Official US news 2023 thread

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is this really a serious discussion for people, or just the college admissions equivalent of locker room b.s.? The comments here seem so earnest, but it's hard to imagine how smart people can really believe they're able to parse out differences in quality between schools that all provide an excellent education and all have (mostly) students who are in the top 1-2% intellectually. Or that it matters. You simply don't have the data you need to do it. Nobody does.

+1
It's amazing to me about how much talk there is about fine-grained distinctions that don't actually matter.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Regarding to G'Town's ranking, I feel it has something to do with the lack of STEM program, and this hurts its academic reputation. It graduates successful bankers, doctors, lawyers and politicians, etc., but not scientists and engineers. This probably is due to its resource, or by design. Who would go to college in DC. for engineering?

It seems like schools with small endowments, and limited physical space for expansion, like Georgetown Tufts BC and William and Mary are going to be on the downslope over the next 10 years, while public universities like U Florida and UT Austin are going to keep rising because of their research capabilities, and their overall appeal.

William & Mary especially since their endowment is well over $1 billion below the next lowest in that group. Georgetown is unique among those mentioned because of its truly national brand. Georgetown would likely rise a few spots ranking wise just by using the common application and instituting an early decision program.

Going to common app will have no impact on Georgetown's ranking.

Not on their ranking, but many more would apply and thus their admission rate would go down, significantly.

Admission rate is not a factor to consider at all. That is why USNWR eliminated it from their methodology.

[Anonymous]

Who calls MIT “Mass Tech?” Actually no one. That poster has zero credibility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Regarding to G'Town's ranking, I feel it has something to do with the lack of STEM program, and this hurts its academic reputation. It graduates successful bankers, doctors, lawyers and politicians, etc., but not scientists and engineers. This probably is due to its resource, or by design. Who would go to college in DC. for engineering?

It seems like schools with small endowments, and limited physical space for expansion, like Georgetown Tufts BC and William and Mary are going to be on the downslope over the next 10 years, while public universities like U Florida and UT Austin are going to keep rising because of their research capabilities, and their overall appeal.

William & Mary especially since their endowment is well over $1 billion below the next lowest in that group. Georgetown is unique among those mentioned because of its truly national brand. Georgetown would likely rise a few spots ranking wise just by using the common application and instituting an early decision program.

Going to common app will have no impact on Georgetown's ranking.

Not on their ranking, but many more would apply and thus their admission rate would go down, significantly.

Admission rate is not a factor to consider at all. That is why USNWR eliminated it from their methodology.

They eliminated it after they finally figured out schools were gaming the numbers to drive down the rate (inducing kids to apply even if not qualified and making it as easy as possible) so they could reject them. Schools just moved on to other metrics to manipulate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who calls MIT “Mass Tech?” Actually no one. That poster has zero credibility.

100 love this. No credibility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who calls MIT “Mass Tech?” Actually no one. That poster has zero credibility.

100 love this. No credibility.

Technical staff was the joking term some at Harvard had used but Mass Tech could catch on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Regarding to G'Town's ranking, I feel it has something to do with the lack of STEM program, and this hurts its academic reputation. It graduates successful bankers, doctors, lawyers and politicians, etc., but not scientists and engineers. This probably is due to its resource, or by design. Who would go to college in DC. for engineering?

It seems like schools with small endowments, and limited physical space for expansion, like Georgetown Tufts BC and William and Mary are going to be on the downslope over the next 10 years, while public universities like U Florida and UT Austin are going to keep rising because of their research capabilities, and their overall appeal.

William & Mary especially since their endowment is well over $1 billion below the next lowest in that group. Georgetown is unique among those mentioned because of its truly national brand. Georgetown would likely rise a few spots ranking wise just by using the common application and instituting an early decision program.

Going to common app will have no impact on Georgetown's ranking.

Not on their ranking, but many more would apply and thus their admission rate would go down, significantly.

Admission rate is not a factor to consider at all. That is why USNWR eliminated it from their methodology.

Georgetown has made it pretty clear they don't plan on gaming the system or even just doing what most do with the common app, so what they could or couldn't do doesn't really matter.

It is a great school with international name recognition. That doesn't change if it is ranked 12 or 25.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this really a serious discussion for people, or just the college admissions equivalent of locker room b.s.? The comments here seem so earnest, but it's hard to imagine how smart people can really believe they're able to parse out differences in quality between schools that all provide an excellent education and all have (mostly) students who are in the top 1-2% intellectually. Or that it matters. You simply don't have the data you need to do it. Nobody does.

+1
It's amazing to me about how much talk there is about fine-grained distinctions that don't actually matter.

True. Thinking about school tiers and actual student matches is more important. You can see some of the sad results of just looking at the best school on that CMU dropout thread.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Regarding to G'Town's ranking, I feel it has something to do with the lack of STEM program, and this hurts its academic reputation. It graduates successful bankers, doctors, lawyers and politicians, etc., but not scientists and engineers. This probably is due to its resource, or by design. Who would go to college in DC. for engineering?

It seems like schools with small endowments, and limited physical space for expansion, like Georgetown Tufts BC and William and Mary are going to be on the downslope over the next 10 years, while public universities like U Florida and UT Austin are going to keep rising because of their research capabilities, and their overall appeal.

William & Mary especially since their endowment is well over $1 billion below the next lowest in that group. Georgetown is unique among those mentioned because of its truly national brand. Georgetown would likely rise a few spots ranking wise just by using the common application and instituting an early decision program.

Going to common app will have no impact on Georgetown's ranking.[/quote
Not on their ranking, but many more would apply and thus their admission rate would go down, significantly.

Admission rate is not a factor to consider at all. That is why USNWR eliminated it from their methodology.

Georgetown has made it pretty clear they don't plan on gaming the system or even just doing what most do with the common app, so what they could or couldn't do doesn't really matter.

It is a great school with international name recognition. That doesn't change if it is ranked 12 or 25.

Its international reputation is based on the SFS. That’s it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Regarding to G'Town's ranking, I feel it has something to do with the lack of STEM program, and this hurts its academic reputation. It graduates successful bankers, doctors, lawyers and politicians, etc., but not scientists and engineers. This probably is due to its resource, or by design. Who would go to college in DC. for engineering?

It seems like schools with small endowments, and limited physical space for expansion, like Georgetown Tufts BC and William and Mary are going to be on the downslope over the next 10 years, while public universities like U Florida and UT Austin are going to keep rising because of their research capabilities, and their overall appeal.

William & Mary especially since their endowment is well over $1 billion below the next lowest in that group. Georgetown is unique among those mentioned because of its truly national brand. Georgetown would likely rise a few spots ranking wise just by using the common application and instituting an early decision program.

Going to common app will have no impact on Georgetown's ranking.[/quote
Not on their ranking, but many more would apply and thus their admission rate would go down, significantly.

Admission rate is not a factor to consider at all. That is why USNWR eliminated it from their methodology.

Georgetown has made it pretty clear they don't plan on gaming the system or even just doing what most do with the common app, so what they could or couldn't do doesn't really matter.

It is a great school with international name recognition. That doesn't change if it is ranked 12 or 25.

Its international reputation is based on the SFS. That’s it.

Any of these top 25 type of schools will look impressive to grad school admissions officers and on-campus recruiters. What Georgetown has that many ranked around it doesn't is the strong name recognition with everyday people and random employers. The SFS and things like good and large law and medical schools probably help as does having a living president as a grad and a basketball team with tradition that became part of pop culture.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Regarding to G'Town's ranking, I feel it has something to do with the lack of STEM program, and this hurts its academic reputation. It graduates successful bankers, doctors, lawyers and politicians, etc., but not scientists and engineers. This probably is due to its resource, or by design. Who would go to college in DC. for engineering?

It seems like schools with small endowments, and limited physical space for expansion, like Georgetown Tufts BC and William and Mary are going to be on the downslope over the next 10 years, while public universities like U Florida and UT Austin are going to keep rising because of their research capabilities, and their overall appeal.

William & Mary especially since their endowment is well over $1 billion below the next lowest in that group. Georgetown is unique among those mentioned because of its truly national brand. Georgetown would likely rise a few spots ranking wise just by using the common application and instituting an early decision program.

Going to common app will have no impact on Georgetown's ranking.

How do you know they aren’t trying to game the system. It doesn’t make sense to go to common app if acceptance rate makes no dent in the ranking. You seem very defensive. It will never be too 20 and will continue to decline.

Not on their ranking, but many more would apply and thus their admission rate would go down, significantly.

Admission rate is not a factor to consider at all. That is why USNWR eliminated it from their methodology.

Georgetown has made it pretty clear they don't plan on gaming the system or even just doing what most do with the common app, so what they could or couldn't do doesn't really matter.

It is a great school with international name recognition. That doesn't change if it is ranked 12 or 25.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:You can't sell online ads or magazines if the rankings don't have some movement. It is helpful to look at the rankings data over time to get a sense of school tiers: https://andyreiter.com/datasets/

Colby hasn't historically been regularly ranked in the top 15. They've often been in the high teens and 20s so that drop isn't huge.

Shocker: Columbia's real stats don't equate to being regularly ranked with Stanford, Harvard, and Yale!

This was always clear to students, which is why Columbia was never able to attract HYPSM cross admits.

USNWR is influential, unfortunately, but there are limits. Princeton has been #1 for the past umpteen years, but it isn't winning cross-admit battles with Harvard, Stanford, and MIT.

Unless you want to be a D3 athlete, I don't see MIT winning too many cross-admit battles with those schools either. With MIT's limited excellence in eng, CS, and econ, their ranking always feels a little inflated.

Stanford would probably be better than MIT in all of those top areas too and is also great in just about every other discipline.

Not better in engineering and technology. Close, but not better.

Stanford would likely get the nod in CS and MIT in the other engineering disciplines. Even if it is just close in MIT's very strongest areas, I can see the point about Stanford pretty clearly being the better overall school. Most people who get into the two "Boston area" schools don't choose MIT either. With Harvard, I would give MIT the clear advantage in CS and engineering though.

For those who care about pure prestige and impressive name recognition (a lot of US News readers), Harvard and Yale can't be matched outside of Oxbridge, though Stanford and Princeton are getting there. Mass Tech and those perceived public universities in Chicago and Pennsylvania (Univ of __) aren't .

Stanford’s prestige is the same as Harvard’s—maybe greater.. Oxbridge is not at Harvard or Stanford’s level; it’s more like Columbia or UCLA. [/quote]



HAHAHA! Do you have any idea what it takes to get into Oxford? Do you know about the testing and the critical interviews? I do because DS went through it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s the obsession with Georgetown’s ranking? Do posters really think it’s where it is because it doesn’t accept the Common App? That’s naive and simplistic.

Georgetown is where it is because its financial resources are paltry compared to the other top schools. Absolutely paltry. Notre Dame has nearly 10 times’ Georgetown’s endowment and is in one of the least expensive locations in the US.

Georgetown also has entering classes that, while very strong, don’t compare to the top Ivies, Stanford, Chicago, Duke etc. Do you really think that Harvard would drop below Georgetown if it stopped accepting the Common App.

MIT is self-selecting in that it doesn’t attract as many non-STEM applicants. Notre Dame is self-selecting in that it attracts fewer non-Catholics. Etc.

If Georgetown thought that simply by welcoming the common application it would suddenly shoot to the highest echelon of the rankings it would do it tomorrow.

But Georgetown is a lot harder to get into than some of the schools ranked higher, like U Mich.

How many times must one say that acceptance rate (i.e. "harder to get into") has nothing to do with a school's ranking on USNWR nor does it impact a school's quality. Georgetown has some good things going for it like some of the programs and location, but their are broke and the place is a dump.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can't sell online ads or magazines if the rankings don't have some movement. It is helpful to look at the rankings data over time to get a sense of school tiers: https://andyreiter.com/datasets/

Colby hasn't historically been regularly ranked in the top 15. They've often been in the high teens and 20s so that drop isn't huge.

Shocker: Columbia's real stats don't equate to being regularly ranked with Stanford, Harvard, and Yale!

This was always clear to students, which is why Columbia was never able to attract HYPSM cross admits.

USNWR is influential, unfortunately, but there are limits. Princeton has been #1 for the past umpteen years, but it isn't winning cross-admit battles with Harvard, Stanford, and MIT.

Unless you want to be a D3 athlete, I don't see MIT winning too many cross-admit battles with those schools either. With MIT's limited excellence in eng, CS, and econ, their ranking always feels a little inflated.

Stanford would probably be better than MIT in all of those top areas too and is also great in just about every other discipline.

Not better in engineering and technology. Close, but not better.

Stanford would likely get the nod in CS and MIT in the other engineering disciplines. Even if it is just close in MIT's very strongest areas, I can see the point about Stanford pretty clearly being the better overall school. Most people who get into the two "Boston area" schools don't choose MIT either. With Harvard, I would give MIT the clear advantage in CS and engineering though.

For those who care about pure prestige and impressive name recognition (a lot of US News readers), Harvard and Yale can't be matched outside of Oxbridge, though Stanford and Princeton are getting there. Mass Tech and those perceived public universities in Chicago and Pennsylvania (Univ of __) aren't .

Stanford’s prestige is the same as Harvard’s—maybe greater.. Oxbridge is not at Harvard or Stanford’s level; it’s more like Columbia or UCLA. [/quote]



HAHAHA! Do you have any idea what it takes to get into Oxford? Do you know about the testing and the critical interviews? I do because DS went through it.

I know students at both Oxford and Cambridge, fed from DC's international school in London, they actually spent a lot of time at our house so I know them fairly well. While they were smart, they are not in the top 1-2%, AT ALL, nowhere near HYPSM level. They MIGHT have gotten into UCLA or Columbia levels, MIGHT. I agree with the previous poster that Oxbridge is like UCLA, maybe Emory. I also know a bunch of kids at LSE and despite the name recognition, I would tell you the caliber of the kids is the same. Nowhere near our tippy top

[Anonymous]

My daughter's HS class of 2022 was such an example. Kids were so so so supportive of one another - no matter where they got in, no matter the aspirations their parents had for them, no matter the ranking of the college or the ranking of the student, no matter the numbers of acceptances or rejections or the many many MANY deferrals and waitlistings. I love that they understood on a deep level how hard this is for our seniors, and that maturity means celebrating everyone. Not to judge anyone at all. I understand. But my hope for this cycle (back to back kids) is the same level of caring for one another.