<p>Currently ranked twelfth behind Cal Tech and Dartmouth at ten, do you think NU will ever reach the top 10 again? What do you think the admissions rate will be in the next few years?</p>
<p>Why does it even matter? You made a similar post like this except it was about Cornell. Why are you so rankings obsessed? Are you prestige hungry? It doesn’t matter; Northwestern is a phenomenal school.</p>
<p>Sorry, It’s just that I love each school equally. I’m really into NU and would be positive i receive lots of prestige for attending.</p>
<p>Not that it matters, but one of the stated goals of President Schapiro is to get NU in the top 10, locally as well as in the international arena.</p>
<p>nw dad - it DOES matter to prospective Nu students that the prez seeks this . This means he will try to do things to move up — be more selective; seek more apps to reject more kids; 32,000 apps is not enough! better yield rate; what else does the almighty USNews demand? Alumni giving?</p>
<p>The USNWR methodology rewards prestige and wealth. There are a few top universities that are a bit long in the tooth and generated their wealth and prestige 100 years ago. And Cal Tech with 1200 students being listed as a “National University” Please. Todays hot universities are Northwestern, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt and Rice.</p>
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<p>I am an alum and my son is a current NU student. And no, it really doesn’t matter. </p>
<p>BTW, acceptance rate counts for a minute portion of USNWR, so “generating apps just to generate apps” isn’t really a way to rise in the rankings. </p>
<p>NU has become more aggressive on asking for alumni donations, IMHO - but as I am full pay for my son, I have no hesitation in saying “no thanks, I give enough right now.” So be it. </p>
<p>What’s more important is – Schapiro wants to continuously improve, which may or may not result in a rise in the rankings, but you know something? Being in the top 20 is good enough. Seriously. The Northwestern ethos is not about being the pathetic loser type who needs outside affirmation in rankings to feel good about the school and the education.</p>
<p>President Shapiro has a great message to all the current students and families. He believes that the university should always be adding something as an improvement, whether it be an academic improvement or a physical improvement. He believes that every current student should be able to take advantage of something new while in residence at NU.</p>
<p>If you care about getting a lot of prestige from attending a school, you should go to a different school. Northwestern is a great school, but it’s not the most recognized school worldwide. People around here (South Carolina) barely know it, and it’s not as recognizable as the Ivies. You should go to Cornell if you’re that worried about it.</p>
<p>I believe it’s still important for NU to keep an eye on rankings, as many students (especially international) do rely on rankings - both to decide where to apply and enroll. Read through Shapiro’s speeches, and you’ll see that he is putting additional emphasis on rankings to ensure that the school gets the recognition it deserves. If the school isn’t recognized to the level of its inherent value, I think intangible benefits can be achieved through correcting it.</p>
<p>The ranking game is a big business! To be honest, the so-called “prestige” factor is more in the minds of the parents. When I interact with the students at high schools, both public and private, the responses most often indicate the preference of their parents. To a teenager, about to enter a college, the most important CONCERN is the “College life”, which includes the look of the campus, quality of living residence halls & dining, profile of the current students, geographical diversity, sports, cultural activities, et al. Even faculty quality is not in their minds!</p>
<p>Could be for career focused students, aspiring for engineering and management courses, there are other factors too!</p>
<p>“People around here (South Carolina) barely know it, and it’s not as recognizable as the Ivies. You should go to Cornell if you’re that worried about it.”</p>
<p>And people around here (Chicago) do know it, and don’t know half the Ivies (Brown? Dartmouth? whatever). it is all REGIONAL. Don’t pretend that how people think in any corner of the US is in any way universal.</p>
<p>We (parents) live in central Illinois, and almost everyone around us does NOT know how great a school NU is (Catholics here always think Notre Dame is much better…) But more importantly than parents’ or student’s bragging rights, my son (who graduated in June from NU) has found that for summer internships and law school acceptances, NU is VERY well regarded. His friends starting careers right out of NU have had the same experience.</p>
<p>On top of that – my S had a great time at NU! </p>
<p>Along the same lines, my son begins this fall at University of Chicago Law School, and we have not been surprised – and do not care --that almost everyone here mixes it up with the much lower ranked U of Illinois-Chicago (even tho U of I’s law school is not in Chgo). The big Chicago law firms – where my S wants to work eventually – do know the value of U of Chgo and NU, and that’s what really counts.</p>
<p>I’m telling you, the Beverly neighborhood in Chicago (South Side, very Irish) – Notre Dame is IT. THE school.</p>
<p>“The ranking game is a big business!” </p>
<p>I was going to ask this question as a separate thread way above all the colleges, but I 'll give a dry run here as it is appropros since the subject is ‘moving up the rankings’…</p>
<p>What sort of auditing , if any , of the college supplied data that affects ranking (excluding items that US News collects itself such as peer review) is done? </p>
<p>Are there regulations or policing done at any level , whether, ahem, internal in the world of colleges or is there a disinterested external auditing at the federal level , for example? </p>
<p>How do we know, for example, that the range of ACT scores or the denominator of all apps recvd, or even admits ARE what colleges claim them to be?</p>
<p>It is a BIG billion dollar business. There is all the motivation in the world for colleges to cook the data for them to go up in rankings.</p>
<p>THis is my third kid thru the process and I had asked this question of CC for the first one and never recvd a reply. I cd nt find anything on google when I tried.</p>
<p>The ranking business is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.</p>
<p>Got to give credit to Bill Shakespeare</p>
<p>PizzaGirl, I know it’s regional, but my point is in terms of prestige there are better schools to go to. Everyone knows Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, and a few others. and most will know Duke, UChicago and some others, but Northwestern isn’t as big a name as it’s academics would suggest.</p>
<p>Ridiculous to talk prestige with the names being thrown around here considering they are ALL excellent/great schools.</p>
<p>Maybe better in terms of recognition, but not “better” in terms of academic substance. I think NU belongs to a very handful of schools that combines world-class research and undergraduate focus. Also maybe not in SC yet, but NU’s name is really getting out there now.</p>
<p>That was the point I was making. NU has a low recognition compared to it’s academics, and there are better schools to go to if you’re obsessed with prestige like OP. Honestly, do you want someone to come to NU who only cares about how good they’ll look by going there?</p>