Are US News rankings making DC rethink college list?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FFS, no. The biggest problem with college rankings is SOMEONE else is telling you WHAT is important and HOW important in evaluating a college It’s utter nonsense, and a paradigm of intellectual laziness.

As an example, USNWR tweaked it to favor Pell grant admissions and graduation. Laudable goals for universities, to be sure. But how many in the DCUM world really care about that as far as their own kid’s concerns? If, eg, Harvard were to drop in this metric, people on DCUM wouldn’t want Harvard any less.

No, instead, what you’re doing is using rankings to justify schools you already liked or to avoid ones you don’t for whatever reason. Northeastern climbs but they are “gaming the system” or “cheating”. Chicago falls and they “never deserved to be that high anyway”.

The biggest thing most of you care about is how it will sound to your peer group. Just start being honest with yourself; you’ll be happier for it.

Nailed it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not at all.

But it’s making me rethink USNWR !

+100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FFS, no. The biggest problem with college rankings is SOMEONE else is telling you WHAT is important and HOW important in evaluating a college It’s utter nonsense, and a paradigm of intellectual laziness.

As an example, USNWR tweaked it to favor Pell grant admissions and graduation. Laudable goals for universities, to be sure. But how many in the DCUM world really care about that as far as their own kid’s concerns? If, eg, Harvard were to drop in this metric, people on DCUM wouldn’t want Harvard any less.

No, instead, what you’re doing is using rankings to justify schools you already liked or to avoid ones you don’t for whatever reason. Northeastern climbs but they are “gaming the system” or “cheating”. Chicago falls and they “never deserved to be that high anyway”.

The biggest thing most of you care about is how it will sound to your peer group. Just start being honest with yourself; you’ll be happier for it.

Nailed it!

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:USNWR will not even be a consideration. Maybe they are relevant for first generation kids? The things I care about as a parent paying the bills and my kid cares about as a student were eliminated from the USNWR rankings. Pell grants, percent first generation, graduation rate for Pell grant recipients, etc. have nothing to do with the quality of the education. We are full pay, already in the UMC and parents have graduate degrees, so social mobility means nothing to us. Already in the 1%. We care about student class size, professors with PHDs, how many kids were in the top 10% of their class - all the things that were eliminated from consideration.

+1000, those are the factors we were looking for in terms of the quality of the education and peer group.

[Anonymous]

No, my child is sane.

Rankings don’t even factor in. Current priority list is:

1. Fit
2. Fit
3. How’s the fit?
4. Strength of desired degree programs
5. Vibe check
6. Net price and can we avoid loans
7. Odds of acceptance, maybe 1 or 2 lottery plays at most

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Would be so silly if they did. The college did not change since last week.

You people REALLY give USNWR too much power

+1

I thought people in this area were supposed to be smart?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, my child is sane.

Rankings don’t even factor in. Current priority list is:

1. Fit
2. Fit
3. How’s the fit?
4. Strength of desired degree programs
5. Vibe check
6. Net price and can we avoid loans
7. Odds of acceptance, maybe 1 or 2 lottery plays at most

+1

[Anonymous]

So, here is a question for all those who claim the rankings have no impact on your college decision.

How do you even come up with a list from the start? If your kid is generally just interested in a common major...say finance, CS, mechanical engineering, political science...how do you come up with your list of say 30 schools (to start)?

Is there some easy way to find out class sizes by school and all these other criteria you espouse? Won't that search still result in hundreds of schools that meet those criteria? Are you limiting geographic search so that the first cut is manageable?

Putting aside the overall USNews rankings...are the rankings by Major/Specialty done by the same criteria as the list as a whole, or are those more "honest" rankings of the quality of the program?

I don't disagree that the ultimate decision is not based on the rankings...but again, how do you come up with your initial list of 30 schools without at least looking at the top 150 schools as determined by USNews?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, here is a question for all those who claim the rankings have no impact on your college decision.

How do you even come up with a list from the start? If your kid is generally just interested in a common major...say finance, CS, mechanical engineering, political science...how do you come up with your list of say 30 schools (to start)?

Is there some easy way to find out class sizes by school and all these other criteria you espouse? Won't that search still result in hundreds of schools that meet those criteria? Are you limiting geographic search so that the first cut is manageable?

Putting aside the overall USNews rankings...are the rankings by Major/Specialty done by the same criteria as the list as a whole, or are those more "honest" rankings of the quality of the program?

I don't disagree that the ultimate decision is not based on the rankings...but again, how do you come up with your initial list of 30 schools without at least looking at the top 150 schools as determined by USNews?

One of those big college guidebooks? A list of "schools with good Environmental Studies/Politics/Underwater Basket-Weaving majors?" Finding a school DC likes and building out based on what schools are similar?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, here is a question for all those who claim the rankings have no impact on your college decision.

How do you even come up with a list from the start? If your kid is generally just interested in a common major...say finance, CS, mechanical engineering, political science...how do you come up with your list of say 30 schools (to start)?

Is there some easy way to find out class sizes by school and all these other criteria you espouse? Won't that search still result in hundreds of schools that meet those criteria? Are you limiting geographic search so that the first cut is manageable?

Putting aside the overall USNews rankings...are the rankings by Major/Specialty done by the same criteria as the list as a whole, or are those more "honest" rankings of the quality of the program?

I don't disagree that the ultimate decision is not based on the rankings...but again, how do you come up with your initial list of 30 schools without at least looking at the top 150 schools as determined by USNews?

One of those big college guidebooks? A list of "schools with good Environmental Studies/Politics/Underwater Basket-Weaving majors?" Finding a school DC likes and building out based on what schools are similar?

Again...this will result in hundreds of schools if you are allowing a kid to look nationally. The big college guidebooks by default are ranking colleges...because they are only including the colleges they believe are worthy of the guidebook...that's fine and there are probably 300 colleges in those books. Even though the guidebook doesn't rank the schools 1 - 300 it will probably not look much different than what USNews considers the top 300 colleges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't take USNWR seriously since they refuse to give Bozo's Clown College of the Midwest the respect it deserves year after year.

+1000 My cousin’s uncle’s gardener’s kid is a BCC grad & is making bank on the street. Of course that street is in Des Moines, but still.

BCC > UVA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FFS, no. The biggest problem with college rankings is SOMEONE else is telling you WHAT is important and HOW important in evaluating a college It’s utter nonsense, and a paradigm of intellectual laziness.

As an example, USNWR tweaked it to favor Pell grant admissions and graduation. Laudable goals for universities, to be sure. But how many in the DCUM world really care about that as far as their own kid’s concerns? If, eg, Harvard were to drop in this metric, people on DCUM wouldn’t want Harvard any less.

No, instead, what you’re doing is using rankings to justify schools you already liked or to avoid ones you don’t for whatever reason. Northeastern climbs but they are “gaming the system” or “cheating”. Chicago falls and they “never deserved to be that high anyway”.

The biggest thing most of you care about is how it will sound to your peer group. Just start being honest with yourself; you’ll be happier for it.

It’s not even just graduation rates, it’s six year graduation rates with adjustments to rates over predicted performance and then subcategories ood this for first Gen and pell elguboe.. If you look at the actual graduating rates, the private schools are better than the public schools ranked similarly. For example, Tufts has a 94 percent graduation rate and Rutgers a 84 percent rate nit thru are ranked side by side.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FFS, no. The biggest problem with college rankings is SOMEONE else is telling you WHAT is important and HOW important in evaluating a college It’s utter nonsense, and a paradigm of intellectual laziness.

As an example, USNWR tweaked it to favor Pell grant admissions and graduation. Laudable goals for universities, to be sure. But how many in the DCUM world really care about that as far as their own kid’s concerns? If, eg, Harvard were to drop in this metric, people on DCUM wouldn’t want Harvard any less.

No, instead, what you’re doing is using rankings to justify schools you already liked or to avoid ones you don’t for whatever reason. Northeastern climbs but they are “gaming the system” or “cheating”. Chicago falls and they “never deserved to be that high anyway”.

The biggest thing most of you care about is how it will sound to your peer group. Just start being honest with yourself; you’ll be happier for it.

It’s not even just graduation rates, it’s six year graduation rates with adjustments to rates over predicted performance and then subcategories ood this for first Gen and pell elguboe.. If you look at the actual graduating rates, the private schools are better than the public schools ranked similarly. For example, Tufts has a 94 percent graduation rate and Rutgers a 84 percent rate nit thru are ranked side by side.

But they are ranked side by side, bad typing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Would be so silly if they did. The college did not change since last week.

You people REALLY give USNWR too much power

Are you sure the college didn’t change? I’m not sure about that all. Colleges clearly care about the rankings ( eg some send out letters / essentially press releases exhaling why they fell in the ranking and why it’s wrong). So, with the new ranking methodology, they could change the admission criteria to improve. I think that’s a real possibility which then would then imply colleges did indeed change since last week. You don’t think USNWR has that much power and I REALLY hope your right, but I’m not sure AT ALL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid stays away from the ranking because we are being our decisions on things that are real not fabricated.

+1