<p>If many of you are so steadfastly opposed to the rankings in US News and World Report: America's Best Colleges, then why do you even give it so much of your time and consideration?</p>
<p>I think that the rankings are not very helpful because colleges deserve to be considered more closely and judged in more specific points than the sweeping categories and criteria which really do not give the reader the kind of really useful information that students and parents need. This is why Fiske, the Princeton Review, and others make college guides, and this is why College Confidential even exists in the first place. </p>
<p>The whole point of this forum is to be a resource for people to get information about the many educational institutions in which they are interested. Thus talking about US News on this forum is very much a waste of time, especially for people who disagree with the criteria used for the rankings in the first place. Unless you are forming some coalition to abolish US News from being published (which you cannot do) then don't even bother. </p>
<p>It's people like us here that give US News and all of the things about colleges we think unfair the hype that everyone complains about so much. We all are contributing to all of the things we hate about college education in the United States just by arguing over this piece of trash magazine.</p>
<p>not sure allthat many oppose USNews' rankings -- if the masses did oppose them, the magazine sales would falter, and that special edition would be no more. Personnally, I think the $15 for USNews online service is the best value in the college search, not because of hte rankings per se, but all the great data on each school that is available.</p>
<p>Some of us are just opining (no fact, just opinion), that there is an inherent bias in the methodology which favors east coast schools. Heck, that's no different that the bias that aspires to college basketball and football rankings -- Big Ten fans, can you spell over-rated?</p>
<p>I think it's simple because all the first schools started in the northeast. They had reputations for a long time. East coast has more schools and are better ranked than anywhere else in the US not just in USNEWS but other sources too.</p>
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Heck, that's no different that the bias that aspires to college basketball and football rankings -- Big Ten fans, can you spell over-rated?
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<p>i would say big 10 football and basketball are overrated too, look at this year. acc - big 10 challenge in basketball, the acc wins all 8 times with different combinations of matchup ... still there are more big 10 in ncaa than acc. that's overrated.</p>
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Heck, that's no different that the bias that aspires to college basketball and football rankings -- Big Ten fans, can you spell over-rated? </p>
<p>i would say big 10 football and basketball are overrated too, look at this year. acc - big 10 challenge in basketball, the acc wins all 8 times with different combinations of matchup ... still there are more big 10 in ncaa than acc. that's overrated.
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<p>Both of you guys don't understand the meaning of "overrated."</p>
<p>How is/was the B10 overrated in BB/FB?</p>
<p>Look at the pre-season polls - the B10 only had 2 teams ranked in the top 25 for BB and only had 1 team ranked in the top 10 for FB (OSU) - that's hardly "overrated."</p>
<p>In FB - teams like Mich (by blowing out ND in South Bend) and Wisc had to earn their rankings (both of you must have been thinking of ND when it comes to being overrrated).</p>
<p>As for BB - the ACC is always hyped as the best BB league so I don't understand where the "B10 being overrated" comes from (plus, the ACC is the conf. that usually sends the most teams to the tourney - so you are also wrong on that account as well).</p>
<p>How did the best two Big 10 football teams, both nationally ranked, do in their last games? Hmmmmm, blown out, if I recall, by lesser opponents, particularly since a case was made that the Big Two should have been playing in Glendale. And, of course, ND is over-rated; what is it, 10 straight bowl losses?</p>
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As for BB - the ACC is always hyped as the best BB league so I don't understand where the "B10 being overrated" comes from (plus, the ACC is the conf. that usually sends the most teams to the tourney - so you are also wrong on that account as well).
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<p>nuh uh, last year ACC has 4 teams to the tourney, big 10 has 6. So do the previous years except for 2001 and 2002.</p>
<p>In 2006 - the B10 and the ACC sent the same no. of teams to the tourney; the year prior to that, the ACC sent 3 more teams than did the B10. In most years - it's pretty even with the difference being one additional team for one conference.</p>
<p>As for Mich - yes, it was a bad loss (no doubt in part since Carr is a horrible big game coach), but one game doesn't denote a team's entire season (after all, does UCLA getting crushed by a mediocre FSU team mean that USC's loss to UCLA "looks worse"? Or what about USC losing to Oregon St. which got crushed by Boise St.? Or what about Michigan beating ND more soundly away in South Bend than did USC against ND at home?).</p>
<p>the last game means everything in sports, according to the late Vince Lombardi! UCLA was mediocre last year, and USC failed to show up, but, they righted the ship on New Year's Day unlike the Big Two.</p>
<p>Rutgers had a team this year for the first time in practically forever, but the real home team in New York is Notre Dame. Along with Ohio State and Michigan, these schools are consistently the darlings of American college football…and of the East Coast media machine which promotes them so maliciously. And every year they play the same lousy slate of teams (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan State, Purdue, Minnehaha, NORTHWESTERN!!, etc, etc, etc). They have one or two big games a year and everyone thinks that Ohio State and Michigan are so great because they beat up on all the other inept Big 10 teams. Compare this to the schedule played in either the SEC or the Pac 10 and the comparison is not close. And every year the Big 10 teams rarely win more bowl games than they lose. Overrated? Definitely…just like the academic elites of the Northeast (I just had to get that in there :) ).</p>