p>
<p>Academia =/= everyone.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Toledo, here you go (get rid of space in between college and toolkit; couldn’t link directly was replacing it with ****):</p>
<p>blog.college toolkit.com/2010/08/us-news-2011-rankings-top-50.html</p>
<p>US News 2011 Rankings (Top 50)
Thursday, August 19, 2010</p>
<p>@gstein "Anyone have the extended list of the best engineering programs? "</p>
<h1>1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology</h1>
<h1>2 Stanford University</h1>
<h1>3 University of California–Berkeley</h1>
<h1>4 California Institute of Technology</h1>
<h1>5 Georgia Institute of Technology</h1>
<h1>6 University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign</h1>
<h1>6 University of Michigan–Ann Arbor</h1>
<h1>8 Carnegie Mellon University</h1>
<h1>9 Cornell University</h1>
<h1>9 Purdue University–West Lafayette</h1>
<h1>11 Princeton University</h1>
<h1>11 University of Texas–Austin</h1>
<h1>13 Northwestern University</h1>
<h1>13 University of Wisconsin–Madison</h1>
<h1>15 Johns Hopkins University</h1>
<h1>15 Virginia Tech</h1>
<h1>17 Pennsylvania State University–University Park</h1>
<h1>17 Rice University</h1>
<h1>17 Texas A&M University–College Station</h1>
<h1>20 Columbia University</h1>
<h1>20 University of California–Los Angeles</h1>
<h1>20 University of California–San Diego</h1>
<h1>20 University of Washington</h1>
<h1>24 Duke University</h1>
<h1>24 University of Maryland–College Park</h1>
<h1>24 University of Minnesota–Twin Cities</h1>
<p>I’m just gonna re-post this here in this new thread:</p>
<p>Collective opinion of ~ 2,000 academics:</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard University (4.9/5.0)</li>
<li>Massachusetts Institute of Technology (4.9/5.0)</li>
<li>Princeton University (4.9/5.0)</li>
<li>Stanford University (4.9/5.0)</li>
<li>Yale University (4.8/5.0)</li>
<li>University of California-Berkeley (4.7/5.0)</li>
<li>California Institute of Technology (4.6/5.0)</li>
<li>Columbia University (4.6/5.0)</li>
<li>Cornell University (4.6/5.0)</li>
<li>Johns Hopkins University (4.6/5.0)</li>
<li>University of Chicago (4.6/5.0)</li>
<li>University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (4.5/5.0)</li>
<li>University of Pennsylvania (4.5/5.0)</li>
<li>Brown University (4.4/5.0)</li>
<li>Duke University (4.4/5.0)</li>
<li>Northwestern University (4.4/5.0)</li>
<li>Dartmouth College (4.3/5.0)</li>
<li>University of Virginia (4.3/5.0)</li>
<li>Carnegie Mellon University (4.2/5.0)</li>
<li>University of California-Los Angeles (4.2/5.0)</li>
<li>University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (4.2/5.0)</li>
</ol>
<p>5.0 = “Distinguished” academic programs
4.0 = “Strong” academic programs</p>
<p>“Everyone knows that the top 13 schools are the 8 Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Duke, Chicago and Caltech.”</p>
<p>You have an uncanny habit of putting many of your statements in the superlative. Superlative statements about subjective matters are usually inaccurate and can be easily dismissed.</p>
<ol>
<li>Brown University (4.4/5.0)
<ol>
<li>Duke University (4.4/5.0)</li>
<li>Northwestern University (4.4/5.0)</li>
<li>Dartmouth College (4.3/5.0)</li>
</ol></li>
</ol>
<p>I see 4 schools here not listed in the top thirteen by academia.</p>
<p>The whole rating/ranking thing is a relatively new phenomen, isn’t it? When did it start?</p>
<p>Someone like Michael Lewis could write a really good book about this and the impact it’s had on the way colleges market themselves.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Malcolm Gladwell wrote a really nice piece in the New Yorker dissecting the USN&WR ranking system earlier this year:</p>
<p>[What</a> College Rankings Really Tell Us : The New Yorker](<a href=“http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/14/110214fa_fact_gladwell]What”>The Trouble with College Rankings | The New Yorker)</p>
<p>You can’t read the whole article for free anymore, though…But essentially, he argues that USN&WR decides what *they *think is important and in what percentages. These decisions are fairly arbitrary and different students seek different things in their university. He gives a great analogy to a Car & Driver article that compared the the Lotus Evora, the Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport, and the Porsche Cayman S. Car & Driver gave the Porsche the overall #1 ranking. However, this was based on assigning percentages to a variety of factors like durability, looks, and performance. </p>
<p>I don’t recall the exact numbers, but certain individuals looking at these three cars couldn’t care less about durability and all they care about is performance. If performance was 100%, a different car would have been in the #1 spot. Even if you simply weighted the factors differently, you’d get a different result. Aesthetics is important to some people, but not as much for others. </p>
<p>The same could be said of colleges and universities. Students seek different things. Classes under the size of 20 could be of supreme importance to one student while another doesn’t care as much about small classes and wants top notch faculty. It would be AWESOME if USN&WR had a feature that could take all their data and let users assign percentages to the factors that they think are most important and it would then automatically give you the new rankings based on the percentages that the user assigns. But USN&WR would never do that…</p>
<p>[U-M</a> goes up in U.S. News best colleges list, ending 5-year slide](<a href=“http://www.annarbor.com/news/u-m-goes-up-in-us-news-college-ratings-ending-a-five-year-downward-trend/]U-M”>U-M goes up in U.S. News best colleges list, ending 5-year slide)</p>
<p>Yup, I correctly predicted that as well!!
I will also predict Michigan to move up by 1 spot next year!!
P.S. Goo Job beating the Dormers last week!! :)</p>
<p>Goo job? Ew.</p>
<p>^^ Michigan’s undergraduate business (#3) and engineering (#6) programs also did well, both up a notch from last year. And Big Ten schools as a group did well in those categories.</p>
<p>Undergraduate business: Michigan #3, Indiana #12, Illinois #14, Minnesota #14, Ohio State #14, Wisconsin #14, Penn State #20, Michigan State #24</p>
<p>Undergraduate engineering: Illinois #6, Michigan #6, Purdue #9, Northwestern #13, Wisconsin #13, Penn State #17, Minnesota #24, Ohio State #27</p>
<p>^ Big Ten camaraderie on this board is almost as obnoxious as chants of “SEC! SEC! SEC!”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Oh, post 6 in this thread needed repetition. Does repeating the same line make it become truer?</p>
<p>Actually, I might start to see your light! Despite my opinion of the PA, I still considered the USNews publication of the data the best we could come up, and maintained my paid subscription since 2002. After reviewing the last edition and reading the obnoxiously misleading article by Morse, I have requested the refund of my annual fee, and will donate it to a better cause.</p>
<p>Claiming that there is integrity in the USNews rankings has simply become a total joke.</p>
<p>^ Just some positive reinforcement, xiggi. :)</p>
<p>And this thread was a combination of two threads…sorry I missed that.</p>
<p>I was just messing with you. There is no harm in repeating the same information several times. </p>
<p>I was, however, not joking about the second part of my post.</p>
<p>^ Use the $14.95 to go take someone to a matinee movie…</p>
<p>I think it is more than 14.95! I probably can get some popcorn. :)</p>