<p>Acceptance rate is super low, IVY-reputation is strong and salaries are top10-high. Why is it not that good in raknings?</p>
<p>[Brown</a> University - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_University#Rankings]Brown”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_University#Rankings)</p>
<p>because the “rankings” systems of USNWR and their ilk are practically useless. Why are you so concerned about minute differences? These rankings are for outsiders and nervous HS students. In the real world, the fact that Brown might be no. 5 and Princeton is no. 2 is as useful as a hole in your head.</p>
<p>rankings measure things like alumni donations, endowment, parestige (i don’t know how they get quantitative data on that one), and other often cyclical factors that have little effect on undergraduate education and happen to not be strong suits of brown. also, it rates graduate within 4 years. brown encourages people to take breaks to learn and explore, or recover from illness (columbia for instance does not allow for medical leave). in other words, the rankings are stupid, and don’t give an accurate picture of the education one can receive. and that my friend is why brown isn’t easily top 10.</p>
<p>there is also a heavy component of what other university heads think of you. Many universities don’t really believe in the new curriculum/no +s and -s. If they did, they would do it too!</p>
<p>Columbia doesn’t allow for medical leave? where do they write that?</p>
<p>Brown has ranked as high as number 9 or so in the mid 1990s and it’s been as low as 17 since. There are a lot of great schools out there. Northwestern, Washington University and the University of Chicago have really raised the profile of the midwest as a destination for smart students away from some of the ivies and selective LACs.</p>
<p>In the mid 90s, Brown and Penn were near tied in US News- since then Penn has been at 4-6th while Brown has been 14-17th for reasons not entirely clear.</p>
<p>Most of Johns Hopkins’s and Cornell’s academic departments rank higher than Brown’s which confers more prestige when in fact, gaining admission to Brown is more difficult.</p>
<p>there are a lot of nervous h.s ers out there. the rankings are like help with making a decision by using the Ben Franklin method. (drawing a line down a tablet for positives and negatives). You can always skew the results…and the activity may not mean much on its own…but it helps you to think things through, and perhaps come out with what’s really important to you…regardless of the “Ben Franklin” or the US News rankings. That said, Brown is a lower level Ivy by pretty much all standards. But that’s like saying someone’s a lower ranking US Senator. (but they are still a US Senator).</p>