The Absurdity of U.S. News College Rankings - Per Malcolm Gladwell

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, fail, no gish gallop for you!

You explicitly mentioned admissions in your first post, and nothing of JFK Jr. The NYTIMES link proved that wrong.

Suddenly you're all "JFK Jr made Brown popular like Hammer did with puffy pants!" which has no relevance to the original post.

Fail.

I see you are taking a page from the Trump / Roy Cohn playbook yet again and going on the attack.

You said I didn't support my points in either post. In response to your link to a NYT article from 1983, I pointed out that that was the JFK Jr. effect, which it was. Then you come back and say it has no relevance to the original post. Nice attempted moving of the goal posts. I covered the points in the original post as well.

How the hell is referring to your original posts "moving the goalposts"? It's the EXACT OPPOSITE.

Fail. Fail every time.

Let me connect the dots for you. My original post commented on Brown historically not being the financially strongest or most selective Ivy, with no time frame given. Your response cited a NYT article from 1983 saying it had the highest number of applicants of all the Ivy League schools. I responded in my second post that that time period in the NYT article was the JFK, Jr effect. You responded by saying "not only do you have no evidence for your claims of either post. . .". So I responded with evidence for both posts. You then say my response "has no relevance to the original post". That is the definition of moving goal posts.

But you are going to keep going on the attack no matter what I say, aren't you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NYU today is in a sweet spot where it's not as selective such that it's aspirational for wealthy mediocre students and academically strong enough such that it's a strong (and wealthy) student would still find it a good fit. And it's in the best part of Manhattan.

Elite medical, law, business, math, and fine arts make it a great school today, although obviously there are many privates with the academics and a more supportive academic environment to boot for the money.

Interestingly and very Washingtonian of you... you minimize the benefit of NYU being in NY. For those students it is arguably the best school in the US and you can do internships in your chosen field. If you look at lists of successful people in any area NYU comes in near the top and way above many elite schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gladwell is a 57-year-old childless Canadian. Why would anyone care what he thinks as it relates to what college to send your child to? Why doesn't he poll his New Yorker and media elite friends with teen and 20-something kids and see where they all send their kids (hint: Ivies, Stanford, Duke, Chicago, Barnard, Georgetown, NYU and the top few SLACs — period).

I agree the rankings have jumped the shark. But wanting to send your kid to an elite college isn't going anywhere. If anything, it's fiercer because when everyone teen goes to college, you signal your class status (and/or IQ) with a prestige bachelor's

I'm sorry but NYU is not an elite or prestigious school.

It is for the 80000 kids that apply and wealthy people creative and urban dwellers. It’s not for Virginia stem parents. It’s also the number 1dream school for the last 10 years or so.

I don't think many people in New York (the "urban dwellers" you speak of) view NYU as elite or prestigious. It's seen as an oversized school filled to the brim with obnoxious college students, an institution that offers a state school education at the hefty price of a private school.

-a New Yorker.

First you're old! Second, as a native New Yorker, you are wrong and probably a UVA booster from NoVa.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NYU today is in a sweet spot where it's not as selective such that it's aspirational for wealthy mediocre students and academically strong enough such that it's a strong (and wealthy) student would still find it a good fit. And it's in the best part of Manhattan.

Elite medical, law, business, math, and fine arts make it a great school today, although obviously there are many privates with the academics and a more supportive academic environment to boot for the money.

Interestingly and very Washingtonian of you... you minimize the benefit of NYU being in NY. For those students it is arguably the best school in the US and you can do internships in your chosen field. If you look at lists of successful people in any area NYU comes in near the top and way above many elite schools.

?????????????????

Are NYU boosters out of their mind?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Let me connect the dots for you. My original post commented on Brown historically not being the financially strongest or most selective Ivy, with no time frame given. Your response cited a NYT article from 1983 saying it had the highest number of applicants of all the Ivy League schools. I responded in my second post that that time period in the NYT article was the JFK, Jr effect. You responded by saying "not only do you have no evidence for your claims of either post. . .". So I responded with evidence for both posts. You then say my response "has no relevance to the original post". That is the definition of moving goal posts.

But you are going to keep going on the attack no matter what I say, aren't you?

I love how you say it is an attack when I am using your own words. I love how you refer to your words when you could have simply quoted them. You didn't, and it is obvious why. Allow me:

Brown has really benefitted from being in the Ivy League. It was always thought of as perhaps the poorest of the Ivy League schools. The halo effect of the Ivy League has helped them with admissions and they have made up some ground on building up their endowment.

That's you. Refers to admissions, explicitly. Link proves Brown's admissions were more popular than HYP before the rankings and therefore makes your statement false. Suddenly we have JFK Jr. links and Roy Cohn accusations, for reasons I cannot fathom. Even if your claim he made it more popular is true, that does not prove your statement or disprove mine and is therefore 100% strawman.

You can resume calling me names, gish galloping, and lying. This point is proved to anyone who can read and I am now done reiterating it.

Have a nice day!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Let me connect the dots for you. My original post commented on Brown historically not being the financially strongest or most selective Ivy, with no time frame given. Your response cited a NYT article from 1983 saying it had the highest number of applicants of all the Ivy League schools. I responded in my second post that that time period in the NYT article was the JFK, Jr effect. You responded by saying "not only do you have no evidence for your claims of either post. . .". So I responded with evidence for both posts. You then say my response "has no relevance to the original post". That is the definition of moving goal posts.

But you are going to keep going on the attack no matter what I say, aren't you?

I love how you say it is an attack when I am using your own words. I love how you refer to your words when you could have simply quoted them. You didn't, and it is obvious why. Allow me:

Brown has really benefitted from being in the Ivy League. It was always thought of as perhaps the poorest of the Ivy League schools. The halo effect of the Ivy League has helped them with admissions and they have made up some ground on building up their endowment.

That's you. Refers to admissions, explicitly. Link proves Brown's admissions were more popular than HYP before the rankings and therefore makes your statement false. Suddenly we have JFK Jr. links and Roy Cohn accusations, for reasons I cannot fathom. Even if your claim he made it more popular is true, that does not prove your statement or disprove mine and is therefore 100% strawman.

You can resume calling me names, gish galloping, and lying. This point is proved to anyone who can read and I am now done reiterating it.

Have a nice day!

Get a grip. In what way am I lying? What part of these points are wrong?:

* Brown has really benefitted from being in the Ivy League. The halo effect of the Ivy League has helped them with admissions
* [Brown] was always thought of as perhaps the poorest of the Ivy League schools. . . they have made up some ground on building up their endowment.

You then claim to have me logically checkpointed by referring to a 1983 article which is pre-rankings, even though my argument did not mention rankings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gladwell is a 57-year-old childless Canadian. Why would anyone care what he thinks as it relates to what college to send your child to? Why doesn't he poll his New Yorker and media elite friends with teen and 20-something kids and see where they all send their kids (hint: Ivies, Stanford, Duke, Chicago, Barnard, Georgetown, NYU and the top few SLACs — period).

I agree the rankings have jumped the shark. But wanting to send your kid to an elite college isn't going anywhere. If anything, it's fiercer because when everyone teen goes to college, you signal your class status (and/or IQ) with a prestige bachelor's

I'm sorry but NYU is not an elite or prestigious school.

It is for the 80000 kids that apply and wealthy people creative and urban dwellers. It’s not for Virginia stem parents. It’s also the number 1dream school for the last 10 years or so.

I don't think many people in New York (the "urban dwellers" you speak of) view NYU as elite or prestigious. It's seen as an oversized school filled to the brim with obnoxious college students, an institution that offers a state school education at the hefty price of a private school.

-a New Yorker.

First you're old! Second, as a native New Yorker, you are wrong and probably a UVA booster from NoVa.

Hmmm, you both are really right. There are some parents who still think of it as more of a state school with a big bucks price tag and there are others who've seen the school become much more selective over the last two decades. And they can be when they have a ton of academically rigorous, talented kids who apply, largely because they want to live in Manhattan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gladwell is a 57-year-old childless Canadian. Why would anyone care what he thinks as it relates to what college to send your child to? Why doesn't he poll his New Yorker and media elite friends with teen and 20-something kids and see where they all send their kids (hint: Ivies, Stanford, Duke, Chicago, Barnard, Georgetown, NYU and the top few SLACs — period).

I agree the rankings have jumped the shark. But wanting to send your kid to an elite college isn't going anywhere. If anything, it's fiercer because when everyone teen goes to college, you signal your class status (and/or IQ) with a prestige bachelor's

I'm sorry but NYU is not an elite or prestigious school.

It is for the 80000 kids that apply and wealthy people creative and urban dwellers. It’s not for Virginia stem parents. It’s also the number 1dream school for the last 10 years or so.

I don't think many people in New York (the "urban dwellers" you speak of) view NYU as elite or prestigious. It's seen as an oversized school filled to the brim with obnoxious college students, an institution that offers a state school education at the hefty price of a private school.

-a New Yorker.

First you're old! Second, as a native New Yorker, you are wrong and probably a UVA booster from NoVa.

Hmmm, you both are really right. There are some parents who still think of it as more of a state school with a big bucks price tag and there are others who've seen the school become much more selective over the last two decades. And they can be when they have a ton of academically rigorous, talented kids who apply, largely because they want to live in Manhattan.

Parents who think NYU is not a top school have no information to back up their opinion. Based on the average high school GPA, Standardize test scores, and acceptance rate for incoming classes NYU is elite. There is some discontent because NYU has taken over large swaths of lower manhattan. But it has well-regarded, award-winning professors and programs. It is unclear the basis of the NoVa poster's comments and if they have ever read anything about the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gladwell is a 57-year-old childless Canadian. Why would anyone care what he thinks as it relates to what college to send your child to? Why doesn't he poll his New Yorker and media elite friends with teen and 20-something kids and see where they all send their kids (hint: Ivies, Stanford, Duke, Chicago, Barnard, Georgetown, NYU and the top few SLACs — period).

I agree the rankings have jumped the shark. But wanting to send your kid to an elite college isn't going anywhere. If anything, it's fiercer because when everyone teen goes to college, you signal your class status (and/or IQ) with a prestige bachelor's

I'm sorry but NYU is not an elite or prestigious school.

It is for the 80000 kids that apply and wealthy people creative and urban dwellers. It’s not for Virginia stem parents. It’s also the number 1dream school for the last 10 years or so.

I don't think many people in New York (the "urban dwellers" you speak of) view NYU as elite or prestigious. It's seen as an oversized school filled to the brim with obnoxious college students, an institution that offers a state school education at the hefty price of a private school.

-a New Yorker.

First you're old! Second, as a native New Yorker, you are wrong and probably a UVA booster from NoVa.

Hmmm, you both are really right. There are some parents who still think of it as more of a state school with a big bucks price tag and there are others who've seen the school become much more selective over the last two decades. And they can be when they have a ton of academically rigorous, talented kids who apply, largely because they want to live in Manhattan.

Parents who think NYU is not a top school have no information to back up their opinion. Based on the average high school GPA, Standardize test scores, and acceptance rate for incoming classes NYU is elite. There is some discontent because NYU has taken over large swaths of lower manhattan. But it has well-regarded, award-winning professors and programs. It is unclear the basis of the NoVa poster's comments and if they have ever read anything about the school.

Are the NYU boosters the same ones harping about how school like Duke, Chicago, Hopkins, etc. are not elite/prestigious schools? Serious question. If so, there's some weird cognitive dissonance going on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gladwell is a 57-year-old childless Canadian. Why would anyone care what he thinks as it relates to what college to send your child to? Why doesn't he poll his New Yorker and media elite friends with teen and 20-something kids and see where they all send their kids (hint: Ivies, Stanford, Duke, Chicago, Barnard, Georgetown, NYU and the top few SLACs — period).

I agree the rankings have jumped the shark. But wanting to send your kid to an elite college isn't going anywhere. If anything, it's fiercer because when everyone teen goes to college, you signal your class status (and/or IQ) with a prestige bachelor's

I'm sorry but NYU is not an elite or prestigious school.

It is for the 80000 kids that apply and wealthy people creative and urban dwellers. It’s not for Virginia stem parents. It’s also the number 1dream school for the last 10 years or so.

I don't think many people in New York (the "urban dwellers" you speak of) view NYU as elite or prestigious. It's seen as an oversized school filled to the brim with obnoxious college students, an institution that offers a state school education at the hefty price of a private school.

-a New Yorker.

First you're old! Second, as a native New Yorker, you are wrong and probably a UVA booster from NoVa.

Hmmm, you both are really right. There are some parents who still think of it as more of a state school with a big bucks price tag and there are others who've seen the school become much more selective over the last two decades. And they can be when they have a ton of academically rigorous, talented kids who apply, largely because they want to live in Manhattan.

Parents who think NYU is not a top school have no information to back up their opinion. Based on the average high school GPA, Standardize test scores, and acceptance rate for incoming classes NYU is elite. There is some discontent because NYU has taken over large swaths of lower manhattan. But it has well-regarded, award-winning professors and programs. It is unclear the basis of the NoVa poster's comments and if they have ever read anything about the school.

Are the NYU boosters the same ones harping about how school like Duke, Chicago, Hopkins, etc. are not elite/prestigious schools? Serious question. If so, there's some weird cognitive dissonance going on.

Well NYU is certainly more popular internationally than Vanderbilt, Washington Univ., Rice, or even Northwestern and Duke.

The world is globalized now. The newly wealthy in Asia and Middle East want to study in New York City, not a parochial rural town or even a 2nd-tier city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gladwell is a 57-year-old childless Canadian. Why would anyone care what he thinks as it relates to what college to send your child to? Why doesn't he poll his New Yorker and media elite friends with teen and 20-something kids and see where they all send their kids (hint: Ivies, Stanford, Duke, Chicago, Barnard, Georgetown, NYU and the top few SLACs — period).

I agree the rankings have jumped the shark. But wanting to send your kid to an elite college isn't going anywhere. If anything, it's fiercer because when everyone teen goes to college, you signal your class status (and/or IQ) with a prestige bachelor's

I'm sorry but NYU is not an elite or prestigious school.

It is for the 80000 kids that apply and wealthy people creative and urban dwellers. It’s not for Virginia stem parents. It’s also the number 1dream school for the last 10 years or so.

I don't think many people in New York (the "urban dwellers" you speak of) view NYU as elite or prestigious. It's seen as an oversized school filled to the brim with obnoxious college students, an institution that offers a state school education at the hefty price of a private school.

-a New Yorker.

First you're old! Second, as a native New Yorker, you are wrong and probably a UVA booster from NoVa.

Hmmm, you both are really right. There are some parents who still think of it as more of a state school with a big bucks price tag and there are others who've seen the school become much more selective over the last two decades. And they can be when they have a ton of academically rigorous, talented kids who apply, largely because they want to live in Manhattan.

Parents who think NYU is not a top school have no information to back up their opinion. Based on the average high school GPA, Standardize test scores, and acceptance rate for incoming classes NYU is elite. There is some discontent because NYU has taken over large swaths of lower manhattan. But it has well-regarded, award-winning professors and programs. It is unclear the basis of the NoVa poster's comments and if they have ever read anything about the school.

Are the NYU boosters the same ones harping about how school like Duke, Chicago, Hopkins, etc. are not elite/prestigious schools? Serious question. If so, there's some weird cognitive dissonance going on.

Well NYU is certainly more popular internationally than Vanderbilt, Washington Univ., Rice, or even Northwestern and Duke.

The world is globalized now. The newly wealthy in Asia and Middle East want to study in New York City, not a parochial rural town or even a 2nd-tier city.

Do you even know any of these "newly wealthy in Asia and the Middle East" or are you yet another insecure Karen (or the same one from upthread?) acting out as a keyboard warrior from suburban Virginia? Your assessment rings true for Columbia, but not NYU, with its 27,000 undergrads and 26,000 grads.

[Anonymous]

NYU is a lesser school across virtually every metric against schools like UChicago, Northwestern, Duke, Hopkins, and marginally, even Vandy, WashU, and Rice. Desperate NYU boosters are the actual worst, perhaps surpassed only by boosters from Georgetown and UVA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NYU is a lesser school across virtually every metric against schools like UChicago, Northwestern, Duke, Hopkins, and marginally, even Vandy, WashU, and Rice. Desperate NYU boosters are the actual worst, perhaps surpassed only by boosters from Georgetown and UVA.

First, that is not true. Are you looking at data from 5 years ago? if not, post it. Second, NYU has more foreign students than all the schools mentioned above, individually and possibly in combination-- and almost all of those kids are full pay. Third, NYU has campuses around the globe so people in foreign countries are very familiar with the school. Not an NYU booster, some people just leave the DMV.

[Anonymous]

Lmao at the suburban vanilla Karens lecturing about what is or isn't en vogue with international students. Probably hasn't even had a proper conversation with anyone from these aforementioned regions, like, ever.

[Anonymous]

DP. I will jump in to comment on HYP. As an alum, the focus of these undergraduate schools appears to be to attract the wealthy/those who they think will be leaders who make a lot of money, and then solicit unending donations from them as alums to maximize endowment. I enjoyed my undergraduate experience, but as a non-wealthy but comfortable alum, I have probably received no less that 30 appeals this year, averaging 3-4 per month - from various general and specific funds, including a call to donate to rebuilt the men's boathouse (which did in fact meet its stated $100MM goal). College wealth appears to drive many of the categories of the USNews rankings; if the uni cannot fund investment (what some on this thread call gaming)in the categories, it falls. HYP are so rich, they can fund all categories, and so will never fall in the rankings, if ability to build a $100MM boathouse from alumni donations during Covid-19 is any indication.