<p>Its placed around #50 for top LAC's yet a lot of people here on CC praise it. There are certainly a lot of colleges that rank (much)higher on usnews- so what makes this a Top LAC by CC standards but not by USnews?</p>
<p>look at the phd production.</p>
<p>There's a long history to this, which has been discussed on this board numerous times. Basically, "in the beginning" of the US News rankings, Reed was right up among the top tier schools (maybe even top 10). Then USNews went to their numerology, and Reed decided that it wouldn't play this game and didn't supply data. In retaliation, the next year USNews dumped Reed into the 4th tier! Never mind that most of the data was available to this "news organization" to gather if it was really interested. This action on the part of USNews brought a certain amount of negative publicity to USNews, and the following year it "placed" Reed into the second tier, despite the fact by "peer reputation" Reed was rated above half of the schools in the so-called first tier lac's in the USNews rankings (and this despite what many regard as an Eastern bias to these rankings). Based on the information that USNews actually uses in its rankings, it's hard to know where Reed should truly be ranked (that is, if one believes in these rankings at all). Assuming that USNews really wants to rank Reed fairly, that is using the same criteria as it applies to other schools, then Reed suffers from its relatively high admit rate, low "yield," and low retention. But again it's hard to know whether Reed really is significantly worse than many of the so-called first-tier schools even on those criteria.</p>
<p>If you want an outstanding education and are not mainly driven by the reputation defined by a news magazine, you might want to consider Reed. Several other organizations/evaluators rank Reed among the best colleges in the country. USNews isn't God.</p>
<p>yeah absulutely usnews aint God. but it does have some importance, specially for Int. students. give me a website that gives some kind of a ranking with some credible reasonings and I'll shut up.</p>
<p>mackinaw
I saw that a Reedie posted the princeton numbers on their livejournal
my daughter also had to mention it to me- like it would validate the reason why we are spending so much money
Perhaps they should have a listing of "schools more expensive than Harvard" as I noticed Reed now has the dubious pleasure of being at least according to the tuition in US NEWS</p>
<p>The alumni assn. also sent out the information about those rankings in its regular newsletter. Expensive it is. Tuition my freshman year: $1,240. Plus $600 for room and board.</p>
<p>Look at the major college review magazines. All rave about Reed. The PR academic rating, however, is based primarily upon returned student surveys, and given its year-to-year fluctuations is probably worse than USNWR. Most all these so-called rankings are nonsense. Although not about LAC's or Reed, this link provides an overview of some of the many ways schools can be ranked:</p>
<p>Accordingly, all rankings suffer. Reed College is a unique educational experience well respected throughout the academic world. Its graduates are well educated and successful, is there more?</p>
<p>How is Reed for Bio, PoliSci, and Anthro?</p>
<p>Reed is extremely strong in bio. Arguably that's its strongest science department and has been for a long time and is reflected in the high PhD productivity rate, which is the highest of any college or university in the country: <a href="http://web.reed.edu/ir/phd.html%5B/url%5D">http://web.reed.edu/ir/phd.html</a> . Reed is also strong in math, chemistry, and physics.</p>
<p>Traditionally, Reed has also been very strong in anthro as well. Some of my best friends from my Reed days are doing quite well these days as anthropologists at major universities. Polisci hasn't been as strong (that's my field, however), but Reed does very well in that area as well and some of the newer faculty (including the current department chair) have helped to bring that department into the modern era with a more behavioral and theoretical orientation.</p>