<p>Both links are to ND</p>
<p>The individual rankings include graduate programs and are assessed completely independently as are Engineering programs.</p>
<p>The overall ranking is a combination of many quantities, including a survey of University Presidents and Provosts, admission rates, retention rates, graduation rates, alumni involvement, faculty and student resources and so on. Private universities often score better on many of these metrics than public universities. In fact, if you look at the [University</a> of Wisconsin](<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/university-of-wisconsin-madison-240444/overall-rankings"]University”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/university-of-wisconsin-madison-240444/overall-rankings) page, you can see that there is listing for Best Public Universities so USNWR realizes that the overall rankings are often skewed toward privates. Just another reason why you should always take these rankings with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>@xraymancs thanks for the info. Do you know of any other lists that are good? I am having a hard time finding lists that rank colleges based on undergraduate academics. </p>
<p>It’s a poor way to pick a college, frankly. The rankings only have a cursory resemblance to reality.
A better way is to read Fiske guides and the like, read student reviews. Try to understand what you want to get out of college and work from there.</p>
<p>@PurpleTitan I’m not trying to pick a college only based on the rankings, i just want to be able to have some info on the academics part of college from a relatively non biased source. </p>
<p>Selectivity plays a part in UW News rankings, so public universities which may have 50% acceptance rates, lose points there as compared to privates such as ND with lower rates of admission. </p>
<p>Academics at UW (as a parent of UW student) are top notch – faculty my student has worked with in the humanities/social sciences are top scholars and great teachers. ND is entirely a different kind of place, about 1/4 the size of undergraduates, smaller departments, a more personal touch with less opportunity for a student to “fall through the cracks.”</p>
<p>Some on CC may disagree with this view, but the international rankings are based more on faculty research (a metric for quality of faculty) than on selectivity, and so are arguably one way to assess quality of faculty/academics. But here is where the conversation gets tricky – many people value accessibility to faculty and class size/student to faculty ratios to be just as, or more important, than quality of scholarship of the faculty doing the teaching. So you will get heated discussions about what is a “more accurate” ranking of schools. </p>
<p>As suggested above, read a variety of sources to get a handle on where schools line up in terms of your priorities, and don’t get hung up on any single way of ranking schools. </p>
<p>@Midwestmomofboys thanks for your opinion. As you seem to have experience in this topic, would you recommend any sources?</p>
<p>Fiske is pretty good for broad info about schools, and also look at school’s own websites. For me, as a parent (with another one getting ready to launch the college search), we looked at broad categories to help organize schools</p>
<p>-- core curriculum (Columbia, Chicago, etc) vs. open curriculum (Brown, Wesleyan, Amherst, Grinnell, Vassar)
– location – urban a must (BU, Columbia, Gtown, GW, Chicago, Macalester)? or is suburban (Haverford, Swat), small urban or rural ok (Grinnell, Williams)?<br>
– size – university vs. LAC/ public vs. private </p>
<p>We visited representative schools in these categories to help our student develop their preferences and priorities and went from there. A key discovery for our student was that he really wanted big and not small at all, so we stopped the LAC visits and concentrated on big publics. </p>
<p>Good luck to you – there is no single “right” ranking in my mind, the goal is to find a swath of schools that meet your goals and priorities (and that you can afford to attend). </p>
<p>Also, future career goals should influence where you look. Any ideas yet?</p>
<p>@PurpleTitan I am undecided on a major, but I am interested in History/Political Science and Chemistry. Eventually I could see my self living in a city/Urban area, so having a college with connections to one would be a good thing. However, I do not think I want a school in a Urban setting. I would prefer one that is in a suburb or has close access to a city.</p>
<p>Any geographic preference? Where are you in-state and are there financial restrictions?</p>
<p>@PurpleTitan I live in Wisconsin (hence the questions about Madison). I consider my self to be a pretty high ranking student (34 ACT , 4.3 GPA) as far as the caliber of schools I am looking at. I would prefer to stay in the Midwest, but I did visit Cornell last week and loved it so I’m pretty open to wherever.</p>
<p>As far as money, my parents have been very quiet on the amount of money they are willing to contribute. They seem to be hesitant to give me a dollar amount until after I found out if I get into a school. We are a middle class family and I would guess an income of around 120000</p>
<p>You should really have the money discussion now, before you start getting your hopes up for School X. No sense applying to a school your parents have no ability to afford and/or no intention of paying for. I can’t tell you the horror stories I’ve heard in the last year of kids being told “Shoot for the Ivies!” for 12+ years, but when the time came to pick, it was “Take the full ride at #187!”</p>
<p>That said, there are far worse schools to have to be “forced” to go to than UW.</p>
<p>Privates have a huge advantage over publics in terms of marketing themselves. They mail to more students–they get more applicants and have more to reject, thus appearing more selective. But something a lot of people don’t know is that they also market to university administrators and faculty to make themselves “top of mind” when these same people are asked for their opinion about their reputation. Do you really think a dean of humanities at, say, North Carolina State has any real knowledge of the overall quality of education at Villanova, or is even qualified to make such a proclamation? Not likely. But if Villanova is making a big push and mailing glossy brochures touting the research and faculty excellence and the papers professors have been published in, the NC State people might have a favorable recollection of Villanova and rate them accordingly.</p>
<p>@MrMom62 I have been attempting to have “the talk” but I don’t think my parents want to commit to any set amount before they know if I am accepted or not. They think they shouldn’t set a limit at say 20k if the school of my dreams is 30k.</p>
<p>I should also mention that there is a group located in my hometown that gives scholarships to high school students based on class rank and the level of schooling a person is going to. Basically they realize that Ivy leagues cost more than in state schools and give substantially different scholarships. 2 years ago my brother got about 5k less in scholarship money than the person one rank below him because my brother was going to Madison vs the other person who was going to Northwestern. </p>
<p>They don’t need to reveal exact numbers, just make sure they are okay with what certain schools cost. Having been through this before with your brother, I assume they know thew realities of what this will all cost, but if you are both in school at the same time, you might get a huge break for the time you are both in. Just realize that will end when he graduates.</p>
<p>@sally305 thanks for the input. Me and my friends can be pretty competitive when it comes to grades and such making it sometimes seem like Madison would be a step down, but I am aware of how good Madison is. Both of my parents as well as my brother attended Madison and loved. While I will be applying to other schools, Madison will definitely be one of the ones I will have a hard time passing up if it comes down to it.</p>
<p>@MrMom62 My dad has stated that if I am planning on pursuing a career where graduate school is necessary than I should choose a school like Madison, which I agree with. This also leads me to believe that they would be okay with me choosing a School like ND ( if I get in) if I am only there for 4 years </p>