<p>If anyone would point me to a source that describes the weighting of the various factors of the US NEWS rankings, I'd appreciate it.</p>
<p>The copy I have (2003) indicates that the Peer Ranking is 25 percent of the total but doesn't indicate the percentages for the other factors, though it does tell the weighting within a factor for various sub-factors.</p>
<p>Methodology for 2003, the one you have, or the most current rankings?</p>
<p>Peer assessment (25%)</p>
<p>Retention (20% in national universities and liberal arts colleges and 25% in master's and comprehensive colleges)
---six-year graduation rate (16%)
--- freshman retention rate (20%)</p>
<p>Faculty resources (20%)
---proportion of professors with the highest degree in their fields (15%)
---student-faculty ratio (5%)
---proportion of faculty who are full time (5%).</p>
<p>Student selectivity (15%)
---SAT or ACT tests (7.5%)
---proportion of graduated in the top 10% for national universities and liberal arts colleges and the top 25% for master's and comprehensive colleges categories (6%)
---acceptance rate (1.5%)</p>
<p>Financial resources (10%)</p>
<p>Graduation rate performance (5%; only in national universities and liberal arts colleges)</p>
<p>Alumni giving rate (5%)</p>
<p>Here's the link to the weighting factors (and subfactors) in chart form:</p>
<p>Thanks guys. I'm responding to the dreary fixation on US News rankings on another board (not college application/admission related) where someone his using the rankings as the ultimate measure without having a clue as to what the rankings involve...and how little...or accurate...they are to the actual quality of an undergraduate education.</p>
<p>Then point out that the weightings change every year. If they had any validity, they would not bounce around so much.</p>
<p>sigh, I really dislike the USNWR rankings, people get so obsessed with them</p>
<p>The rankings are like intelligent design. If you are among those who believe it is actual science rather than faith, nothing anyone tells you will convince you otherwise. And its importance is measured not by whether it is actual science, but instead by the number of people who have faith in it. I admire your desire to try to convince true believers that the rankings are not what they believe, but I believe it inevitable that you will not succeed.</p>
<p>I've long since given up trying to convince people to look beyond the rankings. It seems that if a school you or your child attend(s) or plan to attend is ranked highly, then you LOVE the rankings. If a school that you or your child attend(s) is lower on the rankings, the tendency is to brush them off as bunk. The truth, of course, lies somewhere in between - rankings are another data point, but not the whole ball of wax "proving" the superiority of any particular school over any other.</p>
<p>I think the ratings are bunk too. I'm spending a lot of time trying to convince my junior in hs daughter that it doesn't matter where she goes to college. Our new governor in New Jersey went the University of Illinois, did the night program for his MBA at Chicago, and went on to run Goldman Sachs and to buy his Senate and Gubernatorial positions ($107-million for both campaigns). So, obviously, not going to Brown or Penn or Stanford didn't make much difference.</p>
<p>Knowing how the weighing of USN works is important. </p>
<p>Despite the impressive list of criteria, I believe that most people fail to understand that more than 50% of the rating is derived from THREE elements, of which the most important is is so void of integrity that it has become absolutely irrelevant, the second one is highly questionable, and the third one is lacking any consistency. </p>
<p>Also, with the removal of yield, the so-called cynical jockeying by colleges to boost their acceptance numbers and selectivity rankings is really a non-event. In fact, with the moronic inclusion by USN of an expected rate of graduation, many schools are better off with a lower selectivity ranking and a better performance on the graduation rate. For instance Harvey Mudd is ranked dead last in the category of expected graduation rate, as a result of having stratospheric SAT scores which translates into the highest expected graduation rate in the country. </p>
<p>Here's a ranked list of the weights -for Doctoral Universities and LACs. </p>
<p>25 Peer assessment survey
16 Average graduation rate
10 Average educational expenditures per student
7.5 SAT/ACT scores
7 Faculty compensation
6 High school class standingtop 10%
6 Class size, 1-19 students
5 Average alumni giving rate
5 Graduation rate performance
4 Average freshman retention rate
3 Percent faculty with top terminal degree
2 Class size, 50+ students
1.5 Acceptance rate
1 Percent full-time faculty
1 Student/faculty ratio</p>
<p>I wonder how the rankings would look without items 1 and 3 on Xiggi's list? I suppose there is no way to know, is there?</p>
<p>Next pass...I've got something urgent to attend to first...I'll post the "article" that I wrote. Ummm...completely different environment. It's for a UCLA football board, responding to nonsense...that gets repeated often enough...about how can UCLA be sliding academically and still not relax their standards for football players. Answer: it's not. But one shouldn't be using USNWR rankings anyway.</p>