<p>Like let's say that a certain university makes the list for Top Southern - Master's Universities but wasn't even mention in top national universites? Or why are none of the top national universities mentioned in the top [insert region] - master's universities?</p>
<p>Other US News rankings are either for grad schools (in which case they're none of your concern if applying for undergrad) or are secondary regional rankings and stuff like that and therefore BELOW the top ranked schools.</p>
<p>yea but what does each heading mean? like each regional top master's universities? or each regional top comprehensive universities?</p>
<p>bump 10 chars</p>
<p>national universities have large phd programs and draw nationally.
masters universities have smaller graduate programs and usually draw regionally.
liberal arts colleges have very small (or no) graduate programs and draw nationally.
comprehensive colleges are undergraduate schools where most students do not major in the liberal arts and draw regionally.</p>
<p>these rankings are somewhat fluid (richmond recently moved from masters universities to liberal arts colleges), and as such no school in any category should be presumed better than another based on its categorical placement. looking at sat ranges gives a general idea of where one school would place within a different ranking.</p>
<p>thanks erica you really cleared up a lot of stuff for me... but its not safe to compare schools from one category to schools in another... for example if a school ranked #2 on the master's list where would it rank in the national list?</p>
<p>Speaking of US News stats, I think several of the stats are prone to being misunderstood. One is the Middle 2 quartiles of the SATs--which apparently reflect the scores of the students that attend, rather than the students who got accepted. The former being a good guage of whom you'll be competing with in the classroom, and the latter being an indication of their standards for admission.</p>
<p>The other category that can be misleading is the % of classes with over 50 students in them. At first glance, many people probably think that if 20% of the courses have over 50 people in them, then probably roughly 20% of the courses the average person takes will have over 50 students in them. But the 20% figure is the number of COURSES OFFERED, not the # the average student will take. </p>
<p>For example, suppose a college had 1000 freshmen each year, and required all 1000 of them to take the same 5 courses in one gigantic lecture hall in each of the two freshmen-year semesters (so, for freshmen, the school would offer total of 10 semester-long courses, each with 1000 people sitting together in each one). And for sophomores, juniors, and seniors, the school offered 750 classes per year, each having 40 students per class. In any given year, the number of courses offered with over 50 students would be less than 2% of the total # of courses offered (10 out of 760 courses), but each student would finish his/her 4 years having had over 50 students in 25% of his/her courses (10 out of 40 courses).</p>