Actually, that’s exactly what came to my mind! 
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In those “hyperelite universities” you mention, I think that the presence of a large graduate community opens more doors to undergrads than it closes.
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Columbia, Chicago, Penn
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It is, if we include Caltech. hehe
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There are so many things wrong with the way WSJ scored the schools. After reading through the schools and their scores, it looks like they compared schools to similar schools in their demographic( “salary Impact vs similar colleges”)
For example: Johns Hopkins, has a lower score than FIU, yet their 10 year salary average is $40,000 more a year, than FIU’s. FIU is ranked 29 and JHU is ranked 99! FIU’s average SAT is around 1150, JHU is above 1500. This is a horrible representation of the qualities of these schools.
Also, it looks like their scoring methodology highly benefits schools that are heavily populated with CS, engineering, and business (All 3 of which do not need advanced degrees, so immediately go into the work force with high paying jobs)
The schools that have strong and large Physics, chemistry, bio, English, etc programs are severely penalized.
Example: UCHICAGO is know as one of the most rigorous schools in the world, with over 20% getting their Phd. They have world class programs in areas that are known not to have high paying jobs. Because of this, UCHICAGO’s graduating undergrad’s salary has a lower average than similar IVY+ schools that focus more on CS, business and engineering. So, this school was ranked 37; lower than FIU, University of La Verne, and a few others that have drastically lower stats.
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This is true, but it is also true for all rankings that purport to rank all colleges, or all national universities, or so on, in some generic way. So in that sense, while it might be better if no such rankings were published in major media outlets, better there be a bunch with contradictory results (which is itself telling you something) rather than just one that is then taken as unquestionably valid.
By the way, my favorite ranking I have ever seen is just two columns of the Guardian’s “league tables” for UK universities by undergraduate course (courses being what they call majors), the average entry tariff and value added columns:
To quickly review, doing it by course means largely eliminating all the problems caused by lumping together different majors, different specialty schools, and often both undergrad programs and graduate programs.
Average entry tariff is then a decent measure of the relative selectivity of that undergraduate course at each university, with the caveat that for Oxford and Cambridge specifically, their interviewing process may cause their average entry tariff to not be quite as high as it otherwise would be. This is a reference to the UCAS tariff system, where all the major criteria are assigned specific point values (the highest going to high grades in their A Levels).
Finally, value added compares those average entry tariffs to exiting course grades, which can be First-Class Honours, Upper-Second, Lower Second, Third, or Fail. Again, there is a little problem specifically for Oxford and Cambridge, where sometimes their average entry tariff is so high it is basically impossible to get more than a mediocre score in value added. But again it mostly works pretty well.
OK, so you are interested in, say, Philosophy. Let’s look it up. Sorting by average entry tariff, it looks like this in the top 10:
Oxford 204
St Andrews 190
Cambridge 189
LSE 189
Durham 188
Glasgow 186
UCL 179
Warwick 177
Edinburgh 174
KCL 172
OK, is St Andrews’s Philosophy course harder to get into then Cambridge’s Philosophy course? Eh, no, probably not. But otherwise, this is at least a pretty good take on how selective these Philosophy courses are relative to each other.
OK, but what about value added? Sticking to the top 10, it looks like:
Oxford 6
St Andrews 7
Cambridge 7
LSE 7
Durham 6
Glasgow 8
UCL 8
Warwick 5
Edinburgh 5
KCL 7
This is a 10 point scale, and none are horrible. I’d also suggest Oxford has the sort of outlier average entry tariff that makes that 6 likely better than it looks.
Still, I’d say the 5s (Warwick and Edinburgh), and the other 6 (Durham), have a little explaining to do relatively to Oxford and the 7/8s.
Anyway, what’s my point?
Well, all this is only possible for four necessary reasons:
(1) UK universities exclusively admit by course (aka major);
(2) UK universities admit almost exclusively on academics;
(3) UK secondary school academic credentials are highly standardized; and
(4) UK undergraduate exit grades by course are also highly standardized.
Notably, NONE of those things is true of the more selective US colleges.
And that, to me, is why even decent college rankings are basically impossible in the US.
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Interesting (to me) to see …
#77 University of Dayton
#27 Lake Forest (IL)
#30 Davidson
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What I would be interested to see is a comparison in outcomes focusing on the top 5% of the graduating classes of three categories of high school: (1) private or top-tier public schools known as feeders to elite colleges; (2) large middle-of-the-road public high schools in largely middle-class neighborhoods; and (3) public high schools in low SES areas.
Does it matter where the top 5% kids go to college or is the outcome the same? Does the outcome change based on where they came from?
Is a full-pay or close to full pay middle/upper middle- class achiever going to do just as well (and maybe have a better ROI) at a state public versus an Ivy? Is the Ivy an advantage to the lower SES student only?
Would the analysis change if you looked at the top 30%?
That’s data I would love to see.
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Not to be outdone in the game of college clickbaiting, the NYT came out with some interesting pieces today. One article ranking economic diversity is linked in the "NESCAC Spoken Here thread. The other is a case study on Duke, which I am gifting here. Why Does Duke Have So Few Low-Income Students? - The New York Times
Perhaps the Moderators will want to split this off, but since we have so many eyeballs here already, I figured it is not a bad place to plant it.
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Depends what you are trying to measure. WSJ is trying to measure actual outcomes vs expected outcomes to derive a valued added component vs direct comparisons where the haves like JHU (in both resources and quality of students) are almost always better than the less haves like FIU – the traditional USNWR type ranking. Not vouching for the quality of the raw scores, but the components between JHU and FIU break out like this:
| JHU | FIU | |
|---|---|---|
| Rank | 99 | 29 |
| Outcomes | ||
| Salary Impact | 64 | 83 |
| Graduation Rate | 82 | 75 |
| Years to Pay Off | 11M | 9M |
| Net Price | $14,254 | $6,232 |
| Value Add | $60,351 | $32,946 |
| Survey | ||
| Learning Opp | 65 | 64 |
| Career Prep | 68 | 67 |
| Learning Facil | 74 | 82 |
| Recommend | 74 | 79 |
| Diversity | 71 | 78 |
So yes, in an absolute sense, JHU grades generally make more. But the Salary Impact score is saying that given the demographics of JHU students, their actual outcomes do not exceed expected outcomes more than the FIU grads.
Of course any outcome based analysis measured in salary is going to favor majors (or schools heavy with those majors) in certain higher pay areas. Remember though, they are not using starting salary but median salary over I think a 10 year period (may be 6) after graduation. So you do capture the benefit of salaries requiring advance degrees. Schools that place a relatively large percentage of grads in academia or government service would not fare so well.
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IMO, the WSJ ranking should have been condensed to include just the College Scorecard 10 year median earnings and the regular tuition cost. Everything else is just fluff.
Average net price is meaningless because every family has their own capacity and willingness to pay, there is no guarantee that the net price applies to you, and federal and state aid is not specific to the school.
Looking at the Scorecard incomes for the top 287 schools and knowing that incomes are heavily based on the major/profession chosen, I don’t see enough of an income spread from #1 on the list to #287 to conclude there is a dramatic difference worth further investigation.
I think consumers can use the income data and tuition cost and just make their own informed decisions after that.
Yup, a lot of us would like to get an answer to that. I think there are several studies that say the lower SES students gain the most value add in going to elite schools (which these days are likely to be cheaper than even in state publics for them). There is also that study/book by Frank Bruni “Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be” which indicates that the student, not the school is determinative of outcomes. In general, IMO that is true at some base level of college resources and student body. However, I would also say that for certain careers and advanced degree placement, there is something to be said for “feeder” schools.
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If the majors that tend to have lower pay at graduation just are not popular at the school, then the school can still keep them around. For example, MIT offers majors in biology, literature, and theater arts, but they are not very common among students there.
The scores on the WSJ are misleading. On College Scorecard, JHU’s graduation rate for kids with federal loans is 93% while FIU’s is 67%. Johns Hopkins median income in $90,000. FUI’s is $58,000.
The average cost is only $8000 more at JHU.
And this is just one example of the inaccuracies with the list. I can give many more examples.
The way they scored the schools is abysmal.
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There is an extra C in CCCP compared to CCP.
But CCP is a common abbreviation of Chinese Communist Party, although its official English name is Communist Party of China or CPC.
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Thanks for enlightening me and dispelling me of the notion it was the old Soviet Union👍
Here is an actual CCCP today: CCCP – Academic Advancement Program
I note this is really just a repeat of all the questions about what is happening at the secondary to college transition as well. How much is individual or family characteristics not dependent on secondary school choice? And how much is actually value-added by school choice?
And if there is “value added”, it probably isn’t just the name on your sweatshirt. It will more likely be things like better advice and counseling, better opportunities for top professor recommendations, better opportunities for other credentials outside of just courses/grades, better opportunities for networking, and so on.
I point this out because I think on the one hand, if you are not realistic about how this sort of stuff actually works, you may have a very inflated sense of what merely attending a certain college will do for you. Like, in most cases, that just means you are in the game, it definitely does not mean you have already won it.
And on the other, often there is still a path at other colleges, which some people periodically follow. It just isn’t so clearly marked out for you, may involve going outside of your college’s normal programs and opportunities, and so on.
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You wish.