<p>devil, how accurate do you think that WSJ thing is. I mean there are more flaws with it than US News. First of all, as you read the methodology, it wasn't if each of the schools in question gave out the information, but the WSJ ppl did the research on their own (human error has to be accounted for). Larger schools have larger student bodies, more students that have gone far away or have traveled abroad or have entered the industry). Obviously, schools that do not have pre-professional programs are at a disadvantage. It would be more accurate if they could assess the # of students applying with the percentage of students accepted rather than dividing the # of ppl attending by the total student body. At Cornell, let alone, the Hotel Management, Engineering, Architecture, these ppl enter the labor force for the most part and do not consider going to med/law/business school. At Northwestern, this applies as well with the journalism/engineering/communications school. In addition, location matters as well and the schools used in the survey. For example, I am sure that U of Chicago is helped in that ranking set b/c 2 of the 15 schools used is U of Chicago business/law. Therefore, U of Chicago and probably Northwestern for that matter are helped b/c students tend to stay in their home turf for grad school, am i wrong??</p>
<p>Excellent point. Cornell and Duke are both equal. Agreed?</p>
<p>Um, in certain areas Cornell beats Duke and in others Duke beats Cornell. Overall, they are 2 very good places.</p>
<p>Duke is good, though it has southern tinge to it, may be a + or -
Cornell is good, though it has the easiest ivy to get into, hardest to get out of tinge to it
Upenn has a great undergrad business school..... and not much else</p>
<p>um, alrite, who cares if it's the easiest ivy to get into. Look at who we are competing with, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Penn, Dart, Columbia, Brown, enough said budddy.</p>
<p>guys, as much as Penn has jumped in the last 10 years, Cornell can do the same ppl. This year, Cornell had a 26 percent acceptance rate. Penn had a 21 percent acceptance rate and Duke was 22 percent acceptance rate. Cornell is coming alive!!!!</p>
<p>As a member of the Class of '09, I don't mind where UPenn is as long as it's in the Top 10. I love the school! People haven't heard of Penn because it sound like a state university so it even loses some points in prestige. </p>
<p>If it was called something different, like Franklin University, people would be able to distinguish it from PSU in the general public.</p>
<p>I didn't know about US News Rankings until halfway through the college application-process, so maybe it is significant to only those people who subscribe to US News, and therefore the effect is seen less</p>
<p>slipper thats the ranking I most agree with, because I don't think Duke is significantly better than Columbia, and theres no way Caltech/MIT/Stanford should be outranked by Wharton (ahem, Penn)</p>
<p>and about Dukes southern tinge...as long as I don't have to eat grits everyday, I'm not complaining lol</p>
<p>This is for those of you who think I always attack Berkeley:</p>
<p>According to a very accurate measure of student preferences, people tend to choose Berkeley over UChicago and Johns Hopkins. I found this to be very surprising. UChicago and Hopkins are ranked way higher than Berkeley on US News. Maybe this is more evidence that US News doesn't affect prestige?
<a href="http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/papers/1287.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/papers/1287.pdf</a></p>
<p>Also, Duke has been ranked consistently in the top 6 ever since US News first started its ranking. Yet Duke still doesn't have the prestige of a top 6 school. Maybe it takes more than some ranking on a magazine to increase the reputation of a school?</p>
<p>Very well said.</p>
<p>Duke was once tied with Yale at 3, but ppl still think its not that high. I think this thread was mainly aimed at WUSTL and PENN.</p>
<p>wait what? duke was ranked 3rd? haha, how?</p>
<p>Like in '98 or something. I forget which date. Go to that Usnews of old thread. Princeton review also ranks Duke as number 3 in academic excellence.</p>
<p>US News can possibly have an effect on the way people "view" institutions domestically. For instance, I don't know about many other people, but when I first heard of Washington University in St. Louis last year, I didn't know anything about it. However, when I saw how high it was ranked on the US News ranking last year, I was like, "Okay... maybe I should just look into the school, and see if it fits for me." Basically, US News can give you ideas of different colleges, and have you possibly look at schools you would not have either known about or looked into otherwise. However, does US News have an effect on the name-recognition/prestige on a certain school internationally and domestically? I would probably say no. Brown University and Dartmouth College, though apart of the ivy league and have prestige in the US, do not have as much name recognition worldwide, though they are ranked 13 and 9 on the USNWR ranking. Duke University, though ranked very highly on US News, doesn't have the same name recognition domestically and internationally as one would probably think due to its high ranking on US News. However, the University of Calfornia-Berkeley, though ranked slightly outside of the top 20 on US News, has huge prestige internationally and domestically. Basically, US News is one ranking guide of colleges, and it would take more than a high ranking on US News to have a certain level of "prestige."</p>
<p>I got just a general question for anyone to answer. I feel like some ppl "sneak" their way through to a top undergrad without having the proper credentials because they have connections or they get lucky. For example, with graduate school admissions, I believe they are only concerned with ur board score (MCAT, LSAT, GMAT, etc) + GPA x (index score for the respective university). Therefore, someone who is a modest tester in general who perhaps may have gotten a 1200-1300 on their SATs and gotten into Penn or Duke or w.e. the school may be, come graduate school time, may not get into a top graduate program if they have a modest board score. For example, I personally know a few ppl that aren't good testers that ended up some of the best colleges in this country. However, I just feel that some of them will not make the cut come graduate school time b/c their Ecs will not be able to make up for a subpar board score.</p>
<p>That is my 2 cents.</p>
<p>"This is for those of you who think I always attack Berkeley:</p>
<p>According to a very accurate measure of student preferences, people tend to choose Berkeley over UChicago and Johns Hopkins. I found this to be very surprising. UChicago and Hopkins are ranked way higher than Berkeley on US News. Maybe this is more evidence that US News doesn't affect prestige?"</p>
<p>partially true in that berkeley is probably more preferred than UChicago and Johns Hopkins. the tricky part is that some of these cross-admits are in-state residents of california, and going to berkeley, an institution of similar caliber to UChicago and JHU, for half the price is very attractive.</p>
<p>Those which enjoy international name recognition are all major research universities. But what are you guys attending, undergrad or grad? I bet 9 out 10 students haven't thought much of this for themselves.</p>
<p>collegekid, the LSATS and MCATs are essentially recollection tests. Its a different animal than the SAT altogether. I hate math, so the LSAT will be awesome for me.</p>
<p>Moreover, Collegekid, those "inferior" kids could always do MBA. No test required I think.</p>
<p>It depends what sort of prestige you mean. If you are talking about prestige in the eyes of high school students or inquisative but not very knowledgeable parents, then I would say that the USNWR is very influential. If you are talking about prestige in the eyes of corporate recruiters, the professional world and academe, then I would say the USNWR has practically no influence.</p>
<p>Most definitely agreed, Alexandre. Prestige is something entirely different from a recognizable name to the general public.</p>
<p>I am relatively new to this forum, but would I be right in guessing that it originated on the west coast? Seems like a lot of threads are dedicated to the UC's here. This plays right into the prestige/known name thing, in that most people east of the Rockies couldn't care less about the UCs - in fact don't know a thing about them and don't care to learn, probably based on impressions formed about the Cali education system in general in recent years. The exceptions would be Stanford and Berkeley, but even USC and UCLA (I know - not all part of the UC system, but still Cali schools)- do we outside Cali know them because they have such great programs or because we've grown up watching them play football on TV??</p>
<p>Friends of my kids are at Pepperdine, so I know it's got some great things going, but most of my coworkers think all you can do there is get a BA in beach volleyball!</p>
<p>Same with people out west looking at Duke - they don't know too much about it, other than basketball, so think it's not that great. Same with the Penn State/UPenn thing.</p>
<p>USNWR surely influences the average family in a college search, but has nothing to do with 'prestige,' as in grad school acceptance and corporate recruiting.</p>
<p>P.S. As for WUStL, having extended family living in St. Louis gives us a bit of an closer view...their 4 kids all looked into it, applied and were accepted, but chose to go elsewhere - their thinking: although it's a good school, it's way too much money and not enough value. It's recent big jump in the rankings seems due more to self-promotion than anything else....heavy mailings = a jump in application numbers = a lower admit rate = a spike in rankings. Before recent marketing efforts, very few people outside of a couple hundred miles around St. Louis had ever heard of WUStL.</p>