Do US News Rankings Have any Impact on Admissions?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You’re stupid and weird, OP. The change is rankings is not so great among any of the schools you named and won’t mean jack shit. Tulane, NYU, Northeastern, Wake, Wash U are other stories. Their rankings were artificially inflated and now that they’re back to reality yes, fewer top private schools kids desperate to get into a highly ranked school because they can’t get into Ivies will look elsewhere.

You sound oddly angry

Not angry and not wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hard to believe anyone cares about how the deck chairs are arranged in the T20.

“Oh no, Chicago dropped, cross them off the list!”

This. All that matters is the range. The same schools always stay in the same range. In that way, the rankings are useful, if you have no idea about colleges at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think for many people, USNWR is a way to figure out what some good schools are. As immigrants, I know it is used as a general guideline to explore schools. I have an undergrad from overseas, a STEM masters and an MBA from a top 3 program in th US. Only during my MBA did I even come to know about SLACs, Dartmouth or Brown. I had never heard of these schools before. We sent our kids to private schools and learnt more about US colleges. However, many in our immigrant community use USNWR to create a list. I know kids who don't want to apply to WashU this year because it is not a top 20.

Interesting.

I think this is one of the reasons people are upset with the current USNWR rankings. It's not a measure of academic merit anymore. It's confusing. No one in Asia gives a damn about Pell grants. And yet the ranking still matters for the grandmothers.

USNWR lost the plot with their new methodology. It'll take a few years, but in the end no one will care about a US News ranking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I guess this year's USNWR ranking really matters if you now place emphasis on the number of Pell Grant recipients when choosing a college

I do if a school has an endowment the size of a small country. I expect them to have the resources to recruit the best and brightest academically. They’ve always done that for athletes so I want to see that for all students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think for many people, USNWR is a way to figure out what some good schools are. As immigrants, I know it is used as a general guideline to explore schools. I have an undergrad from overseas, a STEM masters and an MBA from a top 3 program in th US. Only during my MBA did I even come to know about SLACs, Dartmouth or Brown. I had never heard of these schools before. We sent our kids to private schools and learnt more about US colleges. However, many in our immigrant community use USNWR to create a list. I know kids who don't want to apply to WashU this year because it is not a top 20.

If a kid is not going to apply to a school simply because it's not a top 20 on USNWR this year, than that kid is intellectually lazy.

In which case...the vast majority of kids are intellectually lazy. They did an anonymous poll of Columbia students (prior to their rankings controversy) and 85% said they were at Columbia mainly because it was a top-rated school and that was the most important factor in choosing the school. I bet they would get the same results at nearly all the top schools.

Actually, there are quite a few who are. Not sure what poll you are referring to but, if true, not surprising whatsoever and to project that to most or all other applicants is a stretch.

I will try to find it...it was part of Malcolm Gladwell's podcast/research on why the USNews rankings (at least previous to their changes) rewarded all the rich private schools and penalized most of the public schools and the small regional schools. The series is quite interesting and believe it was done in 2021.

Are you trying to claim Columbia attracts a certain kind of student that is overly concerned about ranking...but Harvard and the other ivy schools do not?

Let's be honest here. The Ivies attract people with hooks because that is what they truly really care about: money, power, and prestige. To them, it's a business. They reap billions in donations and tax benefits. And they get it by recruiting these kind of applicants. Not sure how they square their strong defense of affirmative action yet refuse to get rid of legacy and recruited athletes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think for many people, USNWR is a way to figure out what some good schools are. As immigrants, I know it is used as a general guideline to explore schools. I have an undergrad from overseas, a STEM masters and an MBA from a top 3 program in th US. Only during my MBA did I even come to know about SLACs, Dartmouth or Brown. I had never heard of these schools before. We sent our kids to private schools and learnt more about US colleges. However, many in our immigrant community use USNWR to create a list. I know kids who don't want to apply to WashU this year because it is not a top 20.

Interesting.

I think this is one of the reasons people are upset with the current USNWR rankings. It's not a measure of academic merit anymore. It's confusing. No one in Asia gives a damn about Pell grants. And yet the ranking still matters for the grandmothers.

USNWR lost the plot with their new methodology. It'll take a few years, but in the end no one will care about a US News ranking.

Oh, I think you’ll find schools like MIT scores high on this. Princeton too. They have a reputation of paying if you can make it on. Boston college etc a big step down - you can pay full price and apply early, you’re in. For me Pell Grants stats go hand in hand with merit. Data backs me up

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think for many people, USNWR is a way to figure out what some good schools are. As immigrants, I know it is used as a general guideline to explore schools. I have an undergrad from overseas, a STEM masters and an MBA from a top 3 program in th US. Only during my MBA did I even come to know about SLACs, Dartmouth or Brown. I had never heard of these schools before. We sent our kids to private schools and learnt more about US colleges. However, many in our immigrant community use USNWR to create a list. I know kids who don't want to apply to WashU this year because it is not a top 20.

If a kid is not going to apply to a school simply because it's not a top 20 on USNWR this year, than that kid is intellectually lazy.

It does not matter what you or I think. I am just telling you that ratings have an influence. If a school has a strong brand name, kids and parents will not bother as much with the ranking. Only HYPMS are in that bracket. For many other schools, rankings do matter. I am not saying that they should matter, it is just that I see that they matter. I guarantee that WashU will see a drop in applications this year.

If you don't like a particular school such as WashU, than that's fine. You are entitled to your opinion, These schools that "dropped" have many applicants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess this year's USNWR ranking really matters if you now place emphasis on the number of Pell Grant recipients when choosing a college

I do if a school has an endowment the size of a small country. I expect them to have the resources to recruit the best and brightest academically. They’ve always done that for athletes so I want to see that for all students.

TBH, these rich schools don't give a whit about the poor. They accept multiples of kids from families in the top quintile than in the bottom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess this year's USNWR ranking really matters if you now place emphasis on the number of Pell Grant recipients when choosing a college

I do if a school has an endowment the size of a small country. I expect them to have the resources to recruit the best and brightest academically. They’ve always done that for athletes so I want to see that for all students.

TBH, these rich schools don't give a whit about the poor. They accept multiples of kids from families in the top quintile than in the bottom.

+1. More kids come from families in the top 1 percent than in the bottom 50 percent

[Anonymous]

As someone from an Asian American household, I will tell you that many traditional Asian parents from China and Korea especially are obsessed with us news rankings and view it as like some kind of admissions Bible. My cousin who was applying to college last year said aside from her in state safety schools, her parents would not let her apply or attend any school outside of the top 20. This is a similar mentality I've observed in many households, and can already tell anecdotally that washu and Emory are going to take a huge hit this year

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:None of the shifts mean anything to employers. Some still want grads from certain schools (and the rankings don’t matter- Ivy is Ivy), some don’t care where you went. No one should consider these rankings more than top 20, top 50 and top 100. More analysis than that is a waste of time.

Oh yes Georgetown and Emory are peers to Vatech and Texas A&M.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As someone from an Asian American household, I will tell you that many traditional Asian parents from China and Korea especially are obsessed with us news rankings and view it as like some kind of admissions Bible. My cousin who was applying to college last year said aside from her in state safety schools, her parents would not let her apply or attend any school outside of the top 20. This is a similar mentality I've observed in many households, and can already tell anecdotally that washu and Emory are going to take a huge hit this year

We're also AAs and that is simply not true. No one intelligent is going to say to a kid that if a good-fit school went from say 14 to 23 on one ranking, don't apply now. Please don't perpetuate this stereotype. It makes all of us look bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As someone from an Asian American household, I will tell you that many traditional Asian parents from China and Korea especially are obsessed with us news rankings and view it as like some kind of admissions Bible. My cousin who was applying to college last year said aside from her in state safety schools, her parents would not let her apply or attend any school outside of the top 20. This is a similar mentality I've observed in many households, and can already tell anecdotally that washu and Emory are going to take a huge hit this year

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess this year's USNWR ranking really matters if you now place emphasis on the number of Pell Grant recipients when choosing a college

I do if a school has an endowment the size of a small country. I expect them to have the resources to recruit the best and brightest academically. They’ve always done that for athletes so I want to see that for all students.

TBH, these rich schools don't give a whit about the poor. They accept multiples of kids from families in the top quintile than in the bottom.

+1. More kids come from families in the top 1 percent than in the bottom 50 percent

for sure. for MOST kids, it takes money to have all these advantages. but this is why some of us also care about the Pell numbers and are happy to see this in these rankings. the time is over for just the WASPiest kids to walk in. I want to see the kids with merit to have access to the top, despite their ability to pay 90k year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As someone from an Asian American household, I will tell you that many traditional Asian parents from China and Korea especially are obsessed with us news rankings and view it as like some kind of admissions Bible. My cousin who was applying to college last year said aside from her in state safety schools, her parents would not let her apply or attend any school outside of the top 20. This is a similar mentality I've observed in many households, and can already tell anecdotally that washu and Emory are going to take a huge hit this year

We're also AAs and that is simply not true. No one intelligent is going to say to a kid that if a good-fit school went from say 14 to 23 on one ranking, don't apply now. Please don't perpetuate this stereotype. It makes all of us look bad.

It's similar to the AA stereotype that all AA are good at math or bad at sports.