<p>How else can anyone explain USC being rated above Michigan in overall graduate engineering. I'm just curious, where was rated USC last year?</p>
<p>Actually novi, USC was also ranked above Michigan last year. To be honest, I was surprised as well.</p>
<p>It was? I thought we were 7th. How can that be?</p>
<p>In general, USNWR is quirky, in part because the differences between ranked schools can be so small as to be meaningless.</p>
<p>USNW ranking is great, and very helpful when looking at universities academics, prestige, appearance etc…</p>
<p>Well, I don’t think it’s great. It’s seriously flawed if judging between closely ranked schools. It only has meaning between schools that are far apart and that doesn’t tell you anything that you didn’t know anyway.</p>
<p><a href=“2010 USNEWS Graduate School Rankings - College Search & Selection - College Confidential Forums”>2010 USNEWS Graduate School Rankings - College Search & Selection - College Confidential Forums;
<p>I thought it was funny that you said USNWR is <em>becoming</em> a complete sham. Rankings are a waste of time. Everyone should know how hard it is to assign a definitive place and ranking to colleges… I really don’t think doing this completely accurately is possible at all, much less within one year…</p>
<p>I will countinue to use USNR, I think their rankings are great… and more accurate than other rankings. Graduate rankings may not have been numbered as many students would have liked, but it’s a good source.</p>
<p>“I think their rankings are great… and more accurate than other rankings.”</p>
<p>What does that even mean? How can someone judge how “accurate” a college ranking is, especially if that person doesn’t even go to college?</p>
<p>USNWR is a complete sham. It restates what everyone already knows about the Ivies being awesome, and then arbitrarily tosses out a group of other “good” universities in meaningless order.</p>
<p>Last year Michigan was ranked #9 in overall engineering, compared to USC at #8.</p>
<p>Michigan beat USC handyly in both peer and recruiter assessments (4.4 and 4.1 vs. 3.5 and 3.6). USC led in “average research expenditures per faculty member” and “student-to-faculty ratio”. Somehow USC ended up outranking Michigan by a nose.</p>
<p>Not sure how USC engineering led in “research expenditures” with a rather mediocre peer assessment.</p>
<p>It all depends on the magic formula.</p>
<p>p.s. I’d like to remind everyone that we are talking about GRADUATE ranking here.</p>
<p>Those are graduate engineering rankings. For undergrad, Michigan is always ranked between #5 and #8 and USC is almost never ranked in the top 20. </p>
<p>At any rate, the USNWR is easily manipulated. If universities make an effort, they can easily “beat the formula”, particularly the faculty resources section. And the financial resources and alumni donation criteria are disigned to hurt public universities.</p>
<p>I realize all of that Alexandre. So why are they allowed to be viewed as the authority on college rankings? In this very competitive world it is unfortunately given way too much credit for accuracy. I’d like to see any school really trump up their numbers and put USNWR’s validity in total question.</p>
<p>Actually novi, the USNWR is only viewed as an “authority” by high school students. Most of the academic world and virtually all corporate recruitment offices don’t even look at the USNWR.</p>
<p>Actually, at the undergraduate level, the skills and knowledge one acquires is more student-dependent than college- dependent for most of the top universities. I went to UCSB as an undergrad, and believe I learned as much as I could have vs. any Ivy League education (by the way I did my graduate work at Harvard).</p>
<p>I think USNR is great, and looking forward to the new list this summer. I’ve also seen many universities take pride with where they are ranked in USNR.</p>
<p>'I’ve also seen many universities take pride with where they are ranked in USNR. "</p>
<p>OBVIOUSLY?! It’s no great surprise that a college ranked in the top 5 would want to flaunt its position.</p>
<p>Speaking of universities ranked as far back as 100+.</p>