<p>Over in the College Search Forum, I started a thread questioning the USNWR rankings as I believe that they consistently underrate the top schools of the Midwest and the South in favor of the more prestigious schools on the coasts, particularly those of the Northeast and the Ivy League. </p>
<p>IMO, Northwestern, Rice, Emory, Vanderbilt, and Notre Dame are all excellent schools that provide an undergraduate experience arguably superior to that offered by several higher ranked Ivy institutions. I attribute this under appreciation to a) much greater (and more fawning) media coverage of the Ivy schools; b) the Ivy schools having much greater proximity to major population centers which leads to greater numbers of applicants and higher selectivity statistics; and c) the ranking systems that perpetuate the status of the Ivy League. </p>
<p>Now, a few questions for this forum:<br>
Do you agree with this premise that the Midwest/Southern schools are underrated and deserve to be ranked more highly than many of the Ivy schools?<br>
If Rice were located in a major northeastern city rather than Houston, how do you believe its ranking and public perception would change?
If Cornell, Brown, Dartmouth, Penn or Columbia were located in Houston, how do you think their ranking and public perception would change?</p>
<p>I don't think the ivies are ranked higher because they are in the ivy league. They are in the ivy league because they are great schools and are thus not overrated in my opinion. With that said, I think Rice deserves to be higher (at the very least, it deserves WUSTL's place). Northwestern might deserve to be moved up a spot or two, and maybe maybe Notre Dame could go up a few, but other than that, I don't see why Emory and Vanderbilt would complain about being #18, and they're placement is probably not due location.</p>
<p>If rice were in a northern city? It would have to compete more for smart kids from the north and it's ranking might even go down (a higher #, that is). Right now, Rice has a nice pick of the very best Southwest students. Vice versa with the ivies going to the South. But i do see what you're saying about people outside of Texas thinking at first glance that Rice might be not so great since it's in Houston. Those people usually aren't the ones filling out the USNews surveys, however.</p>
<p>
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They are in the ivy league because they are great schools
[/quote]
that is just not true. maybe you mean to say "the ivy league is respected because they are great schools," but that actually turns it around. also for the OP, the criteria are perfectly open for you to see:</p>
<p>it is clear you are criticizing the results, but i don't think this debate should be results oriented. you also say that the "undergraduate experience" is arguably superior. well, that is not what usnews tries to do with the overall ranking i think you refer to. they have an "undergraduate experience" ranking btw. if you think their method is bad for their overall ranking, i agree but realize that is a methods choice, while your theory doesn't necessarily point to specific changes in methods. </p>
<p>i guess for your hypotheticals you mean re-located tomorrow, and in that case the media attention would be huge. if you don't mean that, you just can't do that because it would be like saying what if bush were the prime minister of england. if he were he would have to be born there and he wouldn't have gone to schools he went to or had the same friends or views, ie. who knows if all the things that your question supposes even makes an answer possible. you ignore the whole history of the schools, the presidents they had, the choices they made, the people they hired, etc. </p>
<p>i think the ivies are overrated by a lot of people, sometimes knowingly. i have heard of foreign permanent residents say they would like to go to one higher ranked school so their extended family in overseas countries knows where they are going to school. it boils down to notoriety and prestige, which always lag behind reality. for example the usnews ranking doesn't know about Rice's new faculty hirings or campus improvements unless they come through something like their "peer assessment" or "class sizes" (not going to happen). even though prestige and perception lag, they could lag with the ivies being better than people think. i have no idea about other midwest schools.</p>
<p>i can tell you that as a student i believe Rice is going through a lot of positive changes. their increase in class size and physical changes with the library, student pavilion, new coffeehouse, and later the rec center and residential colleges will all be good in my opinion. i think leebron is great as well. i would be inclined to believe that these things should translate into a better ranking, but in keeping informed about other schools, i've found they are all constantly changing with very good effects. the point is, a claim about one school's change in ranking is a claim about all schools, or the schools of similar caliber anyway.</p>
<p>i do agree... if you end up in a job... the Rice or Ivy league degree will help you... they wont say.. u know.. Brown is rated 3 places over Rice, so thatrs how we decide</p>
<p>My take on rankings is this... they are macro-scopic things... the difference between Rice and say University of Miami (just pulling a name) is seen by a ranking difference of 15 to 55 or summat... but take a rank.. add or subtract 15 or 20.. they are all comparable</p>
<p>so basically.. 1 to 30 can be compared on a fair scale.. (to me at least).. is Princeton better than Stanford just because the former is rank 1? or is Duke better than JHU? Or Cornell better than Rice?</p>
<p>As stated before, the small universities get underrated in peer assessment due to focus on undergrad rather than grad research. Rice/Tufts/Wake Forest/W&M all should be 5-7 spots ahead of current rank. </p>
<p>Also agree with antarius, that within goups of 15 not much difference between the bunch.</p>
<p>I'm tempted to reply, but I don't think I can do so in less than 20 pages. </p>
<p>The rankings are right and the rankings are wrong. I mean, in some senses, top ranked universities take top spots because they are... well, deserving. Now, how much more deserving might be much smaller than you think. 2% more? 30% more? It's impossible to say. </p>
<p>Also, cities and their universities have complex give/take relationships that are to difficult to describe. Besides, if Harvard were in Houston, wouldn't it become Rice? I mean, what are you moving? students? those are often replaceable. Faculty? those are attracted to the city and the institution. Money? well, that might make a difference, but Rice's endowment/student ratio is one of the top five in the nation.</p>
<p>Who cares? Being ranked the best doesn't affect your experience directly. Some students at Rice accomplish more than some students at Oxford and some students at MIT accomplish little compared to some Rice students.</p>
<p>All in all, be careful about ratings. They're tricky and not entirely useful, though I don't think that questioning validity is as important as interpreting what the results actually mean.</p>