USNWR College Rankings 2018 - Reactions?

[Anonymous]

We should stop engaging with this guy. The postings sound insecure. No fun to debate rankings with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The status quo is there for a reason. Chicago is an excellent school but it lacks the prestige/name recognition and frankly the strength of HYPSM. It is not considered at very very top of any field. A common characteristic of all the HYPSM schools is that each one is the undisputed top school in at least one field. Another is that their name is very prestigious and instantly recognized by most people. Another yet is that they have way more resources than the other schools.

You tried to make this exact same point on another thread, in connection with your ceaseless argument that the "C" in the beast called HYPSMC is actually CalTech and not UChicago or Columbia. A number of posters shot you down with specific examples where Columbia and UChicago were at the very top of their fields, better than HYP. Did you not read those posts?


I have zero connection tomUChocago, but in my profession, Economics, people are hard-put to declare a "top program" among UChicago, Harvard and Stanford.

NP, and the Chicago basher is getting so tiring. Physics, English, and Political Theory are also programs where you're going to have a lot of people choosing Chicago over Harvard.

[Anonymous]

I don't believe USNWR cares one whit about whether a school is tops in any single field. They ask a broad range of academics about prestige, and the result is a ranking that reflects broad-based excellence, instead of reputation that's concentrated to a limited field

Whatever you think of USNWR, I agree with looking for excellence across the gamut of university fields, rather than a narrow scope. If we always took the narrow scope the CalTech booster is pushing, how on earth would a ranking system judge Swarthmore (politics) vs Middlebury (languages)?

Which is my way of saying the CalTech booster is tiring and the ways she twists herself to argue that acceptance rates, cross-school yields and all the rest "don't matter" is getting really tiring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't believe USNWR cares one whit about whether a school is tops in any single field. They ask a broad range of academics about prestige, and the result is a ranking that reflects broad-based excellence, instead of reputation that's concentrated to a limited field

Whatever you think of USNWR, I agree with looking for excellence across the gamut of university fields, rather than a narrow scope. If we always took the narrow scope the CalTech booster is pushing, how on earth would a ranking system judge Swarthmore (politics) vs Middlebury (languages)?

Which is my way of saying the CalTech booster is tiring and the ways she twists herself to argue that acceptance rates, cross-school yields and all the rest "don't matter" is getting really tiring.

PS I'm not 16:53 despite agreeing with her use of the word "tiring". Nor do I have any UChocago connections. I do think UChicago has played the rankings game very well, but in the absence of counterfactual data on acceptances and yields and so on, I'm not ready to put it below CalTech mostly because of this issue of broad-based excellence.

[Anonymous]

The top ranked school is one where it allows kids to graduate w little to no debt and be able to get a job w the degree they earned at the school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The status quo is there for a reason. Chicago is an excellent school but it lacks the prestige/name recognition and frankly the strength of HYPSM. It is not considered at very very top of any field. A common characteristic of all the HYPSM schools is that each one is the undisputed top school in at least one field. Another is that their name is very prestigious and instantly recognized by most people. Another yet is that they have way more resources than the other schools.

You tried to make this exact same point on another thread, in connection with your ceaseless argument that the "C" in the beast called HYPSMC is actually CalTech and not UChicago or Columbia. A number of posters shot you down with specific examples where Columbia and UChicago were at the very top of their fields, better than HYP. Did you not read those posts?


I have zero connection tomUChocago, but in my profession, Economics, people are hard-put to declare a "top program" among UChicago, Harvard and Stanford.

In your profession you should now that the top economics schools are widely considered to be Harvard and MIT, with Stanford and Princeton coming right after. Chicago does not even enter the discussion of being amongst those very very top schools. It is in the next tier these days.
What are the fields the Columbia and Chicago are the very top? there are none. (it is not medicine , or law, or social sciences , or humanities, or business, or engineering , then what? )

I find it laughable that people try to shove places like Chicago down peoples throat. Until UChicago has SCEA, builds a huge endowment per student comparable to HYPSM, is indisputably recognized as the leader in at least one or more fields, has a name that is instantly recognizable like HYPSM, and is able to win the cross-admit battle with all the non-HYPSM schools, then it is not part of that super elite group.

[Anonymous]

Wow. You really have a bone to pick with UChicago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. You really have a bone to pick with UChicago.

Maybe if we stop engaging with him, he'll go away. Fingers crossed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. You really have a bone to pick with UChicago.

Maybe if we stop engaging with him, he'll go away. Fingers crossed.

+2. Although UChicago still has a great reputation among conservative economists at least. Chicago-hating PP is an idiot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. You really have a bone to pick with UChicago.

Maybe if we stop engaging with him, he'll go away. Fingers crossed.

+2. Although UChicago still has a great reputation among conservative economists at least. Chicago-hating PP is an idiot.

Plus Princeton for economics? Great school all around, but Columbia tops Princeton for Economics. That is all, besides repeating that the CalTech booster is nuts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Curious to see if there will be any shake-ups in the top 20.

There never are.

Don't know if it qualifies as a shake up, but Yale has dropped out of the top 3 in a tie for 5th. Duke drops down a notch to #9.

Surprised Yale dropped down but Princeton moved up.

CHORUS
Princeton, forward march to victory,
Princeton, lead the way.
Princeton, forward march to victory,
This is the tiger's day. Yea!
Princeton, forward march to victory,
Fight with brain and brawn.
We'll leave old Eli trailing in the dust,
As we go marching on.

[Anonymous]

Don't send my boy to Harvard, the dying mother said.

Don't send my boy to Syracuse, I'd rather see him dead.

But send my boy to Princeton, or better yet Cornell.

But as for Pennsylvaniiiiaaayyy, I'd see him first in Hell.

(Full disclosure-Dad went to Cornell, I did grad school at UPenn. Apparently back in the 50s, Cornell football fans would sing this and other songs including, of course, Far Aboce Cayuga's Waters.)

[Anonymous]

Princeton's undergrad culture is less WASPy and more academically-inclined than it was 30 years ago. As I grad student, I couldn't imagine sending my kid to college there. But when DC started HS, I took another look and was really impressed with how it had changed.

[Anonymous]

More academically inclined but I think the other may still be true. A friend of mine mentioned an EXTREMELY high tab for certain eating clubs. I don't think she would have any reason to exaggerate. A great school with a great campus but I think you have to be prepared for the social costs.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, still very 1% — as is the town. OTOH, when I was there, the residential colleges were in the early stages of their development and didn’t provide much of an alternative to the eating clubs (a few of which were still male-only). I think that has changed, at least somewhat.