<p>Just some notable observations from that compiled USNWR ranking (2001-1991):</p>
<ul>
<li>Brown makes a ten notch jump from No. 18 to No. 8 over the course of four years ('93-'97)</li>
<li>UPenn also makes the "ten notch" jump from No. 16 to No. 6 over the course of five years ('94-'99)</li>
<li>Northwestern does the "ten notch" in one single year! (Go Purple!) - from No. 24 ('91) up No. 14 ('92) - then proceeds another five notches in five years to No. 9 in ('97) </li>
<li>Cornell jumps nine spots from No. 15 ('95) to No. 6 ('99) in a span of four years</li>
<li>Cal (Berkeley) does a nose dive of fourteen spots from No. 13 ('91) to a lowly outside "Top 25" - No. 27 in ('97).</li>
<li>CalTech goes from No. 9 (for three straight years '97-'99) then inexplicably jumps to the No. 1 spot on '00! Man I bet the geeks at MIT (always the bridesmaid never the No. 1 bride) were so livid their taped specs steamed up at the mere thought that it might be the ultimate ingenious prank from Pasadena...</li>
<li>But, the "Bob Beaman-Olympian-Like-Jump" Award goes to JHU. Johns Hopkins jumps a whopping twelve spots in one year from No. 22 ('95) to No. 10 ('96) then proceeds to break into the Top 10 to go to No. 7 ('00) </li>
</ul>
<p>Of course the "usual suspects" HYPSM all occupy the 1-5/6/7 spots interchangeably year in, year out (I mean you HAVE to keep SOME semblance of credibility, right?) - the real "fun" / "controversy" (or should we call it "manufactured controversy for the sake of controversy" = 'did you see the latest ranking???' = sell copies") is to "spice it up" a la Vegas Style - "roll the dice, baby! who do we got this year!! - whatever happens at USNWR stays at USNWR!</p>
<p>Let's get real folks!!! You've been took. You've been hoodwinked, bamboozled, led astray, run amok...</p>
<p>It is absolutely ludicrous for any reasonable, educated (heck, uneducated) person to believe that a university (college) "jumps" (or falls) 10 notches over the short span of a year (let alone 12 notches). How does a university "do so well" over the course of a year to merit a leapfrog over 10 other institutions which were deemed "superior" a year (or two/three) ago? Conversely, how does a university "do so poorly" that it drops a similar amount in such a short time frame? Answer: it doesn't. they don't.</p>
<p>Viewing the USNWR decade compilation has been an eye-opener - an instant "top down" view of the insanity of trying to come up with a "legitimate college ranking".</p>
<p>Ivy_grad, I would like to add a couple to your list:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>University of Michigan: Dropped 17 spots in the rankings in a 5 year period, from #7 in 1988 to #24 in 1993. </p></li>
<li><p>Washington University: Improved 12 spots in a 5 year period, from #20 in 1998 to #9 in 2003. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Talk about 5-year plans! LOL</p>
<p>At least the peer assessment score has been far more consistant. As we all know, universities (relative to each other of course) that are 150-300 years old, have dozens (if not hundreds) of departments and 1,000-3,000 professors do not change overnight. They don't even change that much over the course of 10 years. It takes 20-30 years for a university to really change.</p>
<p>
[quote]
- University of Michigan: Dropped 17 spots in the rankings in a 5 year period, from #7 in 1988 to #24 in 1993.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yes of course Mich gets the inexplicable down shaft (much like the other top publics) and Wash U is the best thing since sliced gateway arches...</p>
<p>I think grouping in tiers may be even worse. At least now, you can look and see a #12 school and a #18 school and decide for yourself how similar they are. If you instead have tiers, it prompts more arbitrary cutoffs (kind of like % in top 10%), which are potentially more damaging because now USNWR would have more power to determine whether schools are comparable enough to be allowed to be grouped together, giving the rankings more credence and authority than they currently have.</p>
<p>Gellino, there are clear divisions in quality. H,P,S,Y and M are clearly the top 5. Schools like Cornell, Chicago and Cal are clearly, albeit slightly better than schools like Vanderbilt, Rice and Georgetown. Etc...</p>
<p>
[quote]
Gellino, there are clear divisions in quality. H,P,S,Y and M are clearly the top 5. Schools like Cornell, Chicago and Cal are clearly, albeit slightly better than schools like Vanderbilt, Rice and Georgetown. Etc...
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I disagree. I simply don't think the divisions are that clear at all. Just because convential wisdom or general conscensus tells you an education at Harvard is better than one at Rice doesn't make it true. In fact, I bet there is very little, if any, difference between the educational quality at Cornell and the educational quality at Yale and the educational quality at NYU. Besides, I would rank Cal far, far below Vandy, Rice, and GTown. (I think Cal is by far the most overrated school on US News, but that's just me, as most people seem to greatly disagree. Oh well.) If I videotaped a classroom discussion at Harvard and one at a "lesser" school like Wake Forest and showed them to you without telling you which was which, I'd bet all the money in my checking account that you wouldn't know the difference.</p>
<p>"If I videotaped a classroom discussion at Harvard and one at a "lesser" school like Wake Forest and showed them to you without telling you which was which, I'd bet all the money in my checking account that you wouldn't know the difference."</p>
<p>I don't know if I would go that far. Those schools are far enough apart to me that while you might not notice any difference in the quality of the professor that it may be a noticeable difference through the responses of the students depending on what type of class it was.</p>
<p>1982 Fiske Guide versus 2002 Fiske Guide acceptance rates
added to the US News 1988 versus 2006 acceptance rates
The 2002 Fiske Guide is the only one I own. Some of the differences between US News and Fiske are hard to explain unless the calculation method was different. The 1982 Fiske Guide was the first Fiske Guide and it used 1981 data. Prior to Fiske Guide it was "New York Times".</p>
<p>school, 1988 US News, 2006 US News, US News difference, 1982 Fiske Guide, 2002 Fiske Guide, Fiske difference</p>
<p>
[quote]
If I videotaped a classroom discussion at Harvard and one at a "lesser" school like Wake Forest and showed them to you without telling you which was which, I'd bet all the money in my checking account that you wouldn't know the difference.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yeah, but that's not how you really measure quality. It's a misunderstanding that I see time and time again here on CC - that education quality is determined by the quality of the lectures. The truth is, you as a student will spend relatively little of your time in lecture. Out of all of the waking moments of the week, how much of it is actually spent in a classroom lecture? Maybe 15 hours? You will spend far far more time than that interacting with other students, and THAT is where the difference in quality becomes apparent. When you are in an environment where everybody is amazingly talented and accomplishing great things, then you will tend to want to accomplish great things. But when you are in an environment where a lot of the students are lazy, where they are not really interested in doing anything or learning anything, and are just lounging around doing nothing, then you will tend to be lazy and lounge around and do nothing.</p>
<p>If you compare the faculty quality and resources of Cal vs say UVa, Cal absolutely blows away UVa by any measure. Whether that can translate to classes is always harder to determine. But as far as a collection of top notch scholars, Cal is alone at the top of all state schools and only a few privates can touch it.</p>
<p>A collection of top-notch scholars is not that relevant to an undergrad college experience as compared to the quality of the students around you, especially when the top-notch scholars probably don't want much to do with the undergrads anyway.</p>
<p>this is starting to become another discussion in what defines 'quality' in a school. i hate the current ranking system, but i dont know how one could improve it, which is why grouping schools together makes more sense to me. but again, what type of objective criteria would you use?</p>
<p>if you go by sakky's view, then uva has a more talented undergraduate body than cal, 25-75% sats are 60 and 40 points higher respectively. maybe that negates the slightly more distinguished faculty. while you may argue then that cal has 99% of its undergraduate class in the top 10% - one could also argue that california has one of the weakest primary education system in the country - while virginia has one of the best. oh and while i won't argue that uva's faculty is "worse" than cals - even though i believe that professors at uva or at cal (or at almost any school) can more than adequately teach any class in the undergraduate curriculum to a level at or above their students' level.</p>
<p>oh and overall resource wise, uva's endowment is larger on a whole - and nearly 3x larger than the student/endowment ratio of cals (about 175000/student vs about 61000/student).</p>
<p>now of course i think overall the graduate programs at cal are stronger (with exceptions of course), but at least in my opinion, cal isn't any superior to uva in an undergraduate education.</p>
<p>
[quote]
If I videotaped a classroom discussion at Harvard and one at a "lesser" school like Wake Forest and showed them to you without telling you which was which, I'd bet all the money in my checking account that you wouldn't know the difference.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>hmmm... even money says that the classroom full of students with crimson sweatshirts and "H"s on them isn't Wake Forest...</p>