And number one school in the country is …Arizona State University… The best looking student body of any school. I rest my case.
“US News rankings have been in business for more than 30 years but it is going down. WSJ/THE is only in the business for 3 years and even Duke issued news release responding to its results. It is less popular to general public now. But those in the know and have the money to pay ~70K per year are those reading WSJ.”
Do you have any evidence that US News is going down? Latest public info I saw was that it turned a profit in 2013 and remains profitable, while WSJ has off and on, announced layoffs to its staff. I’m not a fan of rankings in general but even if people see the WSJ rankings, they’re cross-checking with US News, as that’s the standard, and nothing is really going to change that. And you only mention undergrad, US News is even a bigger player in grad school rankings.
@theloniusmonk : First, I don’t own News Corp. stock so there is no incentive to pick side. (US News is private) I do track news articles at this time of the year during my free time when rankings are coming out. These days articles are far and few between and they tend to look like this “What college rankings really measure – hint: It’s not quality or value” (https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/What-college-rankings-really-measure-hint-13222915.php) (BTW, did you notice that a lot of articles are talking about “The Wall Street Journal and Times Higher Education” when they mention USNWR?) I do agree with the conclusion of this article
Let me just say that 4 year ago every article only talked about USNWR. Now they are talking about both. USNWR is getting a huge competitor. If you were the only seller for a particular item on Amazon three years ago, now another big seller is selling exactly the same item, I am sure your sale is going down.
I agree with other people who said the biggest mistake WSJ/THE makes right now is to delay the general public release of the ranking for some time. It is more like a ranking for the elite to read. I know for a fact The Times Higher Education World University Rankings are huge outside US. US News is not in this market. Now WSJ/THE decides to enter the domestic market, considering that News Corp. is super rich, it is a formidable competitor. Yes, they have not entered the graduate school market yet but you never know. I would be careful if I were Mortimer Zuckerman. (he is so rich, he probably doesn’t care)
Maybe it’s time to rank the rankers.
I understand your point, but I was really referring to just fit. I realize some people don’t have the luxury of being picky, but assuming they have the choice between two colleges of roughly equal standing that cost roughly the same (affordable) amount, and those two colleges are like night and day in terms of atmosphere/vibe and the type of students they attract, I find it hard to believe they wouldn’t have a very clear preference.
Berkeley and UCLA are worlds apart in terms of atmosphere/vibe and the type of students they attract. I would think that anyone who is happy at one would be miserable in the other. I also can’t see someone who feels Chicago is a good fit would also think they’d be just as happy at Stanford. When I see all the “chance me for the Ivies” threads, I wonder how in the world someone could want to go to both Cornell and Columbia.
I went to a grad school I knew deep down would be a terrible fit, but was pressured by people telling me I couldn’t turn down the opportunity. I convinced myself it would be fine, but those were the most miserable years of my life, and even my health suffered because of it. I should have trusted my gut, and if I had it to do over, I’d never do it again. It simply wasn’t worth it. Despite opening some doors and making people take me a bit more seriously early in my career, I’m not convinced I wouldn’t have gotten there otherwise.
As @10s4life said, better to be happy for 4 (or however many) years than to be miserable just for a small difference of rank, but I’d go so far as to say that it’s preferable to be where you’re happy even if the difference isn’t so small. Go for the best fit you can afford.
Believe it or not, many people are not that picky beyond mandatory baseline criteria (cost and academic offerings).
Those who are more picky are often more picky about prestige, ranking, and selectivity than anything else (i.e. “fit” = “prestige” for them). Note that choosing based on prestige is not limited to colleges, but also affects many people’s choice of housing, cars, and other goods and services.
@Boomer1964 "If you sort public universities by test scores.
1 Georgia Tech
2 Michigan, UCB
…
12 UCLA
…
21 Florida
If you sort by acceptance rate
(AF, Navy, Army are technically first ~10%)
1 UCLA 16
2 UCB 17
3 Georgia Tech 23
4 UNC 24
5 Michigan, UVA 27
…
? Florida 38"
IMO, UCLA and UBC admissions rate are low largely because of CA in-state and international applicants.
Michigan and Georgia Tech scores are high, because of out-of state applicants.
Michigan wins on quality education. Georgie Tech and UC win on locations.
Rankings are important because the largest single component of a college degree is its signal value. Perception is reality.
@youcee said
See? Goes to show how little I know. 
I find it hard to understand anyone thinking they could like both Cal and UCLA, but I do agree with the rest of your post to some degree. I can see where someone might like both UCLA and UCSB despite having different atmospheres/vibes, but I still think most people (including yours truly 
) would have a pretty clear preference of one over the other.
Ann Arbor is gorgeous this time of year. Depends on the UC and depends on your opinion of Atlanta. Ann Arbor is an actual pretty college town, though admittedly very cold in the winter.
I think most students that I’ve encountered here locally in NorCal will have a preference for UCLA (quarters) or UCB (semesters), one or the other, but will take either if admitted to one only. You take what you can get.
Michigan has some big pluses. Smaller class sizes (15:1, IIRC), a huge endowment, a huge R&D budget, rabid alumni who donate, lots of new and remodeled buildings, and almost 111,000 people attended a football game last Saturday at Noon against Western Michigan (not one of their rivals).
As someone already pointed out, I am just predicting a trend. Of course, assuming USNWR ranking remains popular. UChicago people would have read similar comments from The Chicago Maroon (https://www.chicagomaroon.com/article/2018/9/10/uchicago-third-u-news-rankings-third-time/)
I’m ok with the elites abandoning the vast middle class and huge swathes of the working and lower classes. Over time, the elites will lose their academic pedigree as they fight over the limited pool of ability in the small segment of the population who can afford to pay rack rate and those limited segments of the less well off classes that the elites target. People forget that as recently as 70 or 80 years ago the student body of City University of New York was a whole lot smarter than that of Harvard.
Re: #290
Pell Grant is not just for the “very poor” – more like the bottom half of the family incomes (though some self described “middle class donut holes” people may think that median income us “very poor”).
The middle class was squeezed out of the top ranked schools about twenty to thirty years ago now, so I don’t see this tweak in ranking formula as changing much for the middle class, , I think merit aid is related directly to YIELD and not as much rank. The lower the yield, the more merit is offered typically. Most of the very highly ranked schools (Vanderbilt is the exception to this rule ) have offered NO Merit aid for many years, and nothing has changed with them. They are not priced for middle class kids and their student bodies lack economic diversity for years. But diversity is not defined that way, and yes, the middle class does have to make hard college choices, as shown over and over on CC in heart wrenching discussions of scaling down ambition to match financial means.
I am all for elite schools reaching out to under-represented low income segment of the population, but how is Pell Grant related to a school’s overall academic performance? I’d like to see a ranking with Pell Grant factor teased out.
Was the actual middle class (as opposed to the “middle class who does not get financial aid”) ever that big a presence at the most selective private schools?
Of course, that is an even bigger factor for students from lower income families; some such students may not have any affordable choices that are not reaches. However, it is more likely the case that such students have not been told over their lives that they are expected to go to expensive universities, so they may limit themselves to applying to local less selective public universities and community colleges.
Not only are Notre Dame’s peer and counselor ratings well above UofR and NYU, its admission rate is much lower and its yield is much higher. Fewer students are getting in and Notre Dame is often their first choice school - which results in a more competitive (for lack of a better word) student body. ENROLLED students at Notre Dame boast an ACT range of 33 - 35 (25%/75%) vs. 29 -33 at NYU and probably something lower at UofR (which declines to publish these stats in its version of the Common Data Set). It is hard to make the case that UofR and NYU, while fine universities with distinctive strengths and attractions, are peer schools to Notre Dame academically or from an admissions perspective.
@ucbalunmus College tuition has way outpaced inflation. In the late 70s and 80s, lots of middle class kids went to top private schools. There was both less competition, less fancy dorms and rec centers, and a much lower price tag, (proportional to average incomes ) for any NE private school.
Today, families with incomes of about $100,000 to $150,000 who may feel they have job risks, so high tech one income families, who have not saved enough cash for a private university, but usually get little to no financial aid.
Thats the group of kids here that goes to public flagships most often. Their families do not want them to take loans typically. They may be fooled into thinking they will get some financial aid but usually not unless they have debt.
I don’t think low income students locally worry about this. they are either going to community college or they may not attend college. A few gifted low income kids get into programs like Quest Bridge, but not so many, really, so in that sense you are right, those students have at least as much to complain about, but their parents may not focus on college as much as the set I am talking about.
its the families where the parents attended very good colleges, that sweat about this, the most and they don’t always have the incomes to be cash payers for their children, at the most expensive schools today. And those are often CC readers and posters.
“@Center, Vanderbilt is hot, as is Nashville itself which is truly booming with building in the city, revitalization, and a cultural and sports scene that is healthy and growing.”
It’s not all that hot – but the humidity there is stifling.
“The Vanderbilt rise is pretty cool.”
FWIW, Vandy didn’t move up. Tied #14 last year (with Brown, Rice, Cornell). Tied #14 this year with Brown; with Rice, Cornell now tied at #16.
@northwesty Did you mean to post ^^^ on the Vandy forum post?