<p>Fresh off the press - </p>
<p>National</a> Universities Rankings - Best College - Education - US News</p>
<p>And balance is restored to the force.</p>
<p>Yay! That’s awesome. And unexpected. </p>
<p>Let’s just see what happens in two years, when the Common App will be taken into account. :D</p>
<p>Now I don’t feel so bad about not getting in, lol. However, I think #4 will be a plateau for pretty much every school outside of HYP unfortunately.</p>
<p>Yep. It’ll be tough for Columbia to defend its current place in the upcoming years.</p>
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yeah I’d say at least 5-10 years before any school breaks those three. I also think Columbia just got lucky this year, we’re a mere one point ahead of Stanford and Penn, 2 points ahead of MIT and Caltech. But heck I’m not complaining. Columbia definitely deserves to be up there, and I felt like tied #8 wasn’t doing it full justice, props to admissions and the univ in general.</p>
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<p>sure, and people have been saying that about Penn for about a decade now. This isn’t a battle where schools come back after being knocked down, it’s a rigid methodology. Although I do agree that the competition for Columbia’s spot is pretty fierce.</p>
<p>I will say though that it had seemed impossible to break into that MIT/Caltech/Stanford/Upenn region for many years, and Columbia finally crossed the threshold, after some significant improvement and marketing.</p>
<p>Also I see that UChicago only dropped 1 spot in the end, that’s pretty impressive given the counselor rankings (which will probably be nicer to Chicago in the coming years)</p>
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also wonder how the manhattanville project will affect things in the long run.</p>
<p>it’s about time for HYPMS to be replaced by CHYMPS. it’s much more pronounceable and can include both Columbia and Caltech (somehow). :)</p>
<p>I actually think MIT and Caltech might drop off over time, because they’re difficult to do well in (compared to harvard, yale, columbia, stanford) and fairly specialized, they have the connotation of being imbalanced towards science, tech and academics unlike the others. If the acronym ever changes on college confidential, it might become PSYCH, or CHYPS or HYPSC (hype-sic).</p>
<p>Some people predict that the P might some day be penn instead of princeton (from princeton’s absence of professional schools and penn impressive momentum), but that is a long way off.</p>
<p>What cracks me up about folks thinking university “x” is overrated or university “y” is underrated is that the premise is based on one’s historical perspective. If one reads this site on a regular basis, HYMPS are engrained as the top five. Why is that? Because that’s the perspective of folks who post on this site, who in large part gained their perspective from this site (or other similar self-perpetuating sources), which in turns gains its perspective from USNWR.</p>
<p>When USNWR changes their methodology to remain interesting or to increase revenues, folks hyper-analyze the methodology. There are a zillion ways to change the methodology, and USNWR has only tapped the surface.</p>
<p>Next year, another Penn, or Columbia, or Duke, or other “undeserving” school will occupy or co-occupy the fourth spot, due to a shift in the methodology. USNWR will sell a lot of media, and all will be right in the world…</p>
<p>Ha ha …even if these rankings are just that…i.e things you shouldn’t only base your college decisions on …i feel school pride:)</p>
<p>The change to common app is predicted to make the admission rate plummet…now this…=low admission rate</p>
<p>BRAVO Columbia! =] well deserved!</p>
<p>I think it’s because of CU’s increasing selectivity:
CC: around 8% only behind Harvard (~7%)
SEAS: around 13% only behind MIT (~11%)</p>
<p>Just out of sheer curiosity, I’ve contacted USNews to inquire about their reasons for bumping CU up to rank 4. I’ll share the results if I get them.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Columbia fell eight spaces in the “most fun social scenes” rankings to #243. see Suite 101 - How-tos, Inspiration and Other Ideas to Try. Columbia was described as “not only [having] generally unattractive and out-of-shape coeds, but also [as very rarely having] even the basic social skills necessary for a great college experience.” One unnamed worker at Columbia’s student health center stated “oh sure, sometimes students actually take our free condoms, but they only really use them as makeshift water balloons during those hot summer months.”</p>
<p>Folks, Columbia is the same school it was two days ago. Nobody in the real world – whether it’s grad school adcoms, employers, or random laypeople – cares about year to year fluctuations in the USNews rankings. Only 17 yr olds on this site do. No reason to jump for joy now that CU is #4… and no reason to cry next year if it falls down a few spots.</p>
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<p>Yeah, they’re going to write you a personal email, buddy. Keep waiting – just like my 88 yr old grandma keeps waiting to win the lottery. If you had a clue, you could read that it’s based on a methodology/formula and there’s no such thing as “their reasons for bumping.”</p>
<p>^Agreed. I doubt the Columbia administration really cares about it either given that they know it’s one of the finest institutions in the country.</p>
<p>I think rankings help get some less prestigious like University of San Diego or Babson College to get their names out there. On the other hand a school like Columbia, a household name, maybe they’ll receive an extra few hundred applicants now that it’s 4th instead of 8th.</p>
<p>You’d be surprised Columbia2002. I’ve received personal email responses (in response to my comments on particular articles they’ve written) from journalists of “The Atlantic” (James Fallows in particular). I don’t see why you’d think that the people at U.S. News & World Report are somehow less willing to communicate with their readers than the people at any other magazine.</p>
<p>Maybe you’re just jaded by your own experiences, but you’d be surprised how many journalists/support staff for magazines enjoy corresponding with their readers on a regular basis.</p>
<p>Then maybe you want to share what’s in that “personal email”…?</p>
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<p>Irrelevant post.</p>
<p>You don’t have a comment on an article written by a journalist. You’re generically asking an entire magazine to answer a stupid question that’s self-evident from the article itself.</p>