US NEWS Ranking, A few surprises

College Search & Selection
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@ucbalumnus – Yes, that was my point earlier in this thread. The gross 6-year graduation rate is very clumsy with a lot of embedded information that does not relate to quality. They should focus on the predicted graduation rates vs actual that take into account students pops, income, and perhaps types of programs.

Esp. considering they give overall graduation 17% weight. That’s way too high.

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Anyone that gets a BSE from Princeton including CS and ORFE must complete the same foundation courses in Math, Physics, Chemistry and CS.

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With respect to graduation rates, USNWR does penalize (if that’s the right word) colleges with relatively low graduation rates. Properly so, if your gold standard is a well-supported learning experience that students share as a class, in which job training or religious obligations aren’t among the major aims.The USNWR ranking favors well-endowed “elite” private colleges like the Ivies. That small set of colleges apparently comprises the “ground truth” for USNWR’s data model. This is a feature, not a bug. If you don’t like that kind of college, consider another ranking such as the Washington Monthly (which uses 8 year graduation rates, Pell performance, % of first gen students, etc.) WM also ranks all the Ivies in the top 50, but one of them (Cornell) is only #41, and public universities such as UCSD, Utah State, and CSU Fresno are among its T25. If you prefer those 3 universities over universities such as Northwestern (WM #33), UChicago (WM #38), Rice (WM #77), or CMU (WM #110) then you might prefer the WM ranking over the USNWR ranking. By the way, WM ranks Northeastern #232 and Drexel #226 (much lower than their USNWR rankings).

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@rjkofnovi
Many people pursue “co-term” at Stanford. That would contribute to a relatively low 4-yr grad rate. In general, it may be wise to pursue your grad study elsewherer and that’s why most institutions don’t encourage such program. But at Stanford, perhaps because their grad programs are top-notch, the benefits still outweigh the negatives.
https://undergrad.stanford.edu/advising/student-guides/stanford-coterm-vs-masters-degree-elsewhere-how-choose?

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“Anyone that gets a BSE from Princeton including CS and ORFE must complete the same foundation courses in Math, Physics, Chemistry and CS.”

It’s not the same, there are some interesting differences that I just perused on ORFE vs say Michigan Computer engineering:

  • Michigan requires 11 foundational courses vs PU's 9
  • PU does not require differential equations, instead Linear Algebra, to those who've taken both, Diff Eq is harder, much harder than linear algebra.
  • The two other differences are a design class and discrete mathematics required at UM

PU’s degree programs are more flexible than UM’s but that means you can avoid things like differential equations. No hiding at Michigan for that, a lot more engineering requirements.

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Or schools with a significant number of students in NAAB-accredited BArch programs.

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In Unusual Letter, Democratic Senators Ask ‘U.S. News’ to Change Emphasis of College Rankings

https://www.chronicle.com/article/In-Unusual-Letter-Democratic/245250

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  1. Princeton
  2. Harvard
  3. Columbia
  4. MIT 3.UChicago
  5. Yale
  6. Stanford
  7. Duke
  8. UPENN 10.Johns Hopkins
  9. North Western
  10. CIT
  11. Dartmouth
  12. Brown
  13. Vanderbilt
  14. Cornell
  15. Rice
  16. Notre Dame
  17. UCLA
  18. WashU
  19. Emory
  20. Gtown
  21. UCB
  22. USC
  23. Carnegie Mellon
  24. UVA

Overall, not terrible, but I have a few objections.

  1. Stanford at #7 is very silly. Stanford and Harvard are tied for #1.
  2. Princeton is right behind Stanford and Harvard.
  3. Not buying Chicago at #3. Tied with Northwestern seems about right.
  4. Michigan has to be in the top 25. They do everything well.
  5. WashU seems over rated at 19. What are they great at besides premed?
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@bester1…thanks for that great link above from The Chronicle. The long overdue Social Mobility factor is finally being recognized in US News College Rankings and may have significantly more impact in the future.

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It sounds like the “Much2learn” rating system is highly dependent on admission rate and yield. Those are important to some (in fact, a yeild-to-admit-ratio ranking is often calculated. See, e.g., http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1898418-2020-yield-to-admit-ratios-for-colleges-ytar.html). US News’s ranking system uses neither admit rate nor yield, however, so you shouldn’t expect it to simply replicate the YTAR.

Princeton has been #1 in US News for eight years straight.

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What NYC turnaround can you please explain?

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Colleges are deceptive at every angle,perhaps no more than when it comes to gaming the system of college rankings!!

University of Oklahoma gave false data to U.S. News college rankings for 20 years…
https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/23/us/university-oklahoma-best-colleges-ranking/index.html

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Oops…UCB, Scripps and 3 other colleges moved to unranked category for misreporting data in for 2019 rankings.
https://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/college-rankings-blog/articles/2019-07-25/updates-to-5-schools-2019-best-colleges-rankings-data?fbclid=IwAR2IqrnxfLIdNpZG8KJqWBFoJBVxSJaTCvYJ2a4TvqivLNXMOIyAp-2ekZU

ETA: UCB’s profile at US News now reflects it’s unranked status (as do those of the other 4 schools) https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/university-of-california-berkeley-1312

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I can no longer recommend UCB since US News and World Report no longer rank it. ?:ballot_box_with_check:

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I am not that surprise with the fact that Princeton top the list.