<p>Does anyone know where I can see or track a college's historical ranking? I am trying to find data for a schools quick on increase/decrease/etc.</p>
<p>Are these available on the US News site?</p>
<p>Thanks+</p>
<p>bump, anyone?</p>
<p>i have access to most of the usnews rankings back to 1988. if you tell me what youre looking for id be willing to see what i can find.</p>
<p>a word on researching this stuff. some colleges are very open as far as historical data is concerned. others (wellesley and the claremonts come to mind) make very little directly available to the general public.</p>
<p>also, your local library may archive us news (and the college issues). the online resources to which i have access do not have the common data set information in the back.</p>
<p>Hi Erica,</p>
<p>Yeah, I am not really looking to track just one or two colleges. I am looking for trends and acceleration. It isn't really feasible to go college-by-college and document their ratings.</p>
<p>I was actually hoping, since I am sure it is in some database, that there would be online access to National Universities or Business School rankings for past years. I am an online subscriber to the US News college rankings... so I thought, maybe, this information would be available to "paying customers" ;)</p>
<p>They have them all compiled here</p>
<p><a href="http://thecenter.ufl.edu/usnews.html%5B/url%5D">http://thecenter.ufl.edu/usnews.html</a></p>
<p>barrons, this is awesome--thank you.</p>
<p>The only thing, is that I was actually more interested from 2000-current. While the page you linked it offers great data, it is from 1991 through 2001... but it still provides insight into what I was looking for.</p>
<p>from another thread...</p>
<p>the following schools have changed more than 5 positions in US News rank from 1988 to 2006</p>
<p>IMPROVED IN RANK:
U Penn, up 15 places
Caltech, up 14 places
Claremont McKenna, up 13 places
Washington U St Louis, up 12 places
Washington and Lee, up 11 places
Hamilton, up 10 places
Middlebury, up 9 places
Vassar, up 9 places
Columbia, up 8 places
U Chicago, up 7 places
Bowdoin, up 6 places</p>
<p>DECREASED IN RANK:
Wesleyan, down 6 places
Mount Holyoke, down 6 places
Colorado C, down 7 places
U Virginia, down 8 places
William and Mary, down 9 places
Bryn Mawr, down 10 places
U Wisconsin Madison, down 11 places
Berkeley, down 15 places
UNC Chapel Hill, down 16 places
U Michigan, down 17 places
Oberlin, down 18 places
Centre, down 19 places
U Illinois Urbana Champaign, down 22 places
Reed, down 35 places
St Olaf, down 35 places
Earlham, down 53 places</p>
<p>From the link <a href="http://thecenter.ufl.edu/usnews.html:%5B/url%5D">http://thecenter.ufl.edu/usnews.html:</a></p>
<p>"One of the arguments commonly made by critics of the U.S News rankings is that the rankings are not reliable because the measures and methodology change from year to year. They make the point that it does not make sense that an institution can be ranked number nine one year and advance to number one the next, or vice versa. On the other hand, U.S. News downplays the role of changes in methodology as a factor in changes in a college's rank. They state that while it is difficult to pinpoint exactly why changes happen, a college's change in rank can likely be attributed to a change in performance in relation to that of its peer institutions."</p>
<p>Honestly I think there's alot of money trading hands in that business...
I prefer to look at stats like the amount of money a school puts into research and the methodology used by the National Academy of Sciences...</p>
<p>yeah, this is partly why i was to see these historical rankings... I want to measure volatility vs. stability and all that goodness. Who the hell made USNews such a big player in ranking anyway? Are there other sources for ranking? Are the National Academy of Sciences' rankings available online?</p>
<p>SCIENCE</p>
<p>The NSF's rankings of Research and Development Expenditures at major universities can be a good indicator of a college's performance in the sciences and other areas (they have other excel documents ranking colleges by research in specific areas like math, env sci, physics, social science, etc)
<a href="http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf05320/tables.htm#rd6%5B/url%5D">http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf05320/tables.htm#rd6</a></p>
<p>MATHEMATICS AND ENGLISH</p>
<p>The National Academy of Sciences rates the Graduate English and Mathematics at the major universities by several types of methodologies - which are described in the rest of the document...</p>
<p>The NAS does its rankings once every 5 years i believe, so we're do for one soon.</p>
<p>The rankings start on page 54 and go on for several pages:
<a href="http://fermat.nap.edu/books/030909058X/html/54.html%5B/url%5D">http://fermat.nap.edu/books/030909058X/html/54.html</a></p>
<p>I understand that these rankings are for the grad schools - but thats how schools are ranked most of the time because the undergrad programs are basically similar among top universities - its the grad school that really shows how great a college is. (usnews mixes the grad/undergrad as factors)</p>
<p>Speaking of other rankings, anyone know if the NRC has done anything since 1995?</p>
<p>They are working on the update. It was supposed to be out last year but you know academics--arguing over minor details is what they live for. Also there is much at stake.</p>
<p>Erica, if you are still available, could you post the overall ranking, and the public university ranking, of the University of Missouri-Columbia, for all the years that you have. Greatly appreciated, Wilotis</p>
<p>bumpppppppppppppppp … access to historical rankings?</p>
<p>I could not decipher your message. Could you please clarify. Greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>Any other perspectives out there?</p>
<p>This may take a while to load:</p>
<p>[U.S</a>. News Rankings Through the Years](<a href=“http://web.archive.org/web/20070908142457/http://chronicle.com/stats/usnews/]U.S”>http://web.archive.org/web/20070908142457/http://chronicle.com/stats/usnews/)</p>
<p>@45Percenter</p>
<p>Do you have something like that for liberal arts colleges?</p>
<p>Yes, I’m more interested in the Liberal Arts College rankings in past years, NOT universities.</p>
<p>Guys, if you go to the scrolldown tab at the top left of the page and select LAC and press go, you would get the ranking of LACs over the years.</p>