US NEWS Ranking, A few surprises

"U.S. News & World Report overhauled its college-ranking formula this year, putting more emphasis on social mobility and less on exclusivity in admissions, a change that scrambled its annual lists of top colleges and universities released Monday.

Two schools continued their long runs atop the rankings: Princeton University was the No. 1 national university for the eighth straight year, and Williams College was the top liberal arts school for the 16th straight year.

National universities put a major focus on research and award bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees. Liberal arts colleges are centered on undergraduate education." …

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/princeton-and-williams-still-top-us-news-college-rankings–but-new-formula-scrambles-the-annual-lists/2018/09/08/a7f798b0-b2b1-11e8-a20b-5f4f84429666_story.html?utm_term=.4c83ff3fe4e1

Maybe … but the Peer Assessment scores seem to correlate rather well with the “objective” data, at least for the top 20-30 universities. What are some examples of colleges with high PA scores but much lower scores on the other factors? Or vice versa?

What power would USNWR or Forbes have to do that?
Would HS students really be better served by eliminating data-driven college rankings (instead of improving them)?

IMO the biggest source of stress (besides costs) isn’t the rankings but the tremendous choice American students have . College assessment data, for all its imperfections, can help students and families make better-informed, more rational choices. The rankings simply summarize that data according to (usually) published formulas. If you don’t trust a particular magazine’s formula, pick another one, or dig deeper into the supporting information. Or do what thousands of good students do: just focus on public universities in your home state.

@tk21769 - Oh, let’s not be too disingenuous, here. College-aged students (and really the middle-class as a whole) are extremely status conscious and magazine rankings are only too well aware of that. Decades ago, baby boomers got along just fine without them and pretty much relied on a widely used three-tiered system of Most Competitive, Very Competitive and Competitive. What was the big problem that needed to be solved?

The State of Florida is aggressively funding its public universities at a time where many states have drastically cut university funding. UF and FSU (up nine spots to #26 public university) are beneficiaries.

Ranking is only a relative measure and a starting point, not an ending point for application and eventually school choice. Our students are not just attending a university, but spending most of their class time and are influenced by professors and research in their chosen major(s). The strength and funding of specific departments vary greatly by universities in the same tier. Real life is full of trade-offs even before factoring in merit and financial aid.

Test scores, admission statistics and HS performance are also not the end all be all. However, if you select high stat students, add very challenging coursework starting where the same AP course left off and grade on a curve with a C+ or B- as the middle of the curve, the end result is a very different learning experience. Yes, the savants will sail through, but most high achieving students will buckle down and collaboratively work very hard or decide to change majors. Again, the exams may actually be similar to University X with lower stat students, but the center of the curve will be different. In a collaborative environment the bar is raised as high as the caliper of students and that is likely the reason for the honors college trend.

Has anyone shared the top 20 LAC rankings ?

top 20 LACs
Williams - 1
Amherst - 2
Swat - 3
Wellesley - 3
Bowdoin - 5
Carleton - 5
Middlebury -5
Pomona - 5
CMC - 9
Davidson - 10
Grinnell - 11
Haverford - 11
Smith - 11
Vassar -11
Washington &Lee - 11
Colgate - 16
Hamilton - 16
Colby -18
Harvey Mudd - 18
West Point - 18
Wesleyan - 18

So obviously the top 22, with that big tie for #18. Lots of 11’s, too.

Although I do not have any first hand experience, everything that I have read & heard over the last three decades indicates that Williams College & Amherst College both deserve their status as the top two LACs in the nation. As do Swarthmore & Wellesley.

Not a whole lot changed except for Harvey Mudd and Haverford essentially switching places.

Some noted above that several UC schools climbing the national rankings ladder. I think demographics will drive this to continue. As population continues to increase in California but the number of UCs stays the same, applications will increase and selectivity will continue. So long as adequate state funding continues, the UCs should continue to climb.

I think it’s fair to say that if you like Amherst, you’ll probably find Wellesley, Swarthmore and other highly manicured suburban environments a good fit, too. But, just to be clear, they (and Williams) rest at the top of the pile largely because of their small scale in relation to the size of their endowments. This allows them to spend similar amounts of money (FA, administration, dining hall services, etc.) on fewer students which translates into high marks in the Financial Resources metric that USNews uses in its methodology. If their small size appeals to you, then, by all means, they “deserve” to be at the top of the ranking system. If you’re looking for a somewhat larger sized LAC (less clique-ish, less reliance on sports teams for social organization, more academic diversity), then people have to look further down the ranking column.

@circuitrider: Interesting observation as I consider “endowment” & “endowment per student” to be very significant factors when evaluating schools.

Go Cats!

The more the place schools in cohorts, as they just did in 3 with MIT, UChicago, Yale and Columbia, the more sense it makes. Stanford at 7 below this cohort is very odd.

Cal Berkeley suffering from enormous class size, inability to graduate in 4 years and housing problems.

I’m going to give a shout out to Rutgers (NB), which moved up from 69 last year to 56 this year. That’s a big move, and in terms of local bragging rights (just for fun) it is now ranked higher than Penn State, UConn, UMass, UMaryland, UDel and SUNY. Locals will know that Rutgers is a traditionally under-appreciated school, at least for NJ residents, so nice to see it get some recognition, FWIW. But they are all good schools, our top-rated public high school sends kids to most of these schools every year.

4-year graduation rates have generally been on an upward trend (68.8% for those entering 2004 to 75.5% for those entering 2011). Housing is not a factor in USNWR ranking.

1 and 2 on both lists are the same as the last few years.

LAC - Williams, Amherst

U - Princeton, Harvard

Honestly, it seems like as much as they change things to change the ranks to sell magazines and little actually changed about any of these schools over the past year, it seems like the changes were pretty positive this year: focusing on outcomes more and incentivizing the focus on lower income students. For all the flaws in rankings, you can’t ignore their tangible effects.

The only problem I see with focusing on the graduate rate data, is it encourages universities to give “gentleman’s Cs” and make sure students don’t fail out even when they might deserve to. But no ranking system is ever going to be perfect, and universities will always work to game the system.