<p>It seems one of the things that dropped Brown was their Peer Assessment, which is how experts (?) view Brown. It accounts for 25% of the overall USNews score. Brown dropped from 4.5 to 4.4 this year.
I suppose that accounts for the fall.</p>
<p>Is there anything that happened which would account for a slide in reputation with the university administrator crowd?</p>
<p>Devil, Thomas, Johnny.... don't worry. It seems there are only a few people who are doing enough yelling and moaning for everyone on CC. Regardless of what people say, Duke is wonderful, Penn is wonderful, and I bet you don't even need (well-deserved) high rankings to tell you that.</p>
<p>Penn is leaps and bounds better than Brown. Wharton has such a strong appeal, and the arts and sciences are improving greatly as well. If it weren't for the slightly weak (in relative terms) Nursing school, Penn would probably be ranked even higher.</p>
<p>Hey prefontaine, I think most everyone on this board would disagree with you. Even people who are going to Penn say that Penn is just as good a school as Brown. I live in Philadelphia, I have tons of friends at Penn, I know a lot about it. I go to Brown, I know a lot about it too. There is no way that either is leaps and bounds better than the other. Saying that immediatly makes you lose all credibility.</p>
<p>I agree. No way Penn is "leaps and bounds" over Brown. If the standard of living wasn't so expensive in Rhode Island, I would have went to Brown. Penn has the worst grad placement in the Ivy League after Cornell for a number of mitigating reasons. Brown needs to be put on the LAC list IMO.</p>
<p>Yeah, or a third "small university" catagory or something. Along with Dartmouth. It sucks that schools with smaller endowments but also fewer students (Brown is in the midrange of the Ivy League for money per student, and most of those students are undergrads who I assume are cheaper anyway) get beaten out by schools with more money but way more students they have to support.</p>
<p>I agree. I applied to Brown, as well, but wasn't accepted. However, I was told that Brown is not in good shape with finances. Maybe that's one reason they slipped in the rankings.</p>
<p>"I agree. No way Penn is "leaps and bounds" over Brown. If the standard of living wasn't so expensive in Rhode Island, I would have went to Brown. Penn has the worst grad placement in the Ivy League after Cornell for a number of mitigating reasons. Brown needs to be put on the LAC list IMO."</p>
<p>"Grad placement" = largely reflects how strong the student body is and their interests, not the actual strength of the university (note that it only listed the % who go on to such programs, not the acceptance rate, and even then for acceptance rate to be a useful criteria the a group with similar test scores etc would have to be compared). One Ivy League/Stanford/Duke over another won't make or break you getting into Harvard Law. HTH</p>
<p>Finances, I don't know about that. Actually, and this isn't bashing Penn, but Penn has the lowest endowment per student in the Ivy League. I think Brown slipped because we just aren't well suited to compete in the US News rankings unfortunately, lots of things are against us which I mentioned earlier (another one, Brown makes it incredibly easy to take a semester off so its more common, hurting our 4 year graduation rate). The peer assesment thing is interesting, we're sort of going through a rebirth, renenergizing thing right now so maybe that will go up next year, but people are finicky, and our lack of grad schools hurts us there again.</p>
<p>How strong the student body is? Then going by that rationale, almost every school in the top 15 should be in a sort of similitude with each other in terms of this. Why does Stanford place better into top law schools than Penn? Why does Dartmouth place much better than Cornell? Some schools have significantly better success with putting students into top programs. It is splitting hairs that we compare students here. The student quality is almost the same at all top 15 schools. Besides, going by the sentiments on CC, Duke should have abysmal grad placement considering as how the students are supposedly aggregately inferior to most of the top 10 schools. The school is LARGELY responsible for placing students into top programs, but I don't doubt that certain personal incentive isn't required. However, you are not penalized for attending any of the grade inflated schools. This we are in agreement about.</p>
<p>I agree with your last statement...to an extent. Cornell doesn't have grade inflation, so you most certainly ARE being slightly penalized in comparison to a school like Stanford with tremendous inflation. Law school is a numbers game.</p>
<p>I promised myself I wouldnt reply after my obligatory "who cares ?" post, but I'll try again.</p>
<p>First off, schools judge you as you judge them. Academic and social fit means the place is right for you. Your hardwork afterwards is what determines the level of education you receive.</p>
<p>Second, how better to judge a university than the quality and success of it's students? Isn't that the point?</p>
<p>Third, lists are never right. Check out every top 100 list you've ever seen on music listing Kurt Cobain in the top 5. Come now people, hasn't VH1 taught you any better than to pay attention to these things?</p>
<p>You honestly do not believe Kurt Cobain is top 5? I challenge you to name one other alternative singer with his lyrics. Scott Weiland is almost there, but he is more hard rock than Kurt. Thus, they cannot be compared.</p>
<p>Kurt is definatley number 1 of the 1990s.</p>
<p>
[quote]
How strong the student body is? Then going by that rationale, almost every school in the top 15 should be in a sort of similitude with each other in terms of this. Why does Stanford place better into top law schools than Penn? Why does Dartmouth place much better than Cornell? Some schools have significantly better success with putting students into top programs. It is splitting hairs that we compare students here. The student quality is almost the same at all top 15 schools. Besides, going by the sentiments on CC, Duke should have abysmal grad placement considering as how the students are supposedly aggregately inferior to most of the top 10 schools. The school is LARGELY responsible for placing students into top programs, but I don't doubt that certain personal incentive isn't required. However, you are not penalized for attending any of the grade inflated schools. This we are in agreement about.
[/quote]
Penn and Cornell are more pre-professional than Dartmouth or Stanford. Many students in the former are not interested in professional schools (law, medicine). The top students at Penn, many of whom Whartonites, do not always seek professional degrees, even MBAs. For cornell, have you looked at their placement stats for graduate engineering programs? (I heard they place very well in that area) Also, larger schools naturally have a harder time with placement percentages as well.</p>
<p>I give Kurt Cobain credit for getting us out of an old trend and into a new one. I think most of his music, while good, is perhaps the most overated of all time.</p>
<p>Now, what was the debate about in the first place?</p>
<p>OMG! Kurt Cobain is the best lyricist maybe of all time. He was not the best guitar player, and I think Pearl Jam utterly trounces Nirvana in musical prowess. But Kurt's songs (his best- All Apologies, In Bloom, Heartshaped Box, Sliver, About a Girl, Dumb, Pennyroyal Tea, etc) are immortal. Kurt IS Nirvana. Kurt IS 1990-1994.</p>
<p>Thomas, the debate, I think, was still on why Penn is above Brown.</p>
<p>Kurt is above both Penn and Brown. Not only were his lyrics amazing, but his story too. His performance of Where Did You Sleep Last Night on MTV Unplugged was incredible for so many reasons.</p>
<p>I HAVE IT TAPED ON VHS! :)</p>
<p>Yeah Kurt is first on USnews forever. Rest in peace, buddy.</p>
<p>Have you people even listened to 2pac?</p>
<p>And he did it without injecting half a kilo of heroin every day.</p>