USNews Best Colleges 2013 - Stop speculating!

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Not sure why people are still speculating. The rankings for 2013 have been up for a while: <a href="http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/data%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/data&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>1 Harvard University</p>

<p>1 Princeton University</p>

<p>3 Yale University</p>

<p>4 Columbia University</p>

<p>4 University of Chicago</p>

<p>6 Massachusetts Institute of Technology</p>

<p>6 Stanford University</p>

<p>8 Duke University</p>

<p>8 University of Pennsylvania</p>

<p>10 California Institute of Technology</p>

<p>10 Dartmouth College</p>

<p>12 Northwestern University</p>

<p>13 Johns Hopkins University</p>

<p>14 Washington University in St. Louis</p>

<p>15 Brown University</p>

<p>15 Cornell University</p>

<p>17 Rice University</p>

<p>17 University of Notre Dame</p>

<p>17 Vanderbilt University</p>

<p>20 Emory University</p>

<p>21 Georgetown University</p>

<p>21 University of California--Berkeley</p>

<p>23 Carnegie Mellon University</p>

<p>24 University of California--Los Angeles</p>

<p>24 University of Southern California</p>

<p>24 University of Virginia</p>

2

<p>UChicago moved up, Stanford should be higher</p>

3

<p>It may be the same in the rarefied air of the top 25 but there is a lot of movement in the rsst of the top 100.</p>

4

<p>Wake Forest fell out</p>

5

<p>1 Williams College</p>

<p>2 Amherst College</p>

<p>3 Swarthmore College</p>

<p>4 Middlebury College</p>

<p>4 Pomona College</p>

<p>6 Bowdoin College</p>

<p>6 Wellesley College</p>

<p>8 Carleton College</p>

<p>9 Haverford College</p>

<p>10 Claremont McKenna College</p>

<p>10 Vassar College</p>

<p>11 Davidson College</p>

<p>12 Harvey Mudd College</p>

<p>14 United States Naval Academy</p>

<p>14 Washington and Lee University</p>

<p>16 Hamilton College</p>

<p>17 Wesleyan University</p>

<p>18 Colby College</p>

<p>18 Colgate University</p>

<p>18 Smith College</p>

<p>18 United States Military Academy</p>

<p>22 Bates College</p>

<p>22 Grinnell College</p>

<p>24 Macalester College</p>

<p>24 Scripps College</p>

6

<p>Definitely feel that UChicago is now getting recognized for its improvements to the school and its decreased admissions rate, and #4 should be no surprise (disclaimer: c/o 2014 at the U of C, so a bit of bias).</p>

7

<p>You should not worry as everyone looks at those rankings with a bias. For instance, one might point out that both schools that are currently ranked in fourth position most definitely learned how to maximize the presentation of their numbers, all the while keeping their CDS form away from prying eyes! </p>

<p>What should come as no surprise is, as it has been shown in the past, is the increasing talent for credulity in Bob Morse’s shop.</p>

8

<p>Chicago’s probably overrated; Wake Forest was probably overrated; Stanford’s probably underrated; and Caltech’s definitely underrated.</p>

<p>USC was slightly overrated, but is probably where it should be now. I hope this means i’ll stop hearing how ‘USC is ranked higher than UCLA now.’</p>

9

<p>So it’s just HYP right? Can’t be Chymps lol</p>

10

<p>

</p>

<p>Yup, by 1 spot!!! lol </p>

<p>I honestly could not figure out how this could have happened when all academic indicators at tOSU have vastly improved… My only rationale would be that this year’s PA Survey were conducted throughout the worst months of tOSU football scandal (March to June). Whereas most of the negative lights on PSU, Emory & UVA were fortunate enough to have avoided this particular period. My PA argument is also based on the fact that tOSU also dropped from #8 to #16 in the newest “Up-and-Coming” ranking this year which is 100% PA based.</p>

<p>[Up</a> and Coming Schools |Top National Universities | US News Best Colleges](<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/up-and-coming?src=stats]Up”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/up-and-coming?src=stats)</p>

11

<p>xiggi - What makes you say that other schools are not as good as Columbia/Chicago at presenting their numbers?</p>

12

<p>Columbia (and now Chicago) over Stanford is amusing. </p>

<p>Caltech might be a notch or two too below where it should be, but it’s only going to be way underrated in the eyes of this board. People simply do not revere Caltech like they do some of these other schools because it has nothing going for it outside of its academic reputation. I’ve met a lot of people who would simply refuse to go to Caltech because it’s such a miserable experience.</p>

13

<p>Xiggi, do you know what the Peer Assessment and Counselor Rankings are for the USNWR?</p>

14

<p>Is there an equation in USNWR’s methodology that shows what variables they looked at and what weight each carries? Does a tie mean not statistically significant?</p>

15

<p>

</p>

<p>Could it be that some schools have presented steady and entirely plausible numbers for a number of years, while Chicago and Columbia came up with noticeable improvements after reworking the way they answer the surveys. </p>

<p>Oh, the power of the eraser and magic pen! And the ability to work in the shroud of quasi secrecy!</p>

16

<p>

</p>

<p>Yes, they are online. Which one do you need to know? </p>

<p>PS I won’t post all of them! :)</p>

17

<p>See if that works</p>

<p>



Schools...  Harv    Pton    Yale    Chic    Colu    Stan    MIT Duke    Penn    Calt
Overall Score   100 100 99  95  95  94  94  93  93  92
HS score    4.9 4.9 4.9 4.6 4.8 4.9 4.9 4.7 4.7 4.6
PA score    4.9 4.8 4.8 4.6 4.6 4.9 4.9 4.5 4.4 4.6

</p>

18

<p>I don’t know how to quote things, but in response to this:</p>

<p>"Could it be that some schools have presented steady and entirely plausible numbers for a number of years, while Chicago and Columbia came up with noticeable improvements after reworking the way they answer the surveys. </p>

<p>Oh, the power of the eraser and magic pen! And the ability to work in the shroud of quasi secrecy!"</p>

<p>That doesn’t rule out the possibility that other schools already answer the surveys advantageously, while UChi and Columbia only recently learned how.</p>

19

<p>Does anybody else agree with me that its kind of stupid to re-rank the colleges every year? What can possibly drastically change THAT much in the short span of a year? Unless of course some catastrophic event happens. Every 5 years or 10 years, definitely as real changes can be seen over that period of time, but one school year? I don’t see what could drastically change over the course of one year.</p>

20

<p>^^ </p>

<p>Yes, everything is possible, even when not really plausible. It is also possible that Columbia and Chicago might decide to make their CDS form public, and that Columbia will start reporting correct numbers. Possible but not so probable!</p>

<p>Feel free to disagree with me!</p>