Which rankings are most important?
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Anonymous
Yes, you're right. You know more about what employers want than any of the rest of us. I stand down and bow to your superior knowledge, and I hope the other posters who disagreed with you will do the same. 
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Anonymous
Agree that school visits are MUCH more helpful than rankings - but where do you start? I'm one of those people who doesn't have time to visit 3.500 school. Best source of information is current students that you know. |
Anonymous
| Everyone knows Darmouth - but in evaluating a resume from Colorado College against one from Beacon College wouldn't you be a little interested in their respective rankings? |
Anonymous
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They are just another tool and to be used as a guideline. And in my opinion there isn't much difference in the school ranked #6 and the school ranked #15. Once you get into the 35+ rankings, though, you really are talking about a different caliber of student and the test scores, etc. pretty much bear this out. Surely we are not saying that the student bodies of all schools are exactly the same. Can there be a student at UMBC who is every bit as capable as a student at Brown or Dartmouth - there was a student in my child's graduating class that got into all 3 schools but simply couldn't afford Brown or Dartmouth.
And the PP who thinks employers aren't aware of the rankings I also think you're kidding yourselves. Otherwise they wouldn't know how to target on-campus recruiting. |
Anonymous
| For those of you who follow college sports, think of academic ratings as every bit as reliable as the rankings before the NCAA basketball tournament. Hint: You won’t see Gonzaga, Kansas, Indiana . . . on your TV tonight. Use the rankings as a tool. Research the schools; visit the schools; talk to students at the schools and apply to enough schools to make sure you have a good option. |
Anonymous
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The USNEWS Guidance Counseler rankings are eye opening. Though generally similar to the main rankings there are some differences.
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/high-school-counselor/spp%2B50 These rankings are more difficult to manipulate. |
Anonymous
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For you numbers geeks out there, http://metauniversityranking.com/worlds-top-50-universities-metascore/
"Meta University Ranking combines the three major university rankings – ARWU (Academic Ranking of World Universities), QS (QS World University Ranking) and THE (Times Higher Education World University Ranking) – and averages them to provide a more objective view about which colleges really stand out." |
Anonymous
One person's "objective" is another person's nonsense. Wisconsin and UCSD better than Brown? Riiiiight There seems to be an emphasis on research - which means little to most undergrads |
Anonymous
Point taken. Although to be fair, this is a mashup of international rankings, and the emphasis is supposed to be research. If you're looking for "12 free tuition colleges" or "best satellite campuses" or "colleges with best dorms" or even "best party school," then Huffington Post's numerous lists might be a better bet: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/college-rankings/ |
Anonymous
| Everyone seems to hate the US News rankings, but they are the gold standard for now. |
Anonymous
I agree, US News is the one everyone talks about. But Huffington does have some good ones if you want to get a little more tailored in your decision-making, like "10 colleges with most athletic women" and "10 best value private colleges" and "10 best value public colleges" and "10 best colleges for IT" and more. |
Anonymous
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the two that i think needs to be expanded are WSJ's top feeder school list (i.e. it ranks based on what percentage of the graduating class of a particular college goes on to an elite professional grad program..md,jd,mba) - it is not fleshed out well though (since it leaves of top phd programs) or done every year.
the others would be my own custom ranking...i'd select schools then call up or email to their career services and get a list who comes to campus for OCS/OCI and strongly recruits kids. The wsj 'top recruiter' school ranking is stupid as it ranks PSU number one but trust me McKinsey and its ilk are not sending anyone to PSU for recruiting compared to somewhere like Dartmouth. Between those two rankings i'd get an idea of what schools do the best job in preparing kids for top future academic programs or jobs. |
Anonymous
| Do you have links to the WSJ rankings? |
Anonymous
Gold standard of what? Hype? Their attempt to quantify colleges means they pick "objective" criteria that are not most people's criteria, and that can be and are juiced by the colleges. How do you measure attention paid to undergraduates? Quality of life? Rigor of teaching? These are the factors most sane people will be looking at and they aren't captured by these ridiculous rankings. |
Anonymous