Official US news 2023 thread

[Anonymous]

My takeaways from reading the list:

Winners
-- Princeton (always lovely to be #1 by oneself)
-- JHU - all Bloomberg's $$ is paying off for them
-- Wake Forest is higher than I expected (plus having a great football season). Feels "hot"
-- Rice and Wash U above Cornell, Columbia and Notre Dame

Losers
-- Columbia, but they made their bed...
-- UNC and UVA downward trend, upward trend Michigan and Florida (even though still ranked lower than UNC)
-- Expected UT Austin to be higher
-- Tufts on a downward trajectory

Everything else kind of washed with previous years, imo

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Reddit post from yesterday was definitely better: https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comment...5_college_ranking_aggregating/

Took unbiased data averages and factored in multiple methodologies to get a nice overall view of what colleges are best. Probably puts Hopkins and Chicago in more realistic places, and shows how underrated UMich is.

1. MIT
2. Stanford
3. Princeton
4. Harvard
5. Duke
5. Yale
7. Penn
8. Caltech
9. Columbia
9. Northwestern
11. Vanderbilt
12. Rice
13. Dartmouth
14. UChicago
15. Brown
16. Cornell
17. UMich
18. Johns Hopkins
19. WashU
20. Notre Dame

This is a very reasonable list, except I am not sure about Columbia now.

I agree with the above listing as well. Duke is a bit too high, but other than that it seems to make the most sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Reddit post from yesterday was definitely better: https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comment...5_college_ranking_aggregating/

Took unbiased data averages and factored in multiple methodologies to get a nice overall view of what colleges are best. Probably puts Hopkins and Chicago in more realistic places, and shows how underrated UMich is.

1. MIT
2. Stanford
3. Princeton
4. Harvard
5. Duke
5. Yale
7. Penn
8. Caltech
9. Columbia
9. Northwestern
11. Vanderbilt
12. Rice
13. Dartmouth
14. UChicago
15. Brown
16. Cornell
17. UMich
18. Johns Hopkins
19. WashU
20. Notre Dame

Mod, please ban this user

Please ban the user who asks others to be banned….

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Reddit post from yesterday was definitely better: https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comment...5_college_ranking_aggregating/

Took unbiased data averages and factored in multiple methodologies to get a nice overall view of what colleges are best. Probably puts Hopkins and Chicago in more realistic places, and shows how underrated UMich is.

1. MIT
2. Stanford
3. Princeton
4. Harvard
5. Duke
5. Yale
7. Penn
8. Caltech
9. Columbia
9. Northwestern
11. Vanderbilt
12. Rice
13. Dartmouth
14. UChicago
15. Brown
16. Cornell
17. UMich
18. Johns Hopkins
19. WashU
20. Notre Dame

This is a very reasonable list, except I am not sure about Columbia now.

I agree with the above listing as well. Duke is a bit too high, but other than that it seems to make the most sense.

The ranking seems based purely on numbers, the result is just the average of the ranking. I ran the numbers for Duke and Yale myself just out of curiosity and they actually are an exact tie: average rating of 7.538 across the 13 rankings, and expectedly they show up as a tie on the overall ranking. The individual data is on the original Reddit post by the way: https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comments/xc0v5x/the_2023_supreme_t75_college_ranking_aggregating/. Maybe US News is sleeping on Duke, Columbia, Michigan, Georgia Tech, etc. while giving too much to UChicago, JHU, Emory, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think for prestige, you need to take any ivy (including Cornell and Columbia) over Duke, Northwestern, and Hopkins. I think had Duke not been a basketball power house, it would be where Vanderbilt ranks 15ish. I think Georgetown, Tufts, etc. as academic institutions deserve to be a lot higher.

I think a lot of people disagree with you. I know outstanding students who are at Duke and didn't even consider Cornell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Reddit post from yesterday was definitely better: https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comment...5_college_ranking_aggregating/

Took unbiased data averages and factored in multiple methodologies to get a nice overall view of what colleges are best. Probably puts Hopkins and Chicago in more realistic places, and shows how underrated UMich is.

1. MIT
2. Stanford
3. Princeton
4. Harvard
5. Duke
5. Yale
7. Penn
8. Caltech
9. Columbia
9. Northwestern
11. Vanderbilt
12. Rice
13. Dartmouth
14. UChicago
15. Brown
16. Cornell
17. UMich
18. Johns Hopkins
19. WashU
20. Notre Dame

Mod, please ban this user

Which placement didn't you like?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. Hopkins is WAY overrated. I would put it below Duke & Northwestern (not to mention Dartmouth et al).

Hopkins has a premier med school and hospital system (that only Harvard and Stanford really rival). Honestly, nothing stands out about Duke and Northwestern other than maybe that cereal company's biz school at NW.

sure bud.

In all honesty, what really impresses you about Duke and Northwestern? They are both very good schools but Northwestern is basically the second best school for every discipline in the Chicago area. Duke prides itself on being the Harvard of the South and does have great basketball; however, I can't think of even a single truly elite discipline or grad school there. I've considered Duke the Northwestern of the South TBH, which isn't a bad thing (high-end private Power 5 schools). Both of them are great for the 7-15 range but shouldn't be feeling wronged anywhere in that range.

TBH I would say Duke and Northwestern are superior to JHU for pretty much everything except med-related disciplines

+1

JHU is great for medicine & medical research, but Dike & Northwestern are much better universities overall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Any list that ranks Hopkins in the top 10 is not to be trusted and is cray cray, I am not a bitter Harper either - my Ivy alma mater continues to do well. I wonder when all of us can acknowledge this is a shit show if a ranking done to stir up conversation - I guess it’s working.

Hopkins was ranked at 10 when I attended almost 30 years ago. It’s actually been remarkably consistent. Bloomberg’s scholarship money and dropping legacy preference likely account for it moving up a place or two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think for prestige, you need to take any ivy (including Cornell and Columbia) over Duke, Northwestern, and Hopkins. I think had Duke not been a basketball power house, it would be where Vanderbilt ranks 15ish. I think Georgetown, Tufts, etc. as academic institutions deserve to be a lot higher.

I think a lot of people disagree with you. I know outstanding students who are at Duke and didn't even consider Cornell.

True, I browse Reddit occasionally for college info for my kid and I see lots of other people on there turning down schools like Princeton and Yale for Duke. It's a popular choice that gets great students. Even smaller schools like Pomona and Williams get some great students that people might not expect, there's an entire section of Reddit dedicated to where people were accepted and where they're attending called College Results. My DD might early decision to Duke or UPenn but neither school takes many kids from her HS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Notre Dame at 18, tied with Columbia and only one behind Cornell.

Notre Dame is Ivy level.

Almost, but not quite!

Notre Dame would never want to join the Ivy League anyway! It is happy to be ranked right there and fully independent to print football $$!

The Ivy League isn't all it is cracked up to be. Georgetown wouldn't even give up its basketball TV $$ to join.

Remember that the ancient 8 really is just an old but now low-level athletic conference!

This! A top school that has so much more to offer than the stuffy ivies. Love it.

Georgetown has crumbling buildings and mold to offer students. I don't get why anyone would pay private school tuition to go there.

[Anonymous]

Duke was at the top,of my list as a student. It was a southern school then. Recently visited with my kids and was totally turned off. It’s been co-opted by obnoxious ny metro folks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any list that ranks Hopkins in the top 10 is not to be trusted and is cray cray, I am not a bitter Harper either - my Ivy alma mater continues to do well. I wonder when all of us can acknowledge this is a shit show if a ranking done to stir up conversation - I guess it’s working.

Hopkins was ranked at 10 when I attended almost 30 years ago. It’s actually been remarkably consistent. Bloomberg’s scholarship money and dropping legacy preference likely account for it moving up a place or two.

It looks like the schools that introduced the ED2 option (UChicago, Hopkins, Vanderbilt) have done very well recently, I think the added yield is a bit of an advantage. Also compared to the aggregate ranking of the 13 premier college rankings, Hopkins literally ranked highest only on US News. It is ranked lower on all 12 other rankings. That feels weird to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tech is way up, nipping at UMD’s heels, and is higher ranked engineering. UVA, William & Mary and Tech really pulled the trifecta over lowly UMD.

Virginia Tech will always be the 3rd best public and 5th best university in Virginia though. Meanwhile UMD is the best public university (and flagship) and 2nd best university in the state, behind a medical behemoth that is currently ranked #7 (over-ranked but certainly not a mediocre school to be ranked behind).

UMD gets priority over Maryland's state education budget. There's no the major public university in the state. Virginia's get split over UVA, W&M, VT, VCU and GMU. UMD has far more potential.

I went to VA tech, but agreed on UMD has great potential as a flagship state school.
There's basically only another private T10 level school other than UMD.

However VA Tech may catch up with W&M for the 2nd place.
There are already a lot of kids chooing VT rather than W&M depending on majors, personal preference, and fit.
W&M is not a definite choice at all over VT. Practically already almost viewed as tied 2nd after UVA for Virginians when choosing a school.

W&M was definitely viewed as a more quirky school among my kid's friends. Many applied to UVA and VT but not W&M, my DC included.

[Anonymous]

Took unbiased data averages and factored in multiple methodologies to get a nice overall view of what colleges are best. Probably puts Hopkins and Chicago in more realistic places, and shows how underrated UMich is.

1. MIT
2. Stanford
3. Princeton
4. Harvard
5. Duke
5. Yale
7. Penn
8. Caltech
9. Columbia
9. Northwestern
11. Vanderbilt
12. Rice
13. Dartmouth
14. UChicago
15. Brown
16. Cornell
17. UMich
18. Johns Hopkins
19. WashU
20. Notre Dame

This list is way out of order. Duke is way too high - above Yale? Come on. Northwestern/Vandy/Rice above UChicago/Brown? Lol.

[Anonymous]

It's funny how people can howl and complain about USNWR rankings and methodology now but likely had nothing to say about them 5 years ago, 10 years ago, etc.