<p>Any thoughts?</p>
<p>About what?</p>
<p>About the ranking after the scandal.</p>
<p>It shows that Penn State is still considered a very strong academic institution. No surprise there.</p>
<p>Penn State’s ranking among public schools is unchanged. UC-Irvine and U. Washington traded places. That’s the only change in the top-16.</p>
<p>^Oops, didn’t pay attention to the ties. UCD moved up to tie UCSD this year. UCI didn’t take U. Washington’s old spot (tied with UCSB and Wisconsin). It moved up to just below that.</p>
<p>The undergrad business ranking tells a similar story: Penn State slipped one spot overall, but remained at 11 among public schools. The undergrad engineering ranking actually improved from 17 to 16 overall, and from 9 to 8 among public schools.</p>
<p>One would assume the Counselor Ranking would show no mercy, but apparently that wacky bunch did not receive their marching order from CC. Penn State surged from 51 to 44 overall, and from 15 to 10 among public schools! What’s going on here? Are they a cult, too? :)</p>
<p>In short, among public schools, PSU undergrad #13 (no change), business #11 (no change), engineering # 8 (up 1), counselor #10 (up 5).</p>
<p>Looking the other way…#1</p>
<p>^Sigh! This is what I meant. If those counselors gave any credence to remarks like this they would have buried Penn State. This is one ranking that’s 100% opinion-based, and the opinions are not from some college eggheads, but from people who live and breathe college applications. One would assume this ranking would be easily swayed by the public opinion du jour. I’m not saying this ranking has any value. I’m just surprised it went up so much for Penn State.</p>
<p>"…we asked guidance counselors from a nationwide sampling of public high schools in the 2012 U.S. News Best High Schools rankings that were gold, silver, or bronze medal winners, as well as from the largest private independent schools nationwide, to tell us which National Universities and National Liberal Arts Colleges they think offer the best undergraduate education to their students. They rated the universities on a scale of 1 to 5 (with 5 being the top score) or marked “don’t know” if they were unfamiliar with that particular college…"</p>
<p>troy12 (and all the other pitchfork-and-torch CC types) What a cheap, simplistic, uninformed, knee-jerk shot. You make yourself look bad, not Penn State.</p>
<p>Cheap…yes
Simplistic…Yes
Uninformed…No
Knee-jerk…No
Joe Pa did look the other way whether you want to admit it or not. All he had to do was stop that animal from coming onto campus after he “retired” and no one would look at Joe Pa differently. Penn State is a great school but what annoys those of use who didn’t drink the Penn State cool aid is the continual defense of Joe Pa to this day. Somehow Penn State feels they were wronged instead of just accepting Joe Pa was a flawed man. He was a great coach and did a lot for the community but he should not still be treated like a God. For the record, I thought the sanctions were too severe. I was just having some insensitive fun. It’s so easy to get you guys riled up. FYI: I’m not going to respond to all the hate that will come my way.</p>
<p>Never mind.</p>
<p>No one on this thread was talking about Joe Paterno. Except you. We were talking about the fact that Penn State is still a great academic school.</p>
<p>And we react because it seems, to some people, that the sum total of Penn State is the Sandusky scandal. Nothing else matters. Simplistic, indeed.</p>
<p>Wow, indeed. Two mistakes in two paragraphs, indeed. 1: Columbia09 was talking about the scandal, indeed. 2: I said Penn State was a great school so I obviously don’t think the scandal is the sum total of Penn State, indeed. It’s something you guys will always have to deal with, indeed. Again, stop playing the victim, indeed.</p>
<p>I said no one was talking about Joe Paterno, not the scandal. They are not one and the same. I know you said it was a great school but then you went on about how people can’t stop defending Paterno. No one was talking about defending Paterno in this thread. You brought it up.</p>
<p>Commented
Rethought
Deleted</p>
<p>Not hate mail, just fact: Your comments make you irrelevant, Troy12.</p>
<p>I agree with you, nohook. I also happened to note that one component of methodology has changed (How U.S. News Calculates …):</p>
<p>“There was one small methodology change made for the U.S. News Best Colleges 2013 edition rankings. This year, for the first time, the most recent two years of survey results from spring 2011 and spring 2012 were averaged to compute the high school counselor reputation score. This was done to increase the number of ratings each college received from the high school counselors and to reduce the year-to-year volatility in the average counselor score.” </p>
<p>Grcxx3, I like your style:)</p>
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<p>Doesn’t this mean Penn State’s Spring 2012 score was even higher than what the already surprising ranking would suggest?</p>