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Sorry; I did not readback. Why, what’s the news about the methodology for this year?</p>
<p>And, yes, JHU would be something like #17. So, that means Berkeley and the rest of the schools ranked below it will go down.</p>
<p>“I still don’t get how Penn makes it into the top 20”</p>
<p>"I still don’t get how people can be so ignorant. "</p>
<p>I thought you guys from Happy Valley were supposed to be happy.</p>
<p>still havent leaked???</p>
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<p>While I realize that this is the thread where people freely share expressions of idle speculation and wishful thinking, and that you continue to demonstrate a very tentative understanding of how the USNews rankings really work, I’d like to suggest to you to spend some time reading the methodology and learning how the 1 to 100 score impacts the ranking. Obviously, you seem oblivious to the fact that there are a number of hurdles to jump for a school to leapfrog several schools at once.</p>
<p>Do you realize that just as the difference between Brown and the trio of Emory, Vanderbilt, and Rice is a full four points, the difference between those three schools and your beloved Cal is also FOUR points? Fwiw, 2 points separate Notre Dame and Cal and only one separates Cal and CMU. </p>
<p>Since it is extremely doubtful that the PA will propel Cal even higher, which category do you think Morse might be able to milk this time? Do you really believe that the categories that reflect financial and faculty resources have improved at Cal and deteriorated at the schools ranked above itself? Did Cal magically lowered its class sizes, lowered its student/faculty ratio, increase its alumni donations, or improved its selectivity ratio in a manner superior to its peers?</p>
<p>At the end, none of us knows the depth of Morse’s 2011 bag of tricks, and none of us can predict the outcome of the rankings. However, it is not hard to see how the REAL underlying numbers do not offer any valid reason or support for substantial changes in the rankings in the 16 to 25 range. And this with or without changes in methodology!</p>
<p>I really don’t understand these overall top 50 lists. A student who is looking at schools like MIT and Caltech is not the same student as someone looking at Harvard and Yale. It just seems obnoxious to rank schools like this. That said, I’m glad to see my school in the top 50.</p>
<p>I think RPI might move up this year because they’ve gotten more competitive. However, they have had other issues…</p>
<p>Schmaltz - Happy Valley is Penn State (Big Ten), not Penn (Ivy League). Perhaps that is why you don’t get how Penn gets into the top 20.</p>
<p>benellis - there actually quite a lot of cross admits between MIT and Harvard for those interested in the sciences.</p>
<p>I just don’t understand how USNWR considers a school as most popular simply because of the yield rate. Does USNWR really thinks most people even heard about BYU far less applying to it? Since yield is factored in, I feel sorry for schools like Tulane, U of R, & BU.</p>
<p>[Most</a> Popular Schools: National Universities - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2010/03/05/most-popular-schools-national-universities.html]Most”>http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2010/03/05/most-popular-schools-national-universities.html)</p>
<p>my guess is that MIT has a lot of cross admits with Harvard, Princeton, Cornell and Stanford.</p>
<p>Harvard because of its sciences and proximity to MIT
Cornell because of its engineering
Stanford and Princeton because of their sciences and engineering</p>
<p>As I have written a number of times, Tulane has undertaken a strategy of getting better academic students by flooding the top 10-20% or so of high achieving students with literature. They fully well know this will “destroy” their yield, but they have successfully improved the academic averages of their incoming classes, which was no small achievement since based on SAT scores they were already in the top 30 for national universities. Other schools are starting to undertake the same strategy, as outlined in articles by the NY Times. In addition, with the common app and the ease of applying online, it seems completely backwards for USNWR to think about adding yield as a parameter. Back when people applied to maybe 4-5 schools, all except maybe the safety being similar, the idea of yield reflecting the kind of preference USNWR is claiming might have made some sense. But given the reality of today’s admissions process, this line of reasoning by Morse is absurd. It is just as absurd to look at admissions % as a measure of quality, for pretty much the same reasons.</p>
<p>The ludicrousnous of using this as a measure is proven in that Nebraska has a higher yield than Yale. Or even call it the same. No one is going to argue that Nebraska is a “better” school than Yale or even close to equal, in the sense of academics at least. So clearly there is a heavy regional and economic factor here. Until they can factor that out, on that basis alone using yield makes no sense. It still has other flaws, but USNWR’s own list points out its own uselessness.</p>
<p>fallenchemist, ok, thanks for the info…I was wondering why the low yield rate for a school the quality of Tulane.</p>
<p>If the marketing approach increases the quality of the incoming students, then the yield will not be of importance. Didn’t UChicago do a similar program recently?</p>
<p>John - yes I believe they did.</p>
<p>BC is getting top 30 this year. you can count on that</p>
<p>fallenchemist so this must be why Tulane has such a low acceptance rate. (27% if I’m not mistaken) They sacrifice their yield to appear as selective as the top 20 schools and thus improve their ranking. I’m not sure if Tulane actually achieves it’s target class year by year but if they do then I guess it’s fine. (Well, unless people actually take the most “popular” colleges rankings seriously.)</p>
<p>In regards to Penn, people argue that it shouldn’t be the 4th best Ivy, and that in fact Columbia should win that title. Well, USNWR simply just ranks the “undergraduate” program of these colleges. I have no doubt that if Morse decided to rank the colleges as overall institutions, Columbia would edge out Penn (who knows? probably by a long shot) but we’re talking undergraduate program here and Penn deserves to be #4. After from Brown, Penn is the ivy with the most number of happy students and there is definitely a reason for that.</p>
<p>cltdad, stop pulling my leg about Penn. I suppose next you’re going to tell me that Northwestern isn’t in Boston.</p>
<p>"I suppose next you’re going to tell me that Northwestern isn’t in Boston. "</p>
<p>But ctldad is correct in that Penn State is the school in Happy Valley, not Penn. It’s not like he’s making things up. Just stop.</p>
<p>Schmaltz, please stop your nonsense</p>
<p>it is very obvious that Northwestern was named for the Great Northwest, hence its location, not far away from Univ. of Washington</p>
<p>
You are completely correct that their strategy has the dual effect of resulting in a lower acceptance rate (generally considered “good”) but also a lower yield (generally considered “bad”). However, I believe you are incorrect in the motivation you ascribe. Acceptance rate only counts for 1.5% of the USNWR ranking, so a move in the downward direction from, say, 40% to 25% might, at most, make a difference of one or two slots, everything else staying constant. Given the cost of the marketing pieces, buying the mailing list, doing the mailings, personnel to handle all the responses, etc., not to mention that when they do manage to “snare” students that would otherwise have attended Duke, Vandy, WUSTL or wherever it is because they also offer huge merit scholarships. It seems highly unlikely moving up a couple of slots in USNWR at this tremendous cost is their motivation. Not to mention that your rationale is pretty cynical. Since Tulane has seen a strong increase in the average SAT score as well as the number of students in the top 10% of their high school class, isn’t it more plausible that their motive was to actually achieve one of their primary missions, which is to have the strongest student body it can attract?</p>
<p>“Not to mention that your rationale is pretty cynical.”</p>
<p>My rationale wasn’t cynical at all as you put it. They may not have been trying to improve their ranking (which I wasn’t trying to bash Tulane at all with that statement) but I also did state that it is perfectly fine if they want to accept just 27% of their applicants. After all, when you think about it, if most schools knew whether the applicants would choose the school or not, they would be much more selective than they already are.</p>
<p>Either way, they’re in for a rude surprise once the rankings are launched–since as said, yield will be factored in.</p>
<p>House of London - Maybe you didn’t mean it to be cynical, but in fact you ascribed to them the motive of wanting to appear as selective as top 20 schools. That is exactly what you said, and that would be a less than noble motivation. Given that there is an alternative, and I think more clearly plausible, explanation, what you said is virtually the definition of cynical, if a somewhat mild case. In any event, it doesn’t matter so much. But I will certainly take you at your word that you did not mean it that way. You are right that a lack of a crystal ball is the bane of most admissions offices.</p>
<p>From what I read on these threads, it sounds to me like USNWR might or might not consider yield as a factor. Do you have more updated info? And even if they do, it will totally depend on the weighting factor as to how much difference it makes. If they do include it as a relatively significant factor, Nebraska will probably move ahead of Duke! Frankly, I have been saying for some time that the USNWR rankings are a travesty. If they include yield in the equation, it would just further show how clueless they are. They should get rid of admission % also. Two sides of the same coin. Of course they should just get rid of the rankings, but they make way too much money from it. How’s that for cynical, lol.</p>
<p>Bottom line, Tulane effectively used the marketing efforts to increase the quality of students attending the university, witnessed by the higher SAT scores and percent ranking in top ten percent of their high school class. The tertiary results were that the acceptance rate decreased and the yield dropped.</p>
<p>(note: fallenchemist, you can send me the "under the table 20 bucks by mail at the address I PM’ed you, ha!)</p>