US News rankings are meaningless-from mathematics student.

College Search & Selection
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<p>Well, actually, I'm a mechanical engineering student. But all my classes are logic and critical thinking or problem solving based... as a freshman I fell for the US News rankings scam... happy about my University being better than others and worse than the better ones. </p>

<p>But after classes like Multivariable Calculus and 2 physics courses, as well as engineering problem solving course, I realized that US News rankings are meaningless... from a mathematical standpoint that is... trust me I've taken ALOT of Math courses and I am entering my Junior year and will be taking a 300 level differential equations course next semester.</p>

<p>I also have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and my Brain is extremely sensitive to logical fallacies, when something is ill-logical my mind is 100% certain of it.</p>

<p>Ten</a> Reasons to Ignore the U.S. News Rankings</p>

<p>One of the main problems: "Statistical differences are trivial. By listing schools in one-two-three order, U.S. News creates an illusion of precision. Even if you think that the rankings provide useful information, the actual differences between College #7 and College #19 are trivial."</p>

<p>You can't just mathematically quantify something that is too abstract... and you can't make up your own math... but they make millions of dollars... I was falling for it as a freshman it wasn't until I learned all of the math that I did. They also make sure they change the rankings in the middle to ensure people will buy it again year after year otherwise people just use a previous year's rankings. Its a Scam, I guarantee it. They game it too to make sure MIT is on top for engineering.</p>

<p>Here is even more justification, the guy who wrote this article used to work for US News</p>

<p>Scamming</a> the US News College Rankings Scam</p>

<p>"(a) the logical absurdity of adding together completely unrelated statistics to produce a single measure of merit—the key point being that you can produce an astonishing range of different results depending on the relative weight each component factor is assigned. And there is simply no logical, a priori basis for establishing such a weighting objectively. Do SAT scores count 30% of the total score? 32.2%? 18.78234%? (How about zero?) It’s the classic apples + oranges – bananas/kumquats = fruit salad approach to statistics, and is completely meaningless."</p>

<p>This is essentially the root of the problem- the idea of ranking a university in itself is a logical fallacy. Something like an academic institution is simply too abstract and intangible to be quantified by a simple weighted scale. These numbers are unrelated in some cases, so you can't just combine them through made up math to make up a single number. THIS IS A FACT- US NEWS RANKINGS ARE A SCAM. US NEWS almost went banckrupt before creating the rankings- this saved them financially... this is all that is holding US NEWS together</p>

<p>4</a> reasons to ignore U.S. News' college rankings - CBS News</p>

<p>Even if some say they are legitamite, they probably don't know math like I do. Mathematics is mechanical... the problem is states above... say I factor in a component I subjectively consider a good merit... what weight do I give it? I can give it anywhere from 0% to 100% and there is no mathematical or statistical basis to give me an idea of how to weigh the merits... and some merits like reputation don't necessarily dictate quality of education.</p>

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<p>And? This is probably the 3000th post on how their methodology is flawed.
Of course it isn’t possible to accurately rank colleges.</p>

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<p>But bark, they are still making money off this scam. So this isn’t news, but it is a persistent problem. Many people here on CC and out in the real world DO judge based on rankings. The question to ask, then, is why are people so stupid to put weight on rankings?</p>

<p>I will guess that people may not believe US News’ rankings, but they believe other people believe in the rankings. The rankings, though unreal, confer status. Many people aren’t really going after quality, but status is the big prize. Status is worth the $60,000 a year x4. Status is worth going into debt and ruining one’s life over.</p>

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<p>My father went to University Of Colorado Boulder for a bachelors in Music and CSU Sacremento for a master in English, and he never really paid attention to superficial differences in prestige. CU Boulder has a lot of prestige for a state school, but he just went to college based on where he lived. He lived in Sacremento after Colorado so went with Sacremento State… My Mom went to Colorado State University for business and Finance and I also chose Colorado State for Engineering… in my family we just sort of consider college as college… I actually chose Colorado State University for engineering because I didn’t want to leave home in Fort Collins for schools like CU Boulder in Boulder, Colorado School Of Mines, UCCS in Colorado Springs, Denver schools… plus I wasn’t that worried about this imagined prestige. They all pretty much teach the same courses.
come to find out Colorado State has 5.3 average super wal-marts of research space and massive buildings just for engineering and some great professors… I’m plenty happy… I’ve also experienced not so great professors, but you find professors you like and don’t like at every university. Some just suit your learning style better.</p>

<p>A tech at Hewlett Packard in town told me he trained an engineer from MIT and she wasn’t as well prepared to be an engineer as some other engineers… I think it is more about the individual and what one gets out of the education… most universities have pretty similar cirriculum. I’ve taken courses at CSU that were unbelievably difficult… I thought there was no way they could make it any more rigorous… it was getting to the point where valedictorians were struggling in 100 level engineering math courses… then some engineering courses were a breeze… there is a lot of abstract aspects at a college.</p>

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<p>Only high school-er’s worship US News Ranking.</p>

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<p>I’d guess that less than 5% of high schoolers know of USNews rankings, and fewer actually factor them into their college decision.</p>

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<p>I can guarantee that more than 5% of college-bound seniors have heard of the rankings. It could be that only 5% of them, or less, care about them.</p>

<p>Obviously, in the larger scheme of things most people don’t care about the rankings at all. But many of those in the ruling class in the US DO look at them, and in that segment status is very important. If you run a few layers below that class, it doesn’t matter.</p>

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<p>Investment bankers also? Well maybe not specifically US News’ rankings, but they have a reputation of being very school-prestige-conscious, and the few schools that they consider worthy tend to be at the very top of US News’ rankings.</p>

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<p>^^The notion that President Obama needs US News to tell him what colleges to send Malia and Sasha is silly on its face; the ruling class pretty much apply to colleges the old-fashioned way: because they know someone who went to to a particular place, or gave a speech there and were impressed by what they saw, or taught a course- whatever. By and large, they’re not sitting on a can reading the US News.</p>

<p>There may be some correlation between where they send their kids or recruit investment bank boot campers and rankings but it’s probably because be the US News also tends to reward schools that spend money lavishly. Half the schools in the top ten have had to put a construction project on hold because their plans were too ambitious or they couldn’t find a donor. In that sense, the ruling class probably exercises more caution than the affluent middle-class which worries the most about prestige.</p>

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<p>Any ranking that places mid tier UCs over elite public schools like UT, UIUC is laughable. That said, rankings are pointless…everyone already has opinions of colleges which likely wont be swayed by a sales gimmick</p>

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<p>Small differences in ranking are insignificant, but what is “small”? Deltas of ~20 or more, in my opinion, do signal differences that are likely to be meaningful to many applicants and parents. The USNWR #N school is at least likely to be more selective than the #N+20 school. It probably also will have smaller classes and better financial aid. Of course, if you don’t care much about any of that, you can just pick the closest, cheapest school that has the programs you want and where you can get in.</p>

<p>Various rankings and criteria produce different orderings, but often tend to generate similar sets of top schools. Consider the following single-criterion lists:
SAT only: [College</a> Rankings - Top 500 Ranked Colleges - Highest SAT 75th Percentile Scores - StateUniversity.com](<a href=“USA University College Directory - U.S. University Directory - State Universities and College Rankings”>Top 500 Ranked Colleges - Highest SAT 75th Percentile Scores)
Endowment per student only: [Leiter</a> Reports: A Philosophy Blog: Per Student Value of University Endowments…or the rich are even richer than you thought!](<a href=“Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog”>Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog: Per Student Value of University Endowments...or the rich are even richer than you thought!)
Need-blind, full-need schools: [Leiter</a> Reports: A Philosophy Blog: Per Student Value of University Endowments…or the rich are even richer than you thought!](<a href=“Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog”>Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog: Per Student Value of University Endowments...or the rich are even richer than you thought!)
Average class size: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/708190-avg-class-size-4.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/708190-avg-class-size-4.html&lt;/a&gt;
4 year graduation rates: [Highest</a> 4-Year Graduation Rates | Rankings | US News](<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/highest-grad-rate]Highest”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/highest-grad-rate)
PhD production: [The</a> Colleges Where PhD’s Get Their Start | The College Solution](<a href=“http://www.thecollegesolution.com/the-colleges-where-phds-get-their-start/]The”>The Colleges Where PhD's Get Their Start)</p>

<p>Many of the same colleges appear on most of these lists. If these were all random criteria, you’d expect them to generate wildly different sets of top schools. So it’s hard to argue that these criteria (which are the kinds of criteria US News uses) are all meaningless. One could argue that it all ties back to money, that all the “top” schools are chasing similar metrics with their money, and that those aren’t necessarily the best indicators of educational quality. So what is? And why are others ignoring it?</p>

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<p>Another “devil’s advocate” point:
even the weightings applied in the USNWR rankings probably are not completely arbitrary, from a mathematical/statistical perspective.
I don’t know exactly how this sausage is made … but presumably they are using some more-or-less-scientific data modeling techniques to try to replicate the judgements of supposed human experts. They would iteratively adjust the weightings to make their formula’s output produce a better and better match to the expert judgements. This does involve a leap of faith in the expert jugdements. It may also be the case that Robert Morse (or someone else involved in the process) sometimes puts a thumb on the scale to make the results look more like his own preconceived notions of college ranks.</p>

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<p>Exact numbers are meaningless but there’s a significant difference between a school ranked #10 and a school ranked 100. Not all colleges offer the same quality environment but quite a few provide similar quality.
The best way to use the rankings is to make sets of 30, starting from your top school.
For example, if your top school ranks #12, assume schools ranked 12-42 are roughly the same despite varying admission rates, then have a 43-73 set, etc.
Sets of 25 or 20 can also be used but below 20 there’s really no point.</p>

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<p>People aren’t that complicated. In all the time I’'ve spent bumming around CC I can’t remember a single thread that ever began with the question, “Which college has the smallest classes?” I think it’s a concern, but probably way below certain threshold questions like “How am I going to pay for this?”, “Will my kid like the place?”, and “Can my kid get a job when this is all over?” Almost everything else is a proxy for those three criteria.</p>

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<p>Then you probably should stay far, far away from many/most? social science courses, all of which make hundreds of assumptions in the the development of their own curricular research of abstract criteria. :)</p>

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<p>However, these characteristics can be checked more directly if they are of concern.</p>

<p>Selectivity can be checked in various ways. Class sizes are often visible on the on-line class schedules. Financial aid can be estimated using the school’s net price calculator.</p>

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<p>^ That’s true. If you care about one of those characteristics more than anything else, by all means, look up the numbers for it. Although, it’s a lot easier to look them up in a single-criterion ranking list than to slog school by school through class schedules and net price calculators. That approach presumes you have some candidate schools to begin with (unless you want to go through all 2000+ colleges). </p>

<p>In fact, many people do have a few likely candidates without having to look very far. That’s because most students go to college within a fairly short distance from home. So if that’s what you want to do, yes, just look up the NPCs and admission standards for a half dozen or so local schools.</p>

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<p>Really? Compare #8 Duke to #28 Tufts:</p>

<p>Middle 50% SAT scores: Duke 1350-1530, Tufts 1360-1500
Classes with less than 20 students: Duke 71.6%, Tufts 69.1%
Classes with 50 or more students: Duke 6%, Tufts 6%
Financial aid: Duke meets 100% of need for 100% of students with need, Tufts meets 100% of need for 98.5% of students with need (probably Tufts is just being more honest, or more careful in its reporting)</p>

<p>These are really trivial differences. Conclusion: don’t make blanket assumptions. If you care about selectivity, class sizes, and financial aid, then LOOK IT UP; don’t just blindly assume that the higher-ranked school is better on every metric, because it may not be.</p>

<p>Then why is Duke ranked so much higher than Tufts? Well, a lot of it is that Duke has a much higher PA score (4.5 v. 3.7 for Tufts). Duke also has and spends a lot more money (financial resources rank #12 v. #32 for Tufts). And Duke has a higher alumni giving rate (36% v. 21% for Tufts). Finally, Duke has a marginally higher 6-year graduation rate (94% v. 90% for Tufts, with the latter school taking an additional hit in its US News ranking because it underperforms its “expected graduation rate” by 2 points). Does any of that matter to the quality of the undergraduate experience at either school? Well, more money and more highly regarded faculty ¶ might make a marginal difference, but it’s hard to see how the alumni giving rate affects you very much. And the differences to the quality of the student experience are probably not nearly as great as might be suggested by the 20-place difference in overall ranking.</p>

<p>I would also suggest that the further down the rankings you go, the more trivial a 20-place difference becomes. There’s really very little difference between, say, #92 Stony Brook and #112 Kansas. You can see that in their raw scores. After US News crunches all its numbers, it comes up with a raw score for each school; the rankings are then derived by counting down the raw scores from highest to lowest. #92 Stony Brook has a raw score of 49; #112 Kansas has a raw score of 46. This suggests that even US News thinks there’s not much difference by its own metrics.</p>

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<p>^^Tufts is not need-blind, and those off of the WL may not receive full aid.</p>

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<p>Well that’s an impressive set of courses. And with your logical mind you must be downright furious over the way Forbes magazine constantly ranks everything in sight. E.g.: The Top 10 Cities, The 100 Most Powerful Women, The 100 Best Small Towns, The Top 10 Tourist Attractions; The Top 10 Best Cities for Newlyweds, The Top 10 Best Places to Raise a Family, and on and on. </p>

<p>And you must be totally apoplectic over People magazine’s annual rankings of The World"s Most Beautiful Women and The World’s Sexiest Men.</p>