USNews Best Colleges 2013 - Stop speculating!

[bruno123]

<p>@Sam: yes, they do. The 6-year graduation rate, although higher, is still lower than the rates for Caltech’s peers though.</p>

<p>Anyway, my point was that having a lower graduation rate doesn’t mean a college is necessarily worse than others. Graduation rates alone account for 18 % of the USN&WR scores and “graduation rate performance” is another full 7.5 %.</p>

[david05]

<p>^Invasion
Chicago did not draw the very best students among the top 7 schools if judged by its double digits acceptance rate, but Chicago produced the very best students. One example, 30 graduates from Chicago won Nobel prize, the number is only behind Harvard and Columbia, Stanford has 7 and MIT has 29 graduates who won. [List</a> of Nobel laureates by university affiliation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_by_university_affiliation]List”>List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation - Wikipedia) Also Chicago is improving a lot on college admission issue, SATs for the Class of 2015 are higher than Stanford and MIT if you could look into College Board document. <a href=“BigFuture College Search”>BigFuture College Search.
I do respect MIT and Stanford, they are among the best universities in USA and also in the world.</p>

[texaspg]

<p>Do any of the top 5 (at least those with engineering schools) even have an engineering school in top 20?</p>

[UCBChemEGrad]

<p>Best Undergraduate Teaching:

1. Dartmouth
2. Princeton
3. Miami - Oxford
4. Brown
5. Yale
6. William & Mary
7. Michigan
8. Duke
9. Berkeley
10. Chicago
11. Maryland - Baltimore
12. Notre Dame
13. UNC
14. Wake Forest
15. Stanford</p>

[UCBChemEGrad]

<p>2013 PA:</p>

<ol>
<li>Harvard University 4.9</li>
<li>Massachusetts Institute of Technology 4.9</li>
<li>Stanford University 4.9</li>
<li>Princeton University 4.8</li>
<li>Yale University 4.8</li>
<li>University of California-Berkeley 4.7</li>
<li>California Institute of Technology 4.6</li>
<li>Columbia University 4.6</li>
<li>Cornell University 4.6</li>
<li>Johns Hopkins University 4.6</li>
<li>University of Chicago 4.6</li>
<li>Duke University 4.5</li>
<li>Brown University 4.4</li>
<li>Dartmouth College 4.4</li>
<li>Northwestern University 4.4</li>
<li>University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 4.4</li>
<li>University of Pennsylvania 4.4</li>
<li>University of Virginia 4.3</li>
<li>Carnegie Mellon University 4.2</li>
<li>University of California-Los Angeles 4.2</li>
<li>University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill 4.2</li>
<li>Georgetown University 4.1</li>
<li>Georgia Institute of Technology 4.1</li>
<li>Rice University 4.1</li>
<li>University of Texas-Austin 4.1</li>
<li>University of Wisconsin-Madison 4.1</li>
<li>Vanderbilt University 4.1</li>
<li>Washington University-St Louis 4.1</li>
<li>Emory University 4.0</li>
<li>University of Southern California 4.0</li>
</ol>

<p>From Alexandre.</p>

[justmytwocents]

<p>These rankings are a nice reminder of why it’s foolish to make a college matriculation decision based on rankings. They change yearly and a lot of time it’s simply a result of “tinkering” with the formulas or other “interesting” maneuvering by schools.</p>

<p>Six years ago the University of Chicago was ranked #15. Nearly 30 years ago Stanford was ranked #1. Fourteen years ago Duke was ranked #3. In the mid-90s Brown, Cornell, and Northwestern were in the “Top 10” and Columbia was ranked #15. In 1990, UPenn was ranked #20 and Dartmouth was ranked #6.</p>

<p>These ranking shifts don’t actually reveal any changes at the schools (IMHO).</p>

<p>[If you’re curious, you can see old USNWR Rankings going back to '83 here: <a href=“http://web.archive.org/web/20070908142457/http://chronicle.com/stats/usnews/][/url”>http://web.archive.org/web/20070908142457/http://chronicle.com/stats/usnews/][/url</a>]</p>

[PMCM18]

<p>Six years seems like enough time to make some substantial changes, so I don’t see how the state of the rankings in the 90’s or earlier should indicate the quality of the schools today. <em>Sigh</em> This is why US News should just do general tiers and try to make rankings for more specific interests (undergrad humanities, poli sci, etc.), but of course, this would just draw ire from those that see numerical values of general rankings as unequivical evidence of a school’s superiority (unless these are Stanford and MIT, in which case rankings are stupid and easily manipulated). I do agree that rankings alone are not a reason to choose a college, they should just be a factor.</p>

[invasion]

<p>I was reading through comments on the Penn newspaper post about the new ranking ([The</a> Daily Pennsylvanian :: Penn drops to eighth on U.S. News rankings](<a href=“http://www.thedp.com/article/2012/09/penn-drops-to-eighth-on-u-s-news-rankings]The”>Penn drops to eighth on U.S. News rankings | The Daily Pennsylvanian)) and it’s kinda hilarious how bitter some students are. Some choice comments (all emphasis mine):</p>

<p>

This is the result of schools like Chicago going to a much higher wait list percentage for those they used to admit. They then admit only those who indicate that they defiinitely will enroll if admitted. It makes their selectivity much higher, albeit artificially. This gamesmanship comes from the dual factors of the Common Application (which results in top students applying to far more schools than in the past) and US News, (which makes selectivity such a high factor). It doesn’t make the school any better. The Whartonites crowing about their contribution to selectivity are correct—even though their courses remain much easier on average than courses in sciences, mathematics, classics or languages in the College. But that’s the game that is now being played. Just understand that all the schools in the top tier are fantastic schools and the ranking doesn’t change that (and 8th is pretty good in any event).

Some years ago, Emory University made the top ten after having received a huge donation to its endowment fund from Coca-Cola. The next year Emory dropped to its normal position. It is unclear just what the algorithm is that the magazine uses to rank colleges but money is, or was, a major element. See if you can find out that U Chicago received a lot of money.

Yeah, neither of these 2 people have read USNWR’s methodology page, which is pretty explicit as to how they rank.</p>

<p>

Chicago is doing something rotten to game the rankings. I’m sure of it. Even the world rankings have chicago ahead of places like Stanford and Princeton which is just ludicrous.

And those were the most upvoted comments. Contrast with one of the most downvoted ones:</p>

<p>

UChicago has always had an excellent academic reputation (especially in US News, where its rep score exceeds Penn, Duke, etc.), but it’s admissions selectivity and retention has traditionally been pretty poor. Now, the school recently decided to improve this one area.</p>

<p>So, what happens? The school shoots up in the rankings, because its selectivity/retention roughly match its academic stature.</p>

<p>Final note, it’s kind of funny how people on this board are questioning UChicago’s rise. It’s kind of similar to how Penn went from like #13 to #5 in the late 1990s, right? And guess what - people had the same questions about Penn then as they do about Chicago now.</p>

<p>End of the day, these are all awesome schools, but they’re not really going to take cross-admits away from tippy top places like Harvard or Stanford.

It seems logic is too much to ask of certain commenters.</p>

<p>Although Chicago people aren’t much better. They have like 4 ranking threads on the first page of their CC forum.</p>

<p>anyway, even if I think rankings are arbitrary (but not useless) it’s always fun to see insecure students battling it out with their peers online. <em>grabs popcorn</em></p>

[SillyStokey92]

<p>I’m a little sad that Wake fell out, just because I’m biased and do think I go to an awesome and extremely challenging school. However, I do totally agree that we have some of the best undergraduate teaching. </p>

<p>Sent from my DROID X2 using CC</p>

[timetodecide12]

<p>Wake is an awesome school, there is nothing to feel bad about.</p>

[xiggi]

<p>

I haven’t seen the ranking but I suspect Stanford’s selectivity rank is lower than what people would expect and that hurts them the most. Stanford’s mid-50% SAT range and top-tenth % are virtually the same as schools you’d think a notch below it. </p>

<p>Based on decision threads in the past few years, Stanford admission always seemed to be the most random. They could easily raise their numbers if they wanted to.

</p>

<p>Let me help with a few data points.</p>

<p>

Schools.................    Chica   Colu    Stan    MIT
Score.....................  95  95  94  94
HS counselor rating............ 4.6 4.8 4.9 4.9
Freshman retention rate......   98% 99% 98% 98%
6-year graduation rate......... 92% 96% 96% 93%
Classes under 20 students   75.10%  80.70%  68.90%  66.80%
Classes 50 or more students 5%  7%  12% 11%
Student-faculty ratio.......... 6:01    6:01    5:01    8:01
Fall 2011 acceptance rate   16.30%  7.00%   7.10%   9.70%
Peer assessment score.........  4.6 4.6 4.9 4.9
UGademic reputation index   92  93  98  98
Graduation and rank..........   13  6   6   13
Predicted graduation rate   92% 95% 94% 96%
Over(+)/Under–) Perform....   0   1   2   -3
Faculty resources rank......... 2   3   12  15
Faculty who are full-time   88.50%  90.30%  99.50%  93.40%
Student selectivity rank    7   1   10  1
SAT 25th-75th percentile    1400-1570   1390-1560   1360-1550   1410-1570 
Freshmen top 10 percent     95% 97% 92% 97%
Freshmen top 25 percent     99% 99% 98% 100%
Financial resources rank    7   10  12  8
Alumni giving rank......... 9   16  9   4
Average alumni giving rate  36% 33% 35% 37%

</p>

<p>It is good to remember that HYP are in the 100-99 band and the schools ranked 4th are 95 and 6th are 94. The difference between 95 and 94 can easily be attributed to small variances in the more trivial criteria, or as in the past to mathematical errors by USNews. </p>

<p>In the case of Columbia/Chicago versus Stanford/MIT, the reported faculty resources seem to account for the subtle differences. As the experts at Columbia and Chicago discovered a few years ago. But that is another story!</p>

[rolemodels]

<p>Columbia and Chicago over Stanford and MIT is almost laughable</p>

[informative]

<p>Anyone have a list of the largest jumps/falls in this years rankings?</p>

[Ivyt]

<p>Northeastern I think went up quite a bit</p>

[informative]

<p>I though Northeastern went from 61 to 56 this year. There must have been bigger jumps this year, and maybe bigger falls.</p>

[texaspg]

<p>I think RPI went up quite a bit?</p>

<p>xiggi - what makes HYP deserving of the perfect scores?</p>

[JuniorMint]

<p>Hmm, I wonder how Emory avoided the asterisk [url=&lt;a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/emory-university-1564]*[/url”&gt;http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/emory-university-1564]*[/url</a>] of shame…</p>

[tomofboston]

<p>When I looked at the rankings on line last night, Emory had an asterisk. Now it has been removed.</p>

[alliekinz]

<p>I’m curious as to why Brown has consistently been #15 (for its third year now at least). It’s acceptance rate (8.9%) is lower than UChicago, MIT, Penn, Caltech, Dartmouth, Northwestern, John Hopkins, and WashU’s and it’s pretty close to Princeton. Not bashing those schools or anything (I’d be lucky if I got accepted into any of them!) but I was just wondering why Brown continues to rank lower than some other non-Ivies. Their graduation rate seems pretty high too in comparison as well; I don’t understand the ranking discrepancy.</p>

[tomofboston]

<p>Acceptance rate is weighted 1.5% of the total so it really has minimal influence on the final ranking.</p>