New USNWR rankings coming out in one week. Post predictions here!

[Anonymous]

at least makes better sense than last year

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:More importantly, the AP released its weekly college football poll. If we cross compare with the US News ranking, we can see that among the top universities, Vanderbilt is currently the bestest school in America. It goes

Vanderbilt
Michigan
Notre Dame

Duke, Stanford, Northwestern, UCLA and Cal are presently unranked. These are the eight high performing schools that really matter in modern America and the popular zeitgeist.

And we really should spend a moment to ponder the momentousness of Vanderbilt ranking higher than Michigan and Notre Dame in the only ranking that truly matters. A historic moment for sure.

If it weren't for the God awful new defense coordinator, ND would be in the top 10. Their defense went from one of the top in the country to one of the worst, with only a handful leaving for the NFL last year. Fire Chris Ash!

Right. And do you recall what happened to the former defense coordinator at Notre Dame?

He's currently the head coach of Vanderbilt.

Wrong. The former DC of Notre Dame who had them as a top 5 defense in the country is not at Vanderbilt. He's now with the NFL. Al Golden. You are talking about a DC who was nobody special at ND.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:#51-56 William and Mary, Wake Forest
#57 UC Merced, 90% admit rate.

Perfect illustration of how ridiculous the current methodology is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Go UC Davis! California’s 5th best state school, with a 42% admit rate, is ranked #32 in the country.

How many times can a shark be jumped?

UC Davis is an excellent, all around school, with a charming college town setting, without toxic, competitive students.

In California, it is considered too far from the coast, from the mountains, from SF, even though it would be considered close to them if it were on the east coast.

Davis is a great school. Better than many overpriced privates like wake, emory, and georgetown.

UC Davis-
1160- 1370/25-31
Emory
1470-1550/32-35
Georgetown
1390-1550/30-35

UC Davis is overrated, Emory and GU underrated.

Davis a great school but not in same category by a mile.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Chicago thing is crazy because from top private high schools they only matriculate kids who are well out of the top 20%. Maybe this year will be different.

Chicago and Hopkins are T10 oddballs. I’ve never met a kid who dreams of going to either.

you bitter. get over it

Different poster. He's not wrong. They're the only top10 schools that have ED2.
The only reason to have ED2 is to get a second shot at top students who didn't choose you ED1.

Kind of a dumb take. No one EDs to brown, dartmouth, cornell, etc as a dream school. It's because they didn't feel as confident going for HYPSM. I think it's smart to offer ED2. Most people who end up at lower top 10s had bigger dreams but landed at a solid backup.

I am not a big fan of Chicago or Hopkins but their top students are probably smarter than a lot of HYP these days. HYP admissions is not based on academic merit.

I would agree with this, though it is also true at many flagships.

Yes. In fact, due simply to its sheer size, a top public school like Michigan has more 1500+ SAT students in its incoming class than Harvard. The math is simple: In Fall 2024, Michigan has 8858 freshmen and a 75th percentile SAT of 1530, meaning it has 2214 freshmen scoring above 1530. In comparison, Harvard has 1647 freshmen and a 25th percentile SAT of 1500, meaning it has 1235 freshmen scoring above 1500. Of course, both schools were test optional in Fall 2024 which skewed these numbers, but the errors were unlikely to drop Michigan's 2214 below Harvard's 1235, especially when Michigan's threshold was 1530 while Harvard's was 1500. (And of course Harvard is significantly better on a per capita basis, just not the headcount.)

michigan is 51% test submitted. If test required, i suspect 75th percentile is under 1500 easy

PP. Even if Michigan's 75th percentile is 1500, it still has 2214 above 1500 whereas Harvard only has 1235 above 1500 assuming 100% submitted SAT at Harvard. Almost double. Again this is not to say that Michigan is better on a per capita basis. It has more 1500+ scorers than Harvard simply because it is gigantic.

51 percent only submitting tests means their median test stats mean nothing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Go UC Davis! California’s 5th best state school, with a 42% admit rate, is ranked #32 in the country.

How many times can a shark be jumped?

UC Davis is an excellent, all around school, with a charming college town setting, without toxic, competitive students.

In California, it is considered too far from the coast, from the mountains, from SF, even though it would be considered close to them if it were on the east coast.

Davis is a great school. Better than many overpriced privates like wake, emory, and georgetown.

UC Davis-
1160- 1370/25-31
Emory
1470-1550/32-35
Georgetown
1390-1550/30-35

UC Davis is overrated, Emory and GU underrated.

Davis a great school but not in same category by a mile.

According to USNWR, it is. How does your data/analysis differ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:#51-56 William and Mary, Wake Forest
#57 UC Merced, 90% admit rate.

Perfect illustration of how ridiculous the current methodology is.

Exactly and WF had a huge drop a few years ago when they changed methodology. Nothing changed and they are excellent for undergrad teaching and student satisfaction which is what matters. I have zero affiliation, I know there are others that could say same. So many ties at the top too and people fight to the death about what's "better."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:#51-56 William and Mary, Wake Forest
#57 UC Merced, 90% admit rate.

Perfect illustration of how ridiculous the current methodology is.

Admission rate is not used in the calculation.
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-us-news-calculated-the-rankings

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:More importantly, the AP released its weekly college football poll. If we cross compare with the US News ranking, we can see that among the top universities, Vanderbilt is currently the bestest school in America. It goes

Vanderbilt
Michigan
Notre Dame

Duke, Stanford, Northwestern, UCLA and Cal are presently unranked. These are the eight high performing schools that really matter in modern America and the popular zeitgeist.

And we really should spend a moment to ponder the momentousness of Vanderbilt ranking higher than Michigan and Notre Dame in the only ranking that truly matters. A historic moment for sure.

If it weren't for the God awful new defense coordinator, ND would be in the top 10. Their defense went from one of the top in the country to one of the worst, with only a handful leaving for the NFL last year. Fire Chris Ash!

lol ND was overrated in preseason. Played two decent teams and lost. They thought they could pad schedule with cupcakes remainder of season if they got the two decent early season wins. This plan didn’t work out well. Decent season last year was a mirage. They should join a good conference like BIG.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Chicago thing is crazy because from top private high schools they only matriculate kids who are well out of the top 20%. Maybe this year will be different.

I really don’t get the UChicago hate. At our private, all kids accepted last year were in the top 10%.

Check Uchicago ranking from 2010 thru 2019 … almost always in top 6 or 7… post covid was an anamoly.

Momentum begets momentum… lots of crazy smart kids in Chicago, possibly more than Yale/Princeton….

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Chicago thing is crazy because from top private high schools they only matriculate kids who are well out of the top 20%. Maybe this year will be different.

this is total bs. chicago has 96% of freshmen in top 10% of class

Not sure what the other poster is using as their basis, but I have 2 kids in 2 different “top privates”. Kids from both schools who’ve gone to Chicago were not well outside top 20%. In fact the opposite.

[Anonymous]

Low lying ivy protagonists don’t comprehend…bottom 4 ivies are nothing to write home about.. WAKE UP doofuses!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Chicago thing is crazy because from top private high schools they only matriculate kids who are well out of the top 20%. Maybe this year will be different.

Chicago and Hopkins are T10 oddballs. I’ve never met a kid who dreams of going to either.

you bitter. get over it

Different poster. He's not wrong. They're the only top10 schools that have ED2.
The only reason to have ED2 is to get a second shot at top students who didn't choose you ED1.

Kind of a dumb take. No one EDs to brown, dartmouth, cornell, etc as a dream school. It's because they didn't feel as confident going for HYPSM. I think it's smart to offer ED2. Most people who end up at lower top 10s had bigger dreams but landed at a solid backup.

I am not a big fan of Chicago or Hopkins but their top students are probably smarter than a lot of HYP these days. HYP admissions is not based on academic merit.

I would agree with this, though it is also true at many flagships.

Yes. In fact, due simply to its sheer size, a top public school like Michigan has more 1500+ SAT students in its incoming class than Harvard. The math is simple: In Fall 2024, Michigan has 8858 freshmen and a 75th percentile SAT of 1530, meaning it has 2214 freshmen scoring above 1530. In comparison, Harvard has 1647 freshmen and a 25th percentile SAT of 1500, meaning it has 1235 freshmen scoring above 1500. Of course, both schools were test optional in Fall 2024 which skewed these numbers, but the errors were unlikely to drop Michigan's 2214 below Harvard's 1235, especially when Michigan's threshold was 1530 while Harvard's was 1500. (And of course Harvard is significantly better on a per capita basis, just not the headcount.)

michigan is 51% test submitted. If test required, i suspect 75th percentile is under 1500 easy

PP. Even if Michigan's 75th percentile is 1500, it still has 2214 above 1500 whereas Harvard only has 1235 above 1500 assuming 100% submitted SAT at Harvard. Almost double. Again this is not to say that Michigan is better on a per capita basis. It has more 1500+ scorers than Harvard simply because it is gigantic.

Take a look at national merit scholars. https://www.nationalmerit.org/s/1758/images/gid2/editor_documents/annual_report.pdf?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&gid=2&pgid=61&sessionid=95e8c223-1c14-43e9-96d6-3fcd0d0626cc&cc=1

Harvard has 147. Michigan has 89.

Well, if you want to use the number of National Merit Scholars as a measure of the raw number of smart kids at a school, then according to the document you linked Purdue has 253, Texas A&M has 258, Alabama has 301, Florida has 394, and UT Dallas has 188. All significantly outperforming Harvard. This supports my (and the earlier poster's) point that big public schools have more smart kids than Harvard, simply because they are huge. (They have a boatload more of not-so-smart kids, of course.)

incorrect analysis. the numbers you cite are sponsored by the school. The real number is in parenthesis since harvard does not sponsor national merit scholars.

meant to say the real number is the total minus what is in parenthesis. In which case alabama and ut dallas have around 40-50 total.

Alabama claims to have 362 NMSs in its freshman class (https://news.ua.edu/2025/09/uas-record-enrollment-growth-reinforces-in-state-investment-academic-excellence/). UT Dallas claims to have a total of 850 NMSs which averages out to roughly 212 per class (https://honors.utdallas.edu/facts-figures/). Both schools have more NMSs than Harvard's 147.

I know it's hard to fathom that average big publics can have lots of smart kids, and a handful of these big publics that offer NMFs full-ride actually have more NMFs than Harvard.

(Disclaimer: I don't think being an NMS is necessarily a good measure for smart, but that's the measure a PP used so I just followed. I also understand whether an NMF becomes an NMS depends on sponsorship and institution.)

[Anonymous]

Different poster at NYC private and Chicago routinely takes kids down to the middle of the class. It is the one top20 university that recognizes the rigor of our school and will take the kids who want prestige but don't have Ivy level grades. I know it is a very difficult admit from many publics but it serves this role at most top privates in DC, NYC, Chicago, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:#51-56 William and Mary, Wake Forest
#57 UC Merced, 90% admit rate.

Perfect illustration of how ridiculous the current methodology is.

Admission rate is not used in the calculation.
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-us-news-calculated-the-rankings

Thanks for helping reinforce my point. Methodology being used by USNWR is ridiculous.