US News Rankings 2010 - Confirmed (Have Source)

College Search & Selection
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<p>I am sure a lot of schools do it, but not to the gross extent as Clemson. If you carefully read the article, the president of Clemson gave everyone an average score but itself, because he feels no college in the U.S. offers the same kind of college experience (yea I am sure Clemson gives its students a better experience than Harvard). That is quite a statement to make. Either he is completely delusional or he is straight up being unethical by doing such a thing on the peer review and and then lying with a straight face to cover his a$$. That guy has got quite some balls. Clemson has also made huge strides in rankings over the last few years and the president has really ambitious goals in terms of where he wants his school to be ranked (I think it said top 20 public school on Clemson’s website). Coincidence? </p>

<p>I don’t understand how U.S.N lets you rate your own school and why a peer school’s opinion is given so much importance and weight. It makes absolutely no sense for undergraduate schools to be judging other undergraduate schools because chances are outside of Ivies and other brand named schools like Georgetown, Duke, Emory, etc, (i.e schools ranked outside the top 35), they probably have no clue as to the school’s reputation or quality of education it offers. There are a lot of schools that are highly regarded in a particular location because other local schools know about them, but they go unnoticed in other sides of the country, whether it be due to poor P.R. or recent rise to prominence due to improved facilities, faculty, student body, endowment etc. However these changes would have little affect on the overall rankings because most presidents will hold on to their preexisting beliefs and opinions about the school.</p>

<p>Opinions should be replaced by facts. I think in lieu of peer school assessments, this weight should be given to things like job placement (% offered jobs out of those not not applying for grad school, average salary, placement of students into top 100 firms or NFP programs like Teach for America), graduate school feeder undergrad schools, changes in facilities (have someone from U.S. news go to school’s campuses each year and then make a comparison or just go on the school’s website to see upcoming projects/completed recent projects to make a determination whether they feel that a school’s infrastructure is improving). Another thing or two that can be done is to check the amount of volumes held by the library, number of faculty chairs, amt of scholarship given, publications/qualifications of the professors, etc. </p>

<p>Additionally, a little more weight should be given to SAT score/GPA/acceptance rate, the size of school’s endowment in proportion to its student body and/or total alumni,</p>

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<p>well I know if you give more weight to selectivity, the Michigan students/alumni here will be screaming for your head since that will put more distance between UVA and Michigan haha</p>

<p>I agree with you starbury though, I am a Clemson student and I in no way support what my president done and I think that the push for the top 20 may be hurting academics at Clemson rather than helping since the priorities of the administration appear to be in the wrong place. What they need to do is 1) be honest and straightforward in everything (aka stop fudging data) and 2) focus on academics and the students ahead of these rankings and the results will show for themselves.</p>

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<p>

Why? Currently Michigan’s selectivity rank is #18, compared to UVa’s #28.</p>

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<p>Rankings obsessions by students and college administrators alike are very unhealthy and counterproductive. Its an absurdity on its face. Its a popularity contest. Its a money raising thing. </p>

<p>I never take them very seriously, though I have a mild interest each time this year. School pride is normal. But getting into word wars about whose school is better than someone else’s school is insidious and odious. </p>

<p>I am no fan of Clemson, but that relates to its sports teams. Academically, its an extremely strong state sponsored school in a beautiful part of South Carolina. </p>

<p>I don’t judge a school by its admissions dweebs either. In fact, a good number of schools that I admire, have admissions departments I despise. UVa is one of them. </p>

<p>People shouldn’t take these rankings seriously, but as entertainment. </p>

<p>I would bet big money that Clemson’s President is not alone in how he “gamed” the system. I judge a school by its ethics and ethos: by what kind of student comes out of their hallowed hallways. I have rather strong opinions about some rather famous schools where I am repeatedly confronted by graduates with attitudes I find despicable. I am much more impressed when I walk on a campus and am immediately confronted with a culture of warmth, caring, inclusiveness, sharing, and developing each indivual student on a holistic approach to education. (No, I am not a bleeding heart liberal either.) I look for schools with balance and diversity. You can almost smell it in the air when you walk on campus. Conversely, the ones that have an odious attitude have an odious air about them…you skin starts to crawl the minute you start walking on campus, stroll through the library or cafeteria or walk into any building. I have only been wrong ONCE on that simple gut-test. And that was because an admissions counselor was so offensive it just spoiled my entire outlook…until it was later corrected. </p>

<p>The good news is that with so many choices for schools, people can find a school which fits them the best and meets their personal and academic objectives. </p>

<p>Some people want a large state school with uber sports 24-7-365 and others want a smaller private school experience which may or may not have uber sports. </p>

<p>Just my two cents.</p>

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<p>

Which puzzles me, because UVA has higher test scores (50% of the ranking) and a lower admit rate (10% of the ranking). It must be because Michigan has a slightly higher percentage of students in the top 10%, which accounts for 40% of the selectivity ranking. </p>

<p>Michigan
CR: 580-690
M: 640-740
W: 590-700</p>

<p>CR 700+: 21.5%
M 700+: 45.9%
W 700+: 28%</p>

<p>Top 10%: 92%</p>

<p>Accepted: 42.1%</p>

<p>UVA
CR: 600-710
M: 620-730
W: 610-720</p>

<p>CR 700+: 32%
M 700+: 40%
W 700+: 34%</p>

<p>Top 10%: 88%</p>

<p>Accepted: 36.7%</p>

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<p>What really puzzles me IB is why UVA is ranked ahead of Michigan at all?</p>

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<p>Oh, stop all the hissing and spitting.
There is SO much animosity in this thread over stupid stuff like why PA shouldn’t count and blah blah UVA vs. Michigan. Overall, RANKINGS themselves are pretty trivial. I doubt that in the course of a year, any school can improve or decline by much, but their rankings certainly can for whatever reason.</p>

<p>Generally, when ranking universities, you have:
Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Columbia, Brown, UPenn, and Dartmouth will always be somewhere in the Top Elite Section.
Duke, Caltech, MIT, Stanford, Chicago, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, and WashU are also somewhere in the Top Elite Section as these schools have, for quite some time now, been intermingling with the Ivies in rankings and have often ranked higher or around the levels of several ivies. These schools have also historically been the top names in academia.</p>

<p>These 15 schools form part of the core Elite Institutions of the U.S. and are probably the only private schools in that core.</p>

<p>The other core Elite Institutions of the U.S. will be the Elite Publics which are: UC-Berkeley, UMichigan, UCLA, UVA, and UNC. These public schools have always been ranked in the top 5 or so of Public Schools in the nation and at one point did intermingle with the rest of the private Elites before USNWR changed their ranking criteria…</p>

<p>These 20 schools form the core Elite Institutions.
After that, you have the Semi Elite Privates: Carnegie Mellon, Rice, Notre Dame, Emory, Vanderbilt, Georgetown, NYU, Boston College, etc.
Alonf with the Semi Elite Publics: Wisconsin, Texas, Illinois, some other UCs, etc.</p>

<p>and then from that point on, you have the rest of the good/excellent Privates: Tulane, Wake Forest, etc
along with the rest of the good/excellent Publics: Indiana, U of Florida…? etc</p>

<p>There really is no specific order to how good schools are or which schools are THAT much better than the others, but generally, these are good sections to separate off the schools into based on a number of factors like selectivity, prestige, world-class faculty, world-class programs, class-size, endowment, general rankings, name recognition, etc.</p>

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<p>You are right of course Hope2getrice. I noticed how you placed the top publics in the correct order too. :-)</p>

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<p>thank you rjk :slight_smile: the elite privates are not in correct order, but it doesn’t really matter imo lol</p>

<p>edit: lol. nvm. I just realized my hypocrisy.</p>

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<p>

Blasphemy!! ;)</p>

<p>(I have to admit that I am highly amused by the above post. It reminds me of my [tongue-in-cheek</a> post](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062132201-post42.html]tongue-in-cheek”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062132201-post42.html) about the differentiation of elite schools so prevalent on CC.)</p>

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<p>IB, your stats is for 2008. UVa’s selectivity should improve when the new ranking comes out in a few days.</p>

<p>For 2007:</p>

<p>Michigan
CR: 590-690
M: 630-730
SAT: 1220-1420</p>

<p>CR 700+: 23%
M 700+: 43%</p>

<p>Top 10%: 92%
Acceptance: 50%</p>

<p>UVa
CR: 590-700
M: 610-720
SAT: 1200-1420</p>

<p>CR 700+: 29%
M 700+: 36%</p>

<p>Top 10%: 87%
Acceptance: 35%</p>

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<p>Here is my lists of prestigious ranking to end all mother of prestigious ranking listings. Don’t ask me for methodology. I just know it. This is all about prestige for prestige whore. </p>

<p>Here’s my list of 5 most prestigious overrated institutions:

  1. Harvard
  2. Yale
  3. Princeton
  4. MIT
  5. Stanford.</p>

<p>Here’s my list of 5 most prestigious underrated institutions.

  1. U of Chicago
  2. Dartmouth
  3. U of Penn
  4. Northwestern
  5. Columbia</p>

<p>Here’s my list of 5 most prestigious Sport orientated institutions.

  1. Duke
  2. Georgetown
  3. U of Michigan
  4. UCLA
  5. U of Notre Dame</p>

<p>Here is my list of 5 most prestigious Preppy institutions.

  1. Williams
  2. Cornell
  3. Duke
  4. Amherst
  5. Brown</p>

<p>Here’s my list of 5 most prestigious Nerdy institutions.

  1. MIT
  2. U of Chicago
  3. Caltech
  4. U C Berkeley
  5. Columbia</p>

<p>Here is my list of 5 most prestigious party institutions.

  1. Dartmouth
  2. Duke
  3. Washington U - St Louis
  4. Cornell
  5. Vanderbilt</p>

<p>Here’s my list of 5 most prestigious Public Institutions.

  1. U of C Berkeley
  2. U of Michigan
  3. UVA
  4. U of North Corolina
  5. UCLA</p>

<p>Here’s the list of 5 most prestigious Nobel prize winning institutions.

  1. Univerity of Chicago
  2. Columbia
  3. Harvard
  4. MIT
  5. Stanford</p>

<p>Here’s my list of 5 most prestigious institutions that produced the most U.S. President.

  1. Harvard
  2. College of William & Mary
  3. Princeton
  4. Yale
  5. United States Military Academy</p>

<p>Here’s my list of 5 most prestigious Business School (undergrad and graduate combined).

  1. U of Penn
  2. Harvard
  3. Stanford
  4. U of Chicago
  5. MIT</p>

<p>Here is my list of 5 most prestigious Medical School

  1. Harvard
  2. John Hopkins
  3. Washington U - St. Louis
  4. Duke
  5. U of Penn</p>

<p>Here’s my list of 5 most prestigious Law Schools

  1. Harvard
  2. Yale
  3. Stanford
  4. Columbia
  5. U of Chicago</p>

<p>Here’s my list of 5 most prestigious Engineering Schools

  1. Caltech
  2. Carnegia Mellon
  3. Cornell
  4. Purdue
  5. MIT</p>

<p>Here’s my listing of most prestigious Economics institutions.

  1. Harvard
  2. Princeton
  3. U of Chicago
  4. U C Bekerley
  5. MIT</p>
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<p>They look pretty even to me GoBlue81. The only major difference is the acceptance rate. Of course Michigan has over 26,000 undergraduates compared to almost half of that at UVA.</p>

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<p>Actually Michigan is a tiny bit ahead in SAT. Michigan ranks higher because USNWR gives more weight to top 10 (40%) than acceptance (10%).</p>

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<p>Here’s a list that’s about as precise as the USNews ranking: Maxim Girls Photo Gallery | Maxim.com (note to moderators: this web site is entirely “G” rated)</p>

<p>Notice how the quality of #79 is indistinguishable from #24? That’s about the same as with the USNews ranking. Do you really think the profs at Iowa, Fordham, Boston University, and the U of Oregon know less at the undergrad level than the profs at Emory, Wake Forest, Tufts, and Notre Dame?</p>

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<p>Marisa Miller should be #1 on every list like Harvard haha</p>

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<p>GoBlue, i may be wrong, but I think those numbers may be outdated. I know UVa’s acceptance rate was 28% this year and the SAT scores look a bit low. I suspect Michigan’s stats are better than they appear there too.</p>

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<p>Here’s a list that’s about as precise as the USNews ranking: 2009 Hot 100 Pictures - 1 of 100 - Maxim Girls Photo Gallery | Maxim.com (note to moderators: this web site is entirely “G” rated)</p>

<p>I would say it’s more PG13. I mean, how many boys before the age of 13 would care all that much? Then again, maybe it should be PG10.</p>

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<p>I think Michigan’s are pretty accurate. I heard the acceptance rate this fall was about 50%.</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>You are absolutely right, but perceptions inside the US are sometimes very different from common wisdom overseas and, indeed, from the average opinion held by the academic community itself (which should not be confused with the university administrators who reply to USN&WR’s “peer review” survey).</p>