<p>I ask this out of sincere curiosity and it’s been bothering me especially recently considering I am a rising freshman here. Consequently, my bias is obvious and I don’t deny it.</p>
<p>We’re #31 on US News (1 behind UNC Chapel Hill, which is there)</p>
<h1>4 undergrad business school according to businessweek</h1>
<h1>24 education school</h1>
<h1>21 nursing school</h1>
<p>I’m assuming we’re on the cusp of whatever the threshold may be and I understand a line has to be drawn somewhere. I’m just asking out of curiosity. Also, I know it’s not solely dependent on US News (#28 Tufts isn’t a “Top University” by CC terms while #30 UNC is) but again, I’m just curious as to who/what determines a top university on this site. I can’t be the only one to wonder where and why the line is drawn where it is…</p>
<p>At one time, I posted a question to CC re: the qualifications for a CC “top university”, and this was their reply:</p>
<p>“Schools are given their own forums based on the amount of activity about that specific school and NOT related to the school’s ranking. Your request will be considered when we see an increase in discussion about (said school).”</p>
<p>So clearly BC and Tufts students/ hopefuls/ grads avail themselves of more fruitful activities than generating activity on this site for the purpose of being called a CC “top university”. Touche!</p>
<p>As much as I’d like to believe that, wouldn’t you think that would involve some kind of correlation to student population? Like, wouldn’t enormously populated schools like Penn State, Ohio State, Arizona, and Alabama be the top represented then because they have the largest incoming classes and therefore the highest likelihood of CC representation? I could be totally off base in saying that but logically, that answer makes no sense if top colleges merely refers to site traffic on each subcategory.</p>
<p>Don’t feel badly: UW-Madison has a slew of top-ten and top-20 academic programs, but there isn’t a UW-Madison thread either. (UT-Austin, UIUC, Georgia Tech and U Washington are of similar quality as UW and they don’t have their own threads either in the “Top University” section of this site.)</p>
<p>Rankings will always depend on the variables used by the ranker and the weight assigned to said variables. Thus, rankings ooze subjectivity.</p>