<p>I have never really studied the individual components the magazine uses, but why does Yale consistently rank behind both H and P, at least over the last 10 years or so? Has anyone analyzed the methodology -- where is Yale penalized most compared to the other two?</p>
<p>I’m guessing that it has much to do with the size of the endowment.</p>
<p>They are given scores of 100, 99, and 98 respectively. So whatever is being low-weighted is pretty subtle and minor. The next place, Columbia, #4, is scored at 93. </p>
<p>Two factors where Princeton could gain that precious extra .51 point (maybe even less than that – just enough to round to the higher number) would be percentage of alumni contributing (I think no one matches Princeton in this category) and spending per student on academics and instruction (ditto).</p>
<p>Might also be the peer review - HPMS are all 4.9 while Yale is 4.8.</p>
<p>Yeah. Your right. The difference is mostly the academic reputation. High school counselors still think Yale is in the same group as HPSM but the academics who do the peer review survey gave Yale lower marks than HPSM for a few years now. US News gives a real big weighting to this academic reputation score so it drops Yale down below HP. Its still like 25% of the whole score. I don’t think were going to tie P until the reputation score gets better and I guess that comes from better professors winning more prizes and such. Our endowments bigger than P’s so that’s not it. Like you said, according to the book, we get a 4.8 peer assessment score. HPSM all get a 4.9. That makes a big diff. I don’t get why we get a lower score on peer review. Lots of things can probably be manipulated by schools in the numbers they give US News but this one can’t really be controlled by the schools. I’m excited as h**l about applying anyway. I’m a legacy and going SCEA ALL THE WAY BABY! Big congrats on the Yale '15 by the way!</p>
<p>4.8 versus 4.9 doesn’t seem all to be that significant. Probably a few people who hate Yale that give it bad scores lol… </p>
<p>Screw USNews Rankings… Just for lols, all the professors should give Harvard 0 on the peer reviews to watch it fall lower than Ohio State.</p>
<p>Yale was steadily rated a 4.9 thru most of the survey’s history – it is just over the last 3 years that the 0.1 point “discount” appeared. I have always assumed it was Yale’s perceived relative weakness in some of the basic sciences and in engineering that caused this slight budge. Though Yale has maintained its preeminence in many of the humanities, it is true that in some high profile fields – math, physics, and economics – Yale’s departments, while good, are viewed as sitting in the tier below HPSM looking up.</p>