With US News Being Challenged by Top Schools, Does it Make More Sense to Combine Rankings?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ranking college makes no sense at all. What is the point?

+100 a “very good” university, per any ranking, doesn’t mean it’s good for all students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ranking college makes no sense at all. What is the point?

Coming from a different country, rankings have been useful in understanding the college landscape. Of course they're not meant to be the only consideration, but they help give a general sense of where things stand. I never would have known, for example, that Rice is a very good university.

+1 in my country we only knew a few American schools like MIT, Harvard, Caltech, Duke, Stanford, and a few others. There are many more great universities that we didn’t know about until coming here.

So are all the rankings obsessed posters on here immigrants? They rely on the rankings to learn about schools they don’t hear about in movies or overseas? I never understood the obsession with USNWR, but this makes more sense.

Yes, because immigrants are the ones with tens of thousands of dollars to spend on private college counselors and test prep resources to get their kids into the top schools. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands spent on getting kids into top schools through niche sports. Or straight up buying seats at top universities as seen through Varsity Blues. Only immigrants do all that, no white people would ever be that obsessed!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ranking college makes no sense at all. What is the point?

+100 a “very good” university, per any ranking, doesn’t mean it’s good for all students.

Of course no one should literally pick by going in order of a ranking, but it's a general proxy for which schools have very strong academics, attract quality students, and open lots of doors. That is certainly useful information to have for many ambitious kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ranking college makes no sense at all. What is the point?

Coming from a different country, rankings have been useful in understanding the college landscape. Of course they're not meant to be the only consideration, but they help give a general sense of where things stand. I never would have known, for example, that Rice is a very good university.

But there are many other very good universities not on the lists you are limiting yourself to, and that fact that there is a list is making you think the education form Rice is better than a school on a different list or ranked lower, etc.

Can you name a few?

One of the biggest problems with rankings is that it makes people fixate on the order of the list when there really isn't any meaningful difference between say #15 and #35. And, for USNWR, a significant part of the rankings is "peer reputation" which really is just a reinforcing of the ranking USNWR already provided (no college admin really knows all that much about colleges they didn't work at or didn't attend) and things like expenditures and alumni giving which are just measures of how wealthy is the school.

I like that NYTimes ranking tool posted above. If you want an idea of some strong schools academically, one factor is "academic profile", a combo of incoming student test scores (quality of student body) + graduation rate (effectiveness of the college in keeping/graduating students) + student-faculty ratio (how much faculty attention you might get, although acknowledging that colleges can game this metric by counting faculty that don't actually teach). Putting no other filters in place, with 100% weight on academic profile, the top schools are:

Cal Tech
MIT
U Chicago
Princeton
Duke
Yale
U of Penn
Rice
JHU
Williams

Do you want a more diverse student body, not nearly all wealthy kids? Adding weight for economically diverse, the top tier becomes:

Cal Tech
U Chicago
Stevens Institute of Technology
MIT
Cooper Union
U of Southern California
Northeastern
JHU
Carnegie Mellon
Harvey Mudd

Concerned about the cost? Add weight for low net price. That gives a list of mostly public colleges, especially CUNY system.

You can also limit to schools of different sizes, locations, acceptance rates. How about 100% on academic profile but with acceptance rates of >25% to get schools that might be reasonable targets for an excellent student? Case Western, Kenyon, Brandeis, Reed, U of Rochester, U of Richmond. Are those too small? Add >10K students and you get GWU, U of Miami, U of Florida, Pitt, U of Georgia.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ranking college makes no sense at all. What is the point?

Coming from a different country, rankings have been useful in understanding the college landscape. Of course they're not meant to be the only consideration, but they help give a general sense of where things stand. I never would have known, for example, that Rice is a very good university.

+1 in my country we only knew a few American schools like MIT, Harvard, Caltech, Duke, Stanford, and a few others. There are many more great universities that we didn’t know about until coming here.

So are all the rankings obsessed posters on here immigrants? They rely on the rankings to learn about schools they don’t hear about in movies or overseas? I never understood the obsession with USNWR, but this makes more sense.

Yes, because immigrants are the ones with tens of thousands of dollars to spend on private college counselors and test prep resources to get their kids into the top schools. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands spent on getting kids into top schools through niche sports. Or straight up buying seats at top universities as seen through Varsity Blues. Only immigrants do all that, no white people would ever be that obsessed!

+1 calling the ranking obsession an immigrant phenomenon is laughable. Look at the demographics of the top boarding schools that feed into these top schools and it’s very obvious that immigrants are far from the only people who want to get their kids into Harvard, Duke, etc.

[Anonymous]

But why? Can't you just find a list of quality schools (like Princeton Review's Best Colleges in America) and choose a list that matches your child's grades, major, geographic and size preferences, Greek or no, urban or no, etc. Basically, fit.

Feeling the need to KNOW the rank seems so status conscious. It also is not a good gauge of quality. None of the lists you included, for example, rate best teaching. Think about that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ranking college makes no sense at all. What is the point?

Coming from a different country, rankings have been useful in understanding the college landscape. Of course they're not meant to be the only consideration, but they help give a general sense of where things stand. I never would have known, for example, that Rice is a very good university.

+1 in my country we only knew a few American schools like MIT, Harvard, Caltech, Duke, Stanford, and a few others. There are many more great universities that we didn’t know about until coming here.

So are all the rankings obsessed posters on here immigrants? They rely on the rankings to learn about schools they don’t hear about in movies or overseas? I never understood the obsession with USNWR, but this makes more sense.

Yes, because immigrants are the ones with tens of thousands of dollars to spend on private college counselors and test prep resources to get their kids into the top schools. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands spent on getting kids into top schools through niche sports. Or straight up buying seats at top universities as seen through Varsity Blues. Only immigrants do all that, no white people would ever be that obsessed!

+1 calling the ranking obsession an immigrant phenomenon is laughable. Look at the demographics of the top boarding schools that feed into these top schools and it’s very obvious that immigrants are far from the only people who want to get their kids into Harvard, Duke, etc.

Are you really going to claim that some cultures are not more into status (ie. name brands) than others? Look at wedding traditions.

I actually know someone who included the name of their kid's college in her wedding invitation. NO American would have done that.

(Note: lots of Americans are status conscious, don't get me wrong, but such displays if status/money are definitely very common in some Asian cultures. )

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But why? Can't you just find a list of quality schools (like Princeton Review's Best Colleges in America) and choose a list that matches your child's grades, major, geographic and size preferences, Greek or no, urban or no, etc. Basically, fit.

Feeling the need to KNOW the rank seems so status conscious. It also is not a good gauge of quality. None of the lists you included, for example, rate best teaching. Think about that.

+1 for the most part they are evaluating inputs -- the quality of the students (test scores) or how much money the college has. Not actual results. What would be more interesting would be large scale surveys of alumni but that would be massively expensive to do it on a large enough scale.

One thing some colleges share is their NSSE results (National Survey of Student Engagement) https://nsse.indiana.edu/nsse/. You have to look on a college's institutional research page to find it, if available. Or ask for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But why? Can't you just find a list of quality schools (like Princeton Review's Best Colleges in America) and choose a list that matches your child's grades, major, geographic and size preferences, Greek or no, urban or no, etc. Basically, fit.

Feeling the need to KNOW the rank seems so status conscious. It also is not a good gauge of quality. None of the lists you included, for example, rate best teaching. Think about that.

+1 for the most part they are evaluating inputs -- the quality of the students (test scores) or how much money the college has. Not actual results. What would be more interesting would be large scale surveys of alumni but that would be massively expensive to do it on a large enough scale.

One thing some colleges share is their NSSE results (National Survey of Student Engagement) https://nsse.indiana.edu/nsse/. You have to look on a college's institutional research page to find it, if available. Or ask for it.

Here's an example of NSSE results for Virginia Tech: https://aie.vt.edu/content/dam/aie_vt_edu/institutional-effectiveness/survey-and-results/nsse/snapshot/NSSE20%20Snapshot%20(Virginia%20Tech).pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ranking college makes no sense at all. What is the point?

Coming from a different country, rankings have been useful in understanding the college landscape. Of course they're not meant to be the only consideration, but they help give a general sense of where things stand. I never would have known, for example, that Rice is a very good university.

+1 in my country we only knew a few American schools like MIT, Harvard, Caltech, Duke, Stanford, and a few others. There are many more great universities that we didn’t know about until coming here.

So are all the rankings obsessed posters on here immigrants? They rely on the rankings to learn about schools they don’t hear about in movies or overseas? I never understood the obsession with USNWR, but this makes more sense.

Yes, because immigrants are the ones with tens of thousands of dollars to spend on private college counselors and test prep resources to get their kids into the top schools. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands spent on getting kids into top schools through niche sports. Or straight up buying seats at top universities as seen through Varsity Blues. Only immigrants do all that, no white people would ever be that obsessed!

+1 calling the ranking obsession an immigrant phenomenon is laughable. Look at the demographics of the top boarding schools that feed into these top schools and it’s very obvious that immigrants are far from the only people who want to get their kids into Harvard, Duke, etc.

Are you really going to claim that some cultures are not more into status (ie. name brands) than others? Look at wedding traditions.

I actually know someone who included the name of their kid's college in her wedding invitation. NO American would have done that.

(Note: lots of Americans are status conscious, don't get me wrong, but such displays if status/money are definitely very common in some Asian cultures. )

Yes, Europeans are very status obsessed too. LVMH is housed there. Asian cultures are very keen on education for sure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ranking college makes no sense at all. What is the point?

Coming from a different country, rankings have been useful in understanding the college landscape. Of course they're not meant to be the only consideration, but they help give a general sense of where things stand. I never would have known, for example, that Rice is a very good university.

+1 in my country we only knew a few American schools like MIT, Harvard, Caltech, Duke, Stanford, and a few others. There are many more great universities that we didn’t know about until coming here.

So are all the rankings obsessed posters on here immigrants? They rely on the rankings to learn about schools they don’t hear about in movies or overseas? I never understood the obsession with USNWR, but this makes more sense.

Yes, because immigrants are the ones with tens of thousands of dollars to spend on private college counselors and test prep resources to get their kids into the top schools. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands spent on getting kids into top schools through niche sports. Or straight up buying seats at top universities as seen through Varsity Blues. Only immigrants do all that, no white people would ever be that obsessed!

+1 calling the ranking obsession an immigrant phenomenon is laughable. Look at the demographics of the top boarding schools that feed into these top schools and it’s very obvious that immigrants are far from the only people who want to get their kids into Harvard, Duke, etc.

Are you really going to claim that some cultures are not more into status (ie. name brands) than others? Look at wedding traditions.

I actually know someone who included the name of their kid's college in her wedding invitation. NO American would have done that.

(Note: lots of Americans are status conscious, don't get me wrong, but such displays if status/money are definitely very common in some Asian cultures. )

Sure! One idiot lists their kid's college on a wedding invite and you assume everyone does.

All rich people and wanna-be rich people aim for status. Nothing wrong with that. It's their money. If I'm willing to spend 90K/year on college, I'm sure not going to create my own list from scratch! Are you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ranking college makes no sense at all. What is the point?

Coming from a different country, rankings have been useful in understanding the college landscape. Of course they're not meant to be the only consideration, but they help give a general sense of where things stand. I never would have known, for example, that Rice is a very good university.

+1 in my country we only knew a few American schools like MIT, Harvard, Caltech, Duke, Stanford, and a few others. There are many more great universities that we didn’t know about until coming here.

So are all the rankings obsessed posters on here immigrants? They rely on the rankings to learn about schools they don’t hear about in movies or overseas? I never understood the obsession with USNWR, but this makes more sense.

Yes, because immigrants are the ones with tens of thousands of dollars to spend on private college counselors and test prep resources to get their kids into the top schools. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands spent on getting kids into top schools through niche sports. Or straight up buying seats at top universities as seen through Varsity Blues. Only immigrants do all that, no white people would ever be that obsessed!

+1 calling the ranking obsession an immigrant phenomenon is laughable. Look at the demographics of the top boarding schools that feed into these top schools and it’s very obvious that immigrants are far from the only people who want to get their kids into Harvard, Duke, etc.

Are you really going to claim that some cultures are not more into status (ie. name brands) than others? Look at wedding traditions.

I actually know someone who included the name of their kid's college in her wedding invitation. NO American would have done that.

(Note: lots of Americans are status conscious, don't get me wrong, but such displays if status/money are definitely very common in some Asian cultures. )

Most likely the bride and groom met at the same (presumably elite) college they attended together, so it's not that weird to list the college since it played a role in their union.

[Anonymous]

How is duke #4?

I guess it depends on which ranking games you include and exclude.

[Anonymous]

There’s a certain amount of privilege that comes from being able to spend the equivalent of a new home for each child on college tuition and honestly say that you don’t care about rankings or the perceived status of a school and can solely pick a school based on perfect fit for a child (as you’ve had the resources to personally visit all of these schools). More power to you if you’re at that point.

My sprinkler box broke yesterday. In a quick Google search, I pulled up at least a half-dozen rankings of different sprinkler boxes ranging in cost from $100-$200.

So, it’s sort of wacky to me that the colleges themselves just want to wish away the large demand for college rankings when people are spending *hundreds* of thousands of dollars over the course of 4 years.

I’m not saying that the US News rankings or other ranking systems like them are accurate, infallible or should be taken as gospel. There are a lot of flaws with them. However, this notion that all people should be above these rankings and they’re worthless is, as I’ve noted above, a super-privileged position. This is the single largest financial decision most people will have outside of their house (and maybe even more than their house). When there is demand for multiple rankings for $100-$200 sprinkler boxes, it’s perfectly reasonable that there’s going to be a ton of demand for colleges that cost upwards of $90,000 per year. If the US News rankings aren’t there, then someone else will fill that void.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, the schools dislike all of the rankings. The others just don't get enough eyeballs for them to actually complain about!
Unfortunately for those outlets, they are hardly part of the conversation.

At the very least, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Niche definitely get lots of eyeballs. Anytime you google rankings Niche is always one of the first to pop up.

I'm I doing something wrong? When I Google college rankings I see USNWR, then Google inserts its "People also ask" and "Top Stories" results, and only after that do Niche, Forbes, and Money even appear. The algorithm is pretty clear on this one