Chances are that these high achieving students will end up doing well at these schools since they either end up in Honors or have access to special programs where at school such as Michigan, they might NOT have this chance.
I gave this an attempt shortly before WaPo published their meta-ranking, but combined universities and LACs: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19990066#Comment_19990066. At that time I had an interest in what, if anything, a meta-ranking might reveal regarding the relationship between universities and liberal arts colleges for prospective students who might be unfamiliar with the full range of collegiate options available. Note that the initial numbering served as an ordering system rather than a ranking. The definining aspect of the concept was that all of the schools listed had been included near the top of various rankings then available.
"And lets not forget that for millions of students out there this is what matters
Check out the full AP Top 25 below:"
It’s embarrassing to live in a county where people consider the quality of a college’s football team to be any sort of selection criteria or importance. No wonder the rest of the world questions America’s judgment.
So, school spirit, bad. :-??
No, picking a college based on the strength of their football team = bad.
Reading comprehension and picking a college based on academics and associated factors = good.
Having a great football or any sports team can certainly enter the decision making process for me and many others, once all the other academic factors have been satisfied. Football, basketball, soccer, hockey, etc. foster school spirit.
Stanford fell from 3 last year to 7 this year. I wonder what big sports schools will do about this. Athletes tend to be wealthy. The more of them taking up seats, the less seats for Pell Grant kids.
I can honestly say that when it came down to the wire, and choosing between MIT and Duke, both of which are great academically, my daughter’s love of sports and wanting the full college experience led her to choosing Duke. So, sports do matter in a sense. 
I will confess that when it came down to my student’s top 2 choices (one a big sports school, one with no team at all), one factor that swayed his decision was the NCAA basketball tournament. Having entered our office pool for the past few years, he realized he would never have his own team to follow
with one school so he chose the school with sports.
To those that say rankings never mattered: The “American Association of Universities” exclusive club of research universities has been around since 1900. Rochester, BU, Brandeis and Florida are all members.
@evergreen5
I see your point about Pell Grant adjustment. USNWR’s own explanation sounds like they did this adjustment in order not to “penalize” schools with higher percentage of Pell Grant recipients. Whether this would lead to the opposite, ie provide an incentive to admit more Pell grant recipients would be interesting to follow.
“Scores for the new social mobility indicators were then adjusted by the proportion of the entering class that was awarded Pell Grants because achieving a higher low-income student graduation rate is more challenging with a larger proportion of low-income students.”
“Stanford fell from 3 last year to 7 this year. I wonder what big sports schools will do about this. Athletes tend to be wealthy. The more of them taking up seats, the less seats for Pell Grant kids.”
Nah.
Note that Duke, NW, Vandy, ND, USC and the Public Ivies all pretty much ranked about the same as last year. While the lacrosse team would certainly trend higher SES, the football team likely adds some Pell-ers to the student body.
Did anyone see College Game Day Saturday when they where at Texas A&M? I wished I was there. School spirit is huge for me
Sports may matter to some, not my daughter. She could have gone to Alabama with full tuition, but never considered it. She chose Mount Holyoke partially due to very little interest in sports. Our high school won the last 2 State Championships in Football and she never went to a game.
All this ranking stuff is always confusing to me. I don’t think using the pell grant recipients is the right measurement, But using test scores and GPA score wasn’t the right measurement either. I always thought that was weird. How does a student test scores and H.S GPA reflexes how good a college is. Isn’t that more of a reflection of how good their High School was.
I don’t know really weird and confusing. That is why I think it’s best just to ignore them.
One of my kids has zero interest in sports, but he seems to like the school spirit associated with sports at a school.
Sounds like a confessional in here. ;))
Sports do matter. It is part of the college experience and it creates an environment like no other… Lots of amazing schools in the top 100 will offer excellent academics as well as everything else. Lets not forget that certain schools have top ranked programs and are not even ranked in the top 100 schools. The University of Missouri has one of the top Journalism schools in the country yet it is ranked 129. What gives?
However, there is a difference between spectator sports and participatory sports. Some students may want one but not care too much about the other.
Collegiate sports probably matter more to alumni and the economics of big state schools more than they do to students. That is the only reason Urban Meyer has a job and why Penn State looked the other way all those years.
As for football, the real game is played on Sundays.