US College Rankings, from the perspective of a college student

[Anonymous]

Thought this video was a really interesting insight into what college students themselves think of the whole college rankings hullabaloo. The poster is a UC Berkeley student. To be honest their list feels pretty on point.

[Anonymous]

I'm already annoyed with her after about 2 minutes in

[Anonymous]

so, she's from the west coast and readily admits to not knowing much about east coast schools - how is this accurate?

[Anonymous]

1:34 is as far as I made it.

[Anonymous]

There are probably 1000+ of these on Youtube.
Is it your daughter?

[Anonymous]

Wow, we should totally pay attention to what she thinks of "academically achieved people" and the schools that they know about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:so, she's from the west coast and readily admits to not knowing much about east coast schools - how is this accurate?

Exactly. I gave her 3:49 but it was a waste.

And I'm not dogging the fact that she obviously grew up on the west coast and her world view is defined as such, but I am dogging the poster who thought this was a worthwhile perspective.

[Anonymous]

Nobody in the right mind will choose UC Berkeley over Brown. Berkeley will have to offer more, such as lower cost for this to happen.

[Anonymous]

This is why 18-22 year olds are not taken seriously.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nobody in the right mind will choose UC Berkeley over Brown. Berkeley will have to offer more, such as lower cost for this to happen.

Which is obviously the case for most California students. I'm from CA and high achieving students IME are much more focused on attending the top UCs + Stanford/USC rather than East Coast schools. And LACs are very rarely in consideration. It's a very different culture around college aspirations than the East Coast.

There's also less stigma for community colleges. It's not unusual for great students who have to consider budget and want UCLA/Cal to do the community college path rather than settle for 2nd tier UCs. My nephew was class valedictorian and didn't get into his 1st choice - UC Davis. So, is doing CC now planning to transfer there. He's not the only one of his friends choosing that path.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody in the right mind will choose UC Berkeley over Brown. Berkeley will have to offer more, such as lower cost for this to happen.

Which is obviously the case for most California students. I'm from CA and high achieving students IME are much more focused on attending the top UCs + Stanford/USC rather than East Coast schools. And LACs are very rarely in consideration. It's a very different culture around college aspirations than the East Coast.

There's also less stigma for community colleges. It's not unusual for great students who have to consider budget and want UCLA/Cal to do the community college path rather than settle for 2nd tier UCs. My nephew was class valedictorian and didn't get into his 1st choice - UC Davis. So, is doing CC now planning to transfer there. He's not the only one of his friends choosing that path.

SlACs are rarely considered by Californians bc most people don't know about SLACs.
This is true for non-californians. Obviously, if they don't know, they will not apply.

[Anonymous]

If you think the USNWR college list is stupid, this video is beyond inane. Who gives a crap what she thinks.

[Anonymous]

For those who couldn't make it to the end, this was the ranking:

1: Harvard
2: Yale, Princeton
3: Stanford
4: Columbia
5: U of Chicago, MIT
6: U Penn, Northwestern
7: Cal Tech
8: Johns Hopkins
9: Duke
10: UC Berkeley
11: Brown
12: Cornell
13: Dartmouth
14: Rice
15: UCLA
16: Carnegie Mellon
17: Vanderbilt
18: USC
19: Emory
20: NYU
21: WashU
22: UMich
23: U of Notre Dame
24: Georgetown

Honestly, it's a decent approximation for what most would think.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those who couldn't make it to the end, this was the ranking:

1: Harvard
2: Yale, Princeton
3: Stanford
4: Columbia
5: U of Chicago, MIT
6: U Penn, Northwestern
7: Cal Tech
8: Johns Hopkins
9: Duke
10: UC Berkeley
11: Brown
12: Cornell
13: Dartmouth
14: Rice
15: UCLA
16: Carnegie Mellon
17: Vanderbilt
18: USC
19: Emory
20: NYU
21: WashU
22: UMich
23: U of Notre Dame
24: Georgetown

Honestly, it's a decent approximation for what most would think.

If money were not an issue, any school listed below UC Berkeley is better than Berkeley with an exception of UCLA, Umich. If a T-24 private school calls with enough FA to make it the price of UC Berkeley, you go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those who couldn't make it to the end, this was the ranking:

1: Harvard
2: Yale, Princeton
3: Stanford
4: Columbia
5: U of Chicago, MIT
6: U Penn, Northwestern
7: Cal Tech
8: Johns Hopkins
9: Duke
10: UC Berkeley
11: Brown
12: Cornell
13: Dartmouth
14: Rice
15: UCLA
16: Carnegie Mellon
17: Vanderbilt
18: USC
19: Emory
20: NYU
21: WashU
22: UMich
23: U of Notre Dame
24: Georgetown

Honestly, it's a decent approximation for what most would think.

There are no SLACs. This list is incomplete. The reviewer probably never heard of Williams, Amherst, Oberlin, Vassar...