<p>Here is a sample of why so, from 2007 data:</p>
<p>USNEWS vs. Shanghai Jing Tong University:</p>
<p>Princeton: #1 vs. #9</p>
<p>Brown University (lol): #14 vs. #70 (pwnt by Purdue University and Uni of Pittsburgh! 'ivy')</p>
<p>Dartmouth College: #11 vs #150~ (pwnt)</p>
<p>Tufts University: #30 vs. #~130</p>
<p>RPI: #44 vs. #200</p>
<p>University of Notre Dame: #19 vs. #~200-300</p>
<p>Wake Forest University: #30 vs. #~204-304</p>
<p>This shows that besides ranking being a stupid way to base college choices, places assumed to be 'ranked' high often find themselves ranked very low by others. USNEWS isn't God, its just 1 stupid media company who has no basis to have its rankings based on anything but random whims. Its like letting CNN tell you what countries are good and what countries need to be nuked. Its a dumb way. The fact that in the eyes of some people Boston University is more prestigious that Dartmouth, Tufts, Notre Dame, and many others, along with countless other examples shows this </p>
<p>just felt like saying that, flame as u will</p>
<p>This is what I attempt to get people on this site to realize: a ranking is only as good as its methodology. There are many aspects in which certain schools beat others, and vice versa. Simply because U Washington might be placed in the top 10, beating out many Ivies, doesn't automatically mean that the ranking is nonsensical. Rankings should help to figure out schools' quality; one's own preconceptions of schools' quality should not dictate rankings.</p>
<p>Could be the fact that one's a graduate school/research ranking and one is an undergrad ranking. Although it is true that grad school can effect the undergrad's prestige.</p>
<p>The criteria are explicitly biased toward specific subsets of scientific research. It is no wonder schools that are very strong in liberal arts are lower - especially schools like Dartmouth, where the focus is almost entirely on undergraduate education.</p>
<p>Nothing was "pwnt" here. This is a measure of how well-published professors are in certain fields of science, not how good the schools are.</p>
<p>kyledavid is right, and s/he made a point that I and many other have made many, many times: Take the rankings in the context of the methodology, and ONLY in that context. If you don't read and fully understand the methodology, and do a little digging into it, you have no idea what the rankings mean. Which means that the rankings are virtually useless to you.</p>
<p>I looked deeply into the Chinese rankings about a year ago. One highly ranked university was there on the basis of only eleven (11) faculty. That's it. Eleven who had published in the right journals and been highly cited because of that.</p>
<p>I believe the university in question has over 2,000 faculty. Eleven doesn't seem like a significant percentage on which to base such a ranking to me. Does it to anyone else?</p>