<p>“Rjk -
I didn’t know we were using world rankings as a basis. If we are, then NYU somehow manages to top ivies? As much as I wish that were true, it’s not.”</p>
<p>As far as I could see NYU only topped Dartmouth, so you needn’t despair. :-)</p>
<p>neltharion, I do not think the QS ranking is good, but how are Michigan and Cal not peers in that ranking? Michigan is #11 in the US and Cal is #15 in the US. That’s pretty close. Remember, those are World rankings, so a gap of 20 or 30 spots is negligible. </p>
<p>What really hurts Cal in the QS ranking is the student to faculty score (I am not sure how they measure it) and the international students score (cal does have very few international students). Without those two criteria, Cal would be ranked above Michigan…where it belongs.</p>
<p>“And all of a sudden, UCB isn’t even a peer of UMich? I don’t mean to fan the flames here, but that’s ridiculous.”</p>
<p>Who made that ridiculous claim? It certainly wasn’t me. If anything, Duke and Michigan are academically weaker than UCB, albeit not by a large margin.</p>
<p>Looking at the world rankings… Stanford comes in #12 below UPenn, Columbia, UChicago, and just above Duke and Michigan.
Wouldn’t it be tangential to argue an equation of Duke and Michigan to HYPSM, as well as UPenn, C, UC all being equal to HYPSM then? </p>
<p>Somehow world rankings seem even less accurate than national ones?</p>
<p>Btw, I also think the QS rankings are not very good. Then again, are any of them really all that good?</p>
<p>rjkofnovi, the rankings you posted list UCB at #28, with UMichigan standing at #15. In hindsight, I assume you’re talking about national rankings instead of the international ranking?</p>
<p>I am just using this ranking to prove my point that absolute rankings for the most part are garbage.</p>
<p>rjkofnovi and Alexandre are right, UCB and Michigan are peers to Duke when it comes to Professional schools, most of the time better, thanks you guys for pointing this out to me</p>
<p>Oh well in that case, that makes sense. I thought you were using world rankings as a credible starting basis for school rankings - to which I very surprised, since it’s by far much more inaccurate than national ones.</p>
<p>Actually scales, UCB and/or Michigan are also just as good, if not better, in many cases than Duke in a myriad of disciplines in the social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities. I really don’t even know why they are upset being compared to these two schools. They should be honored!</p>
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<p>Oh, well, I think we can all agree on that point. I’d assumed you were being serious. Hard to tell over the internet. ;)</p>
<p>I always agreed with Alexandre that schools should be grouped in tiers and not numbered, but I guess that won’t sell too many magazines.</p>
<p>Tier 1: HYPSM
Tier 2: Lower Ivies, UCB, Michigan, Virginia, Duke
Tier 3: UCLA, Vandy, Georgetown, Northwestern, etc?</p>
<p>^^^Well that is the general idea scales.</p>
<p>Ahhh! I shall never look down on top publics anymore!! :D</p>
<p>^ Nah in terms of undergraduate quatity</p>
<p>Tier 1: HYPSMC
Tier 2: Columbia, Penn, Duke, Chicago, JHU, Northwestern, Brown, Cornell
Tier 3: All the wanna bes</p>
<p>Unfortunately, that would still invariably cause arguments like this to crop up. (Harvard belongs to a tier all on its own, HYPSM should be the top-tier, etc.) Still wouldn’t solve any problems. People like to argue.</p>
<p>ETA: And we’re off! Except with tiers this time. Hah.</p>
<p>Funny pattern UMich whiners hate any ranking that does not put them in great light. Start complaining that all rankings are flawed. Someone makes a favorable ranking for UMich. Rankings not so bad afterall. Interesting.</p>
<p>That’s right scales1994, only I would refer to them as groups, not tiers (the top 3 or 4 groups would all be considered tier 1) and Northwestern definitely belongs in group 2. At the worst, some would argue that a school belongs in the group above or below. For example, some may say that Michigan belongs to group 3 while others may say that Caltech belongs to group 1 etc…At least nobody would be claiming to have a perfect ranking naled down to a science with no outliers.</p>
<p>what would your groups be?</p>