<p>When will USNEWS release another set of rankings?
Current: National</a> Universities Rankings - Best Colleges - Education - US News and World Report
Also how accurate would you say USNEWS ranking is, and how seriously do other industries, companies... job fields in general, take these rankings? I'm sure they observe rankings to get a sense of the schools teachings, due to it being time consuming for them.</p>
<p>Colleges take the US News rankings very seriously because students shopping for colleges take them seriously. They are quite accurate as an index of quality but can't capture everything about a college. They shouldn't be the only basis for choosing a college. You need to find the best college for you and that isn't necessarly the school ranked highest in US News.</p>
<p>They are very inaccurate and a terrible indicator of the strength of a school. School is about a good fit for you. They base a school on what its students are like when they enter, which is basing the success of a hospital on the condition of its admitted patients. What really matters is what happens AT the school, not before.</p>
<p>I don't take them seriously, colleges can manipulate the rankings such as by adjusting their student to faculty ratio. That's why a school like Baylor University can aspire to be in the top 40 schools, they just tweak their class sizes and student-faculty ratio. And how is Yeshiva in the top 50 schools, never heard of that school. Although, a good indicator of where a college is level wise (of course Harvard is better than Kansas State), not very exact and there isn't much of a difference if you're ranked #71 or #80</p>
<p>I find it a helpful resources, I'm also glad I got many answers to my question.... more is welcome. Although would anyone have in mind when a new set of rankings will be release by USNEWS?</p>
<p>the undergraduate rankings come out every july or august, the graduate ones come out in the spring</p>
<p>I find the Princeton Review and Fiske Guide To Colleges more helpful because they can help you decide between schools and can uncover hidden schools that may not be very well known (that may be buried in the Masters or Baccalaurate categories of US News)</p>
<p>For some odd reason, alot of schools well ranked in top 100 according to USNEWS are not even ranked by princetonreview... which shows the limit of pool you can look into their rankings.</p>
<p>The PR isn't that good. The USNWR is fine, but tiny differences are blown out of proportion to purposely create visible differences where they don't really exist. In reality, a country the size of the US will have hundreds of good universities. To claim that there is a clear difference between #15 and #25 or between #25 and #40 is laughable. Fiske is actually quite good.</p>
<p>Pierre,</p>
<p>What are you talking about, Baylor's it #76. Besides, even if they were at in the 40s I wouldn't see what's so wrong with it; Baylor does have a top 10 medical school in the nation which gives it a large endowment from research grants and probably translates to strength in the life sciences department. But anyway, it's in the 70s and that's how it generally is perceived at the undergraduate level.</p>
<p>Yeah, I am wondering that too... Since the information was about admission in 2007, 2 years before ours, I am not sure if the numbers are still accurate now~~</p>
<p>They're all more reliable and valid than asking your neighbor what his or her kid thinks about their school, which is what we would most likely be doing without them. But I have to challenge the analogy about the students admitted by a university being like the patients admitted by a hospital. Hospital patients are passive recipients. The students at a university are active, engaged, interconnected, and a big part of one another's educational experience. Good teaching (and bad) can be found on every campus. What happens at a campus varies widely, but is largely dependent upon the quality of the students - at selective universities, content is addressed more rapidly and the students are the creators of the campus life and classroom discussions that define the college experience. As a college administrator who's been at poor colleges and good ones, to me, the quality of the admitted students is the single most important factor in institutional quality. Since the perspectives from which a "fit" is assessed change rapidly for 17- and 18-year-olds, I think that strongly considering the most selective schools at which you're admitted makes a great deal of sense.</p>
<p>I agree completely with gadad. Truer words were never spoken.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Pierre,</p>
<p>What are you talking about, Baylor's it #76. Besides, even if they were at in the 40s I wouldn't see what's so wrong with it; Baylor does have a top 10 medical school in the nation which gives it a large endowment from research grants and probably translates to strength in the life sciences department. But anyway, it's in the 70s and that's how it generally is perceived at the undergraduate level.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Baylor medical school and Baylor undergrad are unaffiliated.</p>
<p>i know that PR dosen't review every college in the top 100, that's why I use Fiske's too in addition</p>
<p>The Princeton Review does not include colleges that refuse to let PR survey their students so that's why schools like U of Rochester and UC-Irvine are not in the book.</p>