<p>My prediction:</p>
<p>1) Harvard
2) Princeton
2) Yale
4) MIT
4) Stanford
6) Caltech
6) Columbia
6) Penn
9) Chicago
9) Dartmouth
9) Duke
12) Brown
12) Northwestern
14) Johns Hopkins
14) WUSTL
16) Cornell
17) Notre Dame
17) Vanderbilt
19) Emory
19) Rice
21) Berkeley
22) Georgetown
23) Carnegie Mellon
23) USC
25) Virginia
25) Wake Forest</p>
<hr>
<p>Also, Ohio State moves up by 5 spots!! ;p</p>
<p>No less can be expected from the leaders and legends. :)</p>
<p>For the rankings, it will be much of the same ol’. Take the same and make sure there is at least one change to ensure people do not think they bought the old edition. Actually, USNews should think about skipping one year and stop the asinine practice of using the data of one year to describe the Best College - Edition Year Plus 2. In August 2011, you will see the best of 2012 with data of 2010. </p>
<p>This is just as confusing as their reluctance to eliminate the gamesmanship by some of their favs!</p>
<p>Agreed. Its pure gamesmanship and really rather unbecoming of institutions of higher learning…but it sells magazines and all the kids in high school and their parents look to it (sadly) in making decisions about where to apply and attend. Oh well.</p>
<p>The schools have little choice; they have to participate because it has become financially important. </p>
<p>USNews does provide a valuable service in compiling all the data, and they have helped all aspiring students by forcing the schools to disclose information. One only has to look at what happened to the publication of the Common Data Sets. While most schools have understood that their “customers” want to see such data, others cling to the notion that the least one knows, the better he is! </p>
<p>What USNews should do, however, is to be more transparent and seek to stop schools that report data on a whimsical basis to make a mockery of the system. Schools with Spring admits should be not be compared to schools that have only a Fall admit, and if they were the correct numbers should be used. The selectivity numbers reported by schools such as Berkeley and Middlebury are simply misleading as they obfuscate a part of their admitted/enrolled students but maintain the same application numbers. USNews should also question schools that report mindboggling numbers (read Columbia class ranking numbers.) </p>
<p>But in the end, without the schools playing the game and reporting the numbers that make them look better, we would have few changes. There won’t be a Chicago jumping several spots; there won’t a Columbia doing the same. And there won’t be much interest in the new releases. In so many words, USNews counts on the duplicity of school officials to keep their rankings interesting. And that is why you will see more obscene PAs by the like of Wisconsin, Miami, or Clemson.</p>
<p>If US News was more transparent, then others could just run the numbers themselves and not buy the magazine. Being mysterious, befuddling, and somewhat wrong is part of their business strategy. Plus, they don’t actually have an interest in using accurate numbers, just believable ones; they seem to be selling magazines just fine they way that they’re doing it now. It’s really too bad.</p>
<p>good point, xiggi. I think USNews should also have to report the number of students the universities considered, "wait-list, so that the people would also know that a number of private schools used and abused the tactic to decrease the percentage of their admitted students.</p>
<p>"USNWR 2012 Best Colleges Rankings (Prediction) </p>
<hr>
<p>My prediction:</p>
<p>1) Harvard
2) Princeton
2) Yale
4) MIT
4) Stanford
6) Caltech
6) Columbia
6) Penn
9) Chicago
9) Dartmouth
9) Duke
12) Brown
12) Northwestern
14) Johns Hopkins
14) WUSTL
16) Cornell
17) Notre Dame
17) Vanderbilt
19) Emory
19) Rice
21) Berkeley
22) Georgetown
23) Carnegie Mellon
23) USC
25) Virginia
25) Wake Forest</p>
<hr>
<p>Also, Ohio State moves up by 5 spots!!"</p>
<p>Ohio State moved down last year. I assume they’ll move down more this year as well. Virtually all public schools drop/stay the same each year at USNWR.</p>
<p>Speaking of publics, the OP seems to have completely dropped UCLA. Could the fallout from one racist blonde really be that bad?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You are a tad confused. USNews DOES report the number of waitlisted students. You simply do not understand that such number is included in the applications and admissions data that is reported on the CDS. </p>
<p>This is different from the games that are played IN THE PRESS in April and May. Schools do announce the numbers they have for direct admissions. While schools that have large numbers of WL admits do not like to issue subsequent press releases about WL and summer melts, they cannot obfusctate the students who applied and were admitted via the WL. It is part of the final numbers.</p>
<p>Reporting the full number of applications but obfuscating the sizeable Spring admits is simply misleading. Not the same difference.</p>
<p>However, it would be nice for USNews to add fuller reports on the ED/EA admission rates and comparisons to the enrollment. It should also be nice to have a column that shows the WL admits. However, that pales in comparison with allowing crucial data to be buried (Spring Admits) and the obvious and blatant focus on freshman admissions. </p>
<p>Don’t you think that the huge transfer application pool for junior and community colleges at Cal should have an influence on its comparative rankings? Should USN include the transfer rates and qualifications in its tables?</p>
<p>“Speaking of publics, the OP seems to have completely dropped UCLA. Could the fallout from one racist blonde really be that bad?”</p>
<p>Nah, I only dropped UCLA by one spot due to consecutive years of heavy budget cuts, tied at #26 with Tufts. </p>
<p>“Ohio State moved down last year. I assume they’ll move down more this year as well. Virtually all public schools drop/stay the same each year at USNWR.”</p>
<p>Perhaps, but I still see TOSU moving up this year (even though next year should really be !! :)</p>
<p>[Most</a> Popular Colleges: National Universities - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/education/articles/2009/01/26/most-popular-colleges-national-universities]Most”>http://www.usnews.com/education/articles/2009/01/26/most-popular-colleges-national-universities)</p>
<p>
Berkeley suffered from similar budget cuts and yet it raised one rank? Personally, I think you have a vendetta against the UC system. </p>
<p>UCLA has actually had the best USNWR ranking track record amongst all the top publics for the past 10 years. While Berkeley, Michigan, and UVA have had a consistent decline in rank, UCLA is the only university amongst them that has maintained roughly the same rank year after year. (UCLA didn’t go from rank #4 public to tied rank #2 public by raising ranks.)</p>
<p>My prediction:</p>
<p>Cool story, bro.</p>
<p>Sorry, can’t please everyone. However one likes to spin it, “UCLA is no UCB in my book,” says alumnus of the renown EL Rancho Middle School (Orange County). And I never said that UCLA is not an excellent school, just NOT Berkeley from academic stand point, and 5 spots in between the two schools seems reasonable to me.</p>
<p>“Personally, I think you have a vendetta against the UC system.” </p>
<p>I did bump UCB (part of the UC system) up by one spot, didn’t I? </p>
<p>"Berkeley suffered from similar budget cuts and yet it raised one rank?</p>
<p>UCLA completed its fundraising campaign back in 2006 right before the recession, whereas UCB’s ongoing and well on-track.</p>
<p>[The</a> Campaign for Berkeley](<a href=“http://campaign.berkeley.edu/]The”>http://campaign.berkeley.edu/)</p>
<p>Wisconsin hires Stanford’s Staiger and Sorensen for economics faculty.</p>
<p>Maybe Stanford should lose a PA point.</p>
<p>"…The Department of Economics has been awarded eight faculty positions.</p>
<p>The department has been able to leverage those future positions with three recent major gifts establishing named chairs. The result: Donor-fueled packages of research support that have attracted star new faculty in a down economy, with MIU hires to follow.</p>
<p>Among the new faculty added are Kenneth Hendricks from the University of Texas at Austin, Christopher Taber, a labor economist recruited from Northwestern University, Lones Smith from the University of Michigan and Randall Wright from the University of Pennsylvania.</p>
<p>“It was nice to get these slots at a time when our competitors were constrained,” said Professor Ananth Seshadri, chair of the department. “It shows that the University and the College value our department, and that means so much to the faculty we’re recruiting and the donors who make these remarkable gifts.</p>
<p>
Personally, I don’t think you know what you’re doing at all. You didn’t even realize that you bumped up Berkeley one spot, which is completely counterintuitive based on your speculation that UCLA would be pushed a notch down due to budget cuts.</p>
<p>You just wanted to trumpet baseless ranking predictions. (Which is/was my point.) -.-</p>
<p>(The argument that Berkeley has an ongoing donation campaign is BS. The campaign isn’t likely to raise the money to make up for the budget cuts and you are making the fallacious assumption that UCLA is not raising money at the same time. Based on your logic, at best, Berkeley should stay the same rank. That you raised it a rank is completely absurd and shows your lack of knowledge.</p>
<p>If you would like to defend your argument that Berkeley is going to raise a spot based on 2012 USNWR ranking methodology, be my guest, though.)</p>
<p>At the end of the day, nobody really should care. Top schools will always have a good reputation and one’s decision whether to go to UPenn or UChicago should not be solely dependent on a ranking. (from someone who goes to a school where the president makes a big deal out of the rankings…kinda gets tiring after a while, just make sure the school gets better and the rankings and reputation will take care of itself!).</p>
<p>At this point, it’d only be worth looking at US News rankings once every few years, and even then, there’s little value. US News’ strategy is just to shake up the rankings each year to make people want to know how their school does the next year. IMO if they’re going to use this petty tactic to sell magazines, they need to break out of the mindset and do something really spicy, like moving Harvard out of the top 2, Berkeley into the top 20, etc.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So, if a public school doesn’t move at all, then it has a better track record… even if that public school has several others ranked ahead of it? Sure UCLA is consistent - consistently behind Berkeley and often other top publics.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And Stanford poaches several top faculty from other universities. That’s just the way the game is - universities are continually trying to better their faculties and poach each others’ professors (like pro athletes).</p>
<p>edit: Staiger was a prof at Stanford, then he was a prof at Wisconsin, then he moved back to Stanford, and now he’s moving back to Wisconsin. He was in an endowed chair at Stanford too, and considering that Stanford econ is far ahead of Wisconsin econ, I think his reason for leaving is simply that he can’t decide which he likes more. :p</p>
<p>Good Lord, are you people actually arguing about predicted rankings changes? </p>
<p>Oh well, here’s my prediction. I see a big shake-up:</p>
<ol>
<li>New England School of Trucking</li>
<li>Whatsamatta U (Big move due to the new Boris Badenov Fellowship)</li>
<li>Kay Kyser Kollege of Musikal Knowledge (long overdue recognition)</li>
</ol>
<p>Of course I could be wrong, I’m only guessing.</p>
<p>
Technically, and in literal sense of the definition of the phrase “track record”, yes.</p>
<p>It would imply that UCLA has a neutral track record in terms of USNWR ranking mobility while the other top publics have had a negative track record. Neutral is still better than negative, so, yes UCLA would technically have the best track record amongst the top publics.</p>
<p>phatasmagoric, that was a really bad argument. -.- </p>
<p>(0% > -25%, you should know this.)</p>
<p>I don’t think there will be much change in the top 25. I do think UCSD, UCSB, UCD, and UCI will move up once again.</p>