<p>USNews rankings shouldn’t matter beyond 10 or so.</p>
<p>Also notice Texas A&M dropped 7 spots, and Vermont dropped 10 spots. I have the magazine now!! :)</p>
<p>Wait so…the high school counselor ratings…they are supposed to be taken seriously when Caltech is rated 17th nationally? What…I don’t even…</p>
<p>I have no affiliation with Caltech in any way, but this just goes to show you that you can’t actually ask academic oriented questions to people who failed to get into academia and are stuck in a low paying average desk job. And you can’t blame them, why would a random high school counselor who really doesn’t get payed more or less for knowing Caltech’s real rep care about knowing Caltech’s rep? In the end of the day, they still just get their 50k/yr and go home. I’m sure there are great high school counselors and some are even life changing mentors; however, the reality is that a majority of counselors are just average Joe run-of-the-mill middle class, zero academically-oriented desk workers. </p>
<p>This just makes USNews a laughing stock. I ask again, why is Caltech rated 17th (below Cornell, Notre Dame, Carnegie Mellon)?!?!</p>
<p>Granted that the counselors might not know much, but how exactly are YOU sure that Caltech provides a better education than Cornell or Notre Dame? That is the question being asked, not about reputation. It’s known as quite the pressure cooker from my friends. And you can’t major in anything outside of science or engineering (not all of which are great). As compared to business or economics at MIT.</p>
<p>Even if these counselors aren’t in a high paying job (which for some of the more affluent high schools is doubtful), what exactly do they have to gain by ranking some colleges poorly? They still give the usual suspects their due.</p>
<p>Even despite all this, Caltech is not truly “17th” on an absolute scale in that ranking. The ties really distort things. The difference between a 4.8 and 4.6 on these rankings is a bit exaggerated.</p>
<p>Ah, the old “Who died and made you king” (aka who do you think you are that you are so sure you know better) response. </p>
<p>Well to answer that, I can point to other rankings that put Caltech at 1 (Times) and point out that USNews actually used to have Caltech as the undisputed number 1 many years ago (we are talking zero ties for that position here) which actually created a really big stir behind closed doors as the Ivy League Alums were pretty discontent and the next year Caltech fell and never came close to HYP levels afterwards. (See here: [‘U.S</a>. News’ rankings embroiled in controversy—again | Sep 8, 2000](<a href=“yaleherald.com”>yaleherald.com) )</p>
<p>Also, you kind of discredit your later sentences with your first sentence. The fact that most people major in STEM at Caltech or how hard it is proves no correlation with how well Caltech teaches its students which you pointed out is what the rankings are truly supposed to measure. So your point there is moot. In addition, it’s a little known fact (see even CC goers, the nerds of college prestige and all that jazz don’t know) but nonetheless very true: </p>
<p>You actually can major in social sciences at Caltech, and Caltech has Harvard quality professors in the social sciences teaching English, Philosophy of Science, Political Science, Business, History etc etc (again, all of which are taught by renown professors who are mostly HYP caliber) which are completely open to students to major in. It appears you mistook that as well because you can very well major in things “outside of science or engineering,” so unfortunately the high school counselors are as ignorant as well which is somewhat disappointing but expected. </p>
<p>[Caltech:</a> Humanities and Social Sciences](<a href=“http://www.hss.caltech.edu/ss]Caltech:”>http://www.hss.caltech.edu/ss)</p>
<p>Edit: I should also note that note only can you major in these great humanity fields at Caltech, but you also get pretty much the best, graduate student quality attention, and education possible with Caltech’s 3:1 student to faculty ratio. Honestly, it’s a no brainer. Out of all the universities I could have picked on to accuse USNews of shamming, I didn’t just choose Caltech for no reason. It’s the only one that is blatantly obvious that proves a point. That and coupled with the fact that it was embroiled in controversy before which had it at rank 1 without ties and then gone forever by the lobbying of the HYP alumni base of the magazine financiers.</p>
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<p>Why do counselors rate the way they do? Maybe they are ignorant about some of the schools you most respect. Or, maybe they simply value different things in a college than you do. For all we know, the counselors would agree that Caltech is academically stronger than some schools that, for whatever reasons, they rate higher.</p>
<p>The counselor represents the informed man in the street. We don’t know exactly why they vote the way they do, but collectively, they may have good insights into factors that the rankings otherwise would miss. I believe that’s the argument for including counselor ratings.</p>
<p>Why do counselors rate the way they do? Maybe they are ignorant about some of the schools you most respect. Or, maybe they simply value different things in a college than you do. For all we know, the counselors would agree that Caltech is academically stronger than some schools that, for whatever reasons, they rate higher.</p>
<p>The counselor represents the informed man in the street. We don’t know exactly why they vote the way they do, but collectively, they may have good insights into factors that the rankings otherwise would miss. I believe that’s the argument for including counselor ratings. </p>
<p>Do counsellors really know, or care to know, all that much about national universities? When I was in high school (a public HS in NYC), mostly they referred the academically strong students to the SUNYs: Binghamton, Stony Brook, New Paltz usually, as well as NYU for a particularly ambitious student. That was it, there were hardly any mentions of other national schools. If you asked about them, you were directed to the Barron’s or Princeton Review guides to research on your own. My guess is, at least at the public schools, their emphasis is on the local schools that give good value.</p>
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<p>It seems you’re right. This is listed on the webpage for the guidance counselor rankings:</p>
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<p>It’s certainly debatable what ‘BUE’ means. Different counselors might put different emphasis on it. For some, Caltech’s unparalleled student to faculty ratios might give it an edge over Cornell and ND; for others, it’s lack of breadth (especially in humanities) might make them give it a lower rank than Cornell or ND. </p>
<p>As far as i know, Caltech’s the ONLY elite university which lacks its level of breadth; And it certainly doesn’t help that ‘that other school across the country’ is much more well rounded.</p>
<p>I think i agree with Blah, at least, that it isn’t immediately obvious that Caltech offers a better education. For that, argument is needed (which g0ld3n seems to provide in later posts.)</p>
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<p>I think you’re asking the wrong question because you’re making the wrong assumption: you’re assuming that if the counselor rated a university a certain way, he had a reason for doing so. His reason (i imagine you assume) is based on evidence and is done in good faith; this is opposed to some gains he might make from some conspiracy that someone might conjure up.</p>
<p>I think what’s more likely the case is that there are several universities that GCs are unaffiliated with, and Caltech’s probably one of them. Given that Caltech’s students body is largely composed of elite students (valedictorians, USAMO participants, etc.) how many high schools have students that even apply to Caltech? There are probably several across the country that don’t have any applicants, or that jump from year to year. Even in the top ranked high schools, if students apply, they might not be accepted. So, do counselors end up putting a lot of time analyzing and keeping up to date with a university that a majority of their students probably will never apply to? It’s possible, but I doubt it.</p>
<p>I would imagine a majority of these counselors who rate it as a 5 do so because they’ve heard its a great school; those that rate it as a four probably rate MIT as a 5, and since Caltech’s ‘not MIT’ they rate it as a 4. </p>
<p>But this is all just conjecture, so take it with a grain of salt. The only people who know how (and why) the GCs vote is the GCs themselves.</p>
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<p>And here’s the problem with Caltech. Someone might argue (as i noted above) that it lacks the breadth of its peers; however, someone else might note that any student who’s interested in majoring in business or economics wouldn’t be applying to Caltech. Additionally, if Caltech students wanted to apply to an MBA, or a JD program, they’d have a glowing degree and skills to be able to do so.</p>
<p>Do i think Caltech students miss out by not having the breadth of their peers? Certainly, but someone might persuade me the the contrary. They’re a very selective group of individuals who have probably been practicing science for years. They know it’s what they want to do, or at least something they’ll enjoy doing for the next four years while their in college.</p>
<p>Overall i think Caltech provides the best education in the world, for a particular type of student. But this student is very specialized, and the vast majority of students in the country would be much better served by attending a different university.</p>
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<p>From what i’ve read, Caltech professors >> H. Professors. While Caltech does have HYP level professors, it only has a few of them. Caltech, for example, has NO philosophy department. It’s not the only school that doesn’t have one. Georgiatech has no philosophy department either. but it’s certainly the only elite university that lacks a philosophy department. The reason they lack a department is because they only have like 1 or 2 HYP level professors in phil. as opposed to most other departments which have 20, 40, or more.</p>
<p>Ultimately, i think Caltech’s the most odd university in the US. It never quite made up its mind about whether it wanted to be a research university, or a liberal arts college. It’s research and professor quality are certainly on par with the former; its class size, student to faculty ratio, and lack of breadth is on par with the latter. Given this, it’s easy to see why some, like warblersrule, say that it should be removed from the rankings. I think that’s a bit extreme. What i will say, though, is that until it gets the breadth that HYPSM have, it will never be truly considered their peer, by the layman (which probably includes the guidance counselor.)</p>
<p>I think it’s funny that whenever a top 25 college drops people seem to think it’s because of a conspiracy or try to discredit the ranking that they praised the year before for increasing their schools ranking</p>
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<p>I think this is by far your most important statement, and basically what I was trying to say but in a less coherent way. I basically agree with most of the things you said except that the fact that Caltech has no philosophy department it implies that you can’t get a balanced philosophy education. You can still become a student of one of their very knowledgeable professors and they can give you a pretty rigorous basic philosophy run down/education (at least enough to get into a grad program and get good LORs). </p>
<p>So what I was saying is that you are right, the most likely reason Caltech is rated lower is lack of depth which should be zero reason for rating it lower. The fact that you pointed out counselors equivalent to laymen is what I was trying to point out in my entire post. Perhaps I should have blatantly just said it: counselors are equivalent to laymen in their knowledge and rating pattern, they should not be taken more seriously.</p>