New USNEWS Rankings - Virginia back in the Top 25!
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Anonymous
| College of William and Mary tied with the University of Rochester for 32? WTF? I've never even heard of that place. Has anyone else?? |
Anonymous
|
The rankings have Dartmouth and U Penn in top ten.
Of the Ivies perhaps. |
Anonymous
Which place? One is a very good university in Rochester. The other is a very good public university in Williamsburg, VA, which is about a 2.5 hour drive from northern VA, without traffic. Kind of like a liberal arts college with a law school. A lot of folks don't know that it's a public school. |
Anonymous
Duh everyone around here has heard of William and Mary before. I thought it was ranked much higher than 32 and tied with some school most people have never heard of before! |
Anonymous
It's a depressing place to go to school. |
Anonymous
Yes, but recently more and more colleges have been calling for the madness to stop, including most of the Ivies, Stanford, and MIT. Chicago and Duke are the 2 schools that have used this call for sanity as an opportunity to raise their rankings. Ugh. |
Anonymous
Not me. I rely "totally" on anonymous message boards. 
Seriously, in rough order of relevance, here are data points that are relevant in forming an opinion of a school. First hand current experience - a campus stay with an acquaintance currently enrolled (where possible) is far more informative than a tour to stay organized by the school Past first hand experience - perhaps from a parent - schools obviously change, but past experience is still relevant. Word of mouth from people you know - possibly biased, but you should be able to filter that if you know the source US News and (to a lesser extent) other rankings - objective data based assessments. Be sure you understand what the ranking in measuring - it may not be important to you. In addition, rankings are very influential on the perception of future employers etc. - so ranking can impact the value of the degree you earn. High school counselors - often have considerably more information about some schools than others. Be sure to understand how well the counselor knows the particular school you are interested in. Anonymous student forums - theses are "boots on the ground" and usually pushing a pov, but if you invest enough time on those forums you'll get a sense of the school School websites, printed materials and organized tours - provide basic information, but often quite different from the reality of the student experience. Anonymous parent (or other non-student) dominated forums. You can get a nugget or two, but the information is largely second hand based on what students tell parents, which may not be the whole truth. Lots of data to gather and digest, but it's a fun process and ultimately a personal decision based on the unique needs of your child. |
Anonymous
No sir. William and Mary is different, in a good way--sui generis, if you will, in terms of these rankings. That's because it's a small public research university with nowhere near the resources of, say, Cal (although it is in the midst of a very ambitious fundraising drive). It's bread and butter is undergrad teaching where it ranked 12 (down from 4 or something). To be sure, as I recall, years ago (late 1980s?) it was in the top 25. It's a great choice for a type of kid who might find UVa to be a bit too big or whatever (but might want to go to UVa. It bounces around from 29 to 34 pretty much, which seems eminently reasonable to me. |
Anonymous
| ^ the University of Rochester is actually a really good school for engineering, premed, or economics. It's in a bad location (cold winters, Rust Belt city) so that might explain why it's less popular with students despite it's good reputation for strong academics. |
Anonymous
If you understand the math and methodology, you'd know how difficult it is to "game" the system- unless you use "gaming" in the sense of investing in resources. For example, some think schools "game" the system by encouraging applications so that the "acceptance" rate will decrease. In fact, acceptance rate is .0125 (1.25%) of the total ranking. |
Anonymous
| I'm guessing folks in upstate New York might not be as familiar with W&M as they are with Rochester. Funny how that works. |
Anonymous
It's actually pretty easy and just takes dedication from the top. Here's a good article on what can be done: http://college-advisor.com/articles/fudging.html |
Anonymous
Some students find it depressing to be at a school that has a "cool" crowd or Greek system that they could never fit into. There is a place for everyone. |
Anonymous
^^ that is, might want to go to UVa for grad school. |
Anonymous
NP. You are absolutely right -- it is on a tremendous roll. |