Serious Question: Before USNWR Rankinga

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I graduated in 1979 from a “big 3” and we had a few books (insiders guide is one I recall). I don’t remember rankings being a driver but maybe they were. The list of schools people in my class applied to/attended was pretty much the same as today. Lots of ivies, top SLACs, top schools like Stanford and MIT, a few top publics like Michigan, UVA).

This is similar to us as well, graduated ~1979 though attended high school elsewhere in the states. There were definitely books and guides that existed a la Fiske nowadays, and magazine lists too, it's just that USNWR sort of superseded all of them and became king. But the schools that people thought of as the "top" were more or less the same as today. Ivies, Amherst, Stanford, MIT, Northwestern, Duke, Georgetown, top publics including Michigan and Cal and Ucla. The only notable change I can think of is the shooting popularity and "normalization" of UChicago, which used to only attract a singularly... unique student body.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, lots of people care because it has created an unhealthy obsession with rank based on artificially manipulated data.

If anything, it would be better to go back some sort or tier rating. The quibbling between #20 and #21 is silly and creates undue stress.

Same shit. Use whaever info for you advantage.
Why do you care so much about some obsseed people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Back then, I heard of Ivy League but was not sure what schools belong in it, other than Harvard and Yale. At the time without internet, one has to check out books in order to find out and I would not bother. Not like these days that students do a lot of research for their applications. That was a good old time.

People looking at T10 schools back then knew how to use a library/bookstore.

Yeah but people generally didn’t bother unless you were at the top of your class. The rest of us went to the state school (Penn State), the nearby party state school (WVU) or any one of the smaller regional schools or state school satellite campuses

I went out of state to UNC because I wanted to be in a warmer climate and I thought it was pretty. There was nothing about selectivity or ranking that led me there. Very few people left the area. I can think of a couple: someone who went to Rutgers. Another person went to BU. But we were the outliers.

The discussions were all about where we thought we would like. There wasn’t discussion of T10, T20 or debating how being rated 21 was better than 24. Party kids wanted to find fun schools. Serious kids went to what was thought of back then as the serious schools (back then that meant schools like Carnegie Mellon). The jock kids wanted to go to the schools with good sports.

People weren’t debating #21 vs #24 but among my peers we certainly focused on T10-20 schools and used ratings to help with our search.

Most applied to a few reach, a few solids, and a safety or two.

It was easier to get in back then and we had a bunch go to Ivy/top 10-15.

Any school in T10-20 is great. You better research to tailor to your kid indstead of the ratings.

[Anonymous]

Barrons, Fiske, and perhaps some others were used as references. They did not rate per se, but they did have stars and/or buckets "most selective". I believe this was in many ways superior to what USNWR does, where the ranking turns slight differences into an ordinal ranking. Not only that, many of the USNWR ranking factors are not of quality of education, but inputs (e.g. how much is spent), and can be manipulated by how a school reports.

Perhaps in part because of the focus on resources in USNWR, the schools have entered into a spending arms race since the early 80s that has seen tuition and fees go up about 3X the rate of inflation for about 40 years. Other than healthcare, higher education is the most out-of-control segment of the U.S. economy, and has resulted in huge increases in student loan debt.

The other things that are different are common application and how easy it is to apply to more schools now. Without the common app, kids applied to far fewer schools. The test prep industry has also matured. Stats all look higher today, but there has been a HUGE wave of high school grade inflation over a long period of time. I have seen studies that indicate that average time spent studying have not increased (and have actually gone down since the 1960s), although it could be that the top students may be studying more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Back then, I heard of Ivy League but was not sure what schools belong in it, other than Harvard and Yale. At the time without internet, one has to check out books in order to find out and I would not bother. Not like these days that students do a lot of research for their applications. That was a good old time.

People looking at T10 schools back then knew how to use a library/bookstore.

Yeah but people generally didn’t bother unless you were at the top of your class. The rest of us went to the state school (Penn State), the nearby party state school (WVU) or any one of the smaller regional schools or state school satellite campuses

I went out of state to UNC because I wanted to be in a warmer climate and I thought it was pretty. There was nothing about selectivity or ranking that led me there. Very few people left the area. I can think of a couple: someone who went to Rutgers. Another person went to BU. But we were the outliers.

The discussions were all about where we thought we would like. There wasn’t discussion of T10, T20 or debating how being rated 21 was better than 24. Party kids wanted to find fun schools. Serious kids went to what was thought of back then as the serious schools (back then that meant schools like Carnegie Mellon). The jock kids wanted to go to the schools with good sports.

People weren’t debating #21 vs #24 but among my peers we certainly focused on T10-20 schools and used ratings to help with our search.

Most applied to a few reach, a few solids, and a safety or two.

It was easier to get in back then and we had a bunch go to Ivy/top 10-15.

Any school in T10-20 is great. You better research to tailor to your kid indstead of the ratings.

Most did research by major/program, but there were a few “Ivy or die” types.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Back then, I heard of Ivy League but was not sure what schools belong in it, other than Harvard and Yale. At the time without internet, one has to check out books in order to find out and I would not bother. Not like these days that students do a lot of research for their applications. That was a good old time.

People looking at T10 schools back then knew how to use a library/bookstore.

Yeah but people generally didn’t bother unless you were at the top of your class. The rest of us went to the state school (Penn State), the nearby party state school (WVU) or any one of the smaller regional schools or state school satellite campuses

I went out of state to UNC because I wanted to be in a warmer climate and I thought it was pretty. There was nothing about selectivity or ranking that led me there. Very few people left the area. I can think of a couple: someone who went to Rutgers. Another person went to BU. But we were the outliers.

The discussions were all about where we thought we would like. There wasn’t discussion of T10, T20 or debating how being rated 21 was better than 24. Party kids wanted to find fun schools. Serious kids went to what was thought of back then as the serious schools (back then that meant schools like Carnegie Mellon). The jock kids wanted to go to the schools with good sports.

People weren’t debating #21 vs #24 but among my peers we certainly focused on T10-20 schools and used ratings to help with our search.

Most applied to a few reach, a few solids, and a safety or two.

It was easier to get in back then and we had a bunch go to Ivy/top 10-15.

Any school in T10-20 is great. You better research to tailor to your kid indstead of the ratings.

Most did research by major/program, but there were a few “Ivy or die” types.

^^ and the KIDS were researching. Not the parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree with OP in that I’m opposed to the USNWR rankings. I don’t think tweaking the weightings etc would even help. They are a fool’s errand that should never have begun and should be given 0 weight by anyone. Colleges think this too, but because they know their customers do put stock in it, they are bound to play the game or face marginalization. And so they hypocritically play the game, further rigging and skewing the rankings. This won’t stop unless we collectively decide that the rankings are worthless.

Of course the USNWR rankings are worthless! They are essentially meaningless.

Why is Princeton #1? And what does that mean? If you are studying anthropology or business, I'm guessing you can find a better school than Princeton.

And Harvard isn't known for the quality of its education. Getting in is the hard part, but graduating isn't a huge challenge (Kusher graduated, and he's a moron). Why rank Harvard #2?

I wish USNWR would go out of business or be outlawed. All these college ratings systems should be outlawed. They are all about marketing, and very little about education.

DCUM LOVES USNR rankings!! So sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Barrons, Fiske, and perhaps some others were used as references. They did not rate per se, but they did have stars and/or buckets "most selective". I believe this was in many ways superior to what USNWR does, where the ranking turns slight differences into an ordinal ranking. Not only that, many of the USNWR ranking factors are not of quality of education, but inputs (e.g. how much is spent), and can be manipulated by how a school reports.

Perhaps in part because of the focus on resources in USNWR, the schools have entered into a spending arms race since the early 80s that has seen tuition and fees go up about 3X the rate of inflation for about 40 years. Other than healthcare, higher education is the most out-of-control segment of the U.S. economy, and has resulted in huge increases in student loan debt.

The other things that are different are common application and how easy it is to apply to more schools now. Without the common app, kids applied to far fewer schools. The test prep industry has also matured. Stats all look higher today, but there has been a HUGE wave of high school grade inflation over a long period of time. I have seen studies that indicate that average time spent studying have not increased (and have actually gone down since the 1960s), although it could be that the top students may be studying more.

Yes, GET RID OF THE COMMON APP!!! It's ruined college applications.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I graduated in 1979 from a “big 3” and we had a few books (insiders guide is one I recall). I don’t remember rankings being a driver but maybe they were. The list of schools people in my class applied to/attended was pretty much the same as today. Lots of ivies, top SLACs, top schools like Stanford and MIT, a few top publics like Michigan, UVA).

This is similar to us as well, graduated ~1979 though attended high school elsewhere in the states. There were definitely books and guides that existed a la Fiske nowadays, and magazine lists too, it's just that USNWR sort of superseded all of them and became king. But the schools that people thought of as the "top" were more or less the same as today. Ivies, Amherst, Stanford, MIT, Northwestern, Duke, Georgetown, top publics including Michigan and Cal and Ucla. The only notable change I can think of is the shooting popularity and "normalization" of UChicago, which used to only attract a singularly... unique student body.

Back in my day, UChicago and Washington U were safeties at my high school! (long time ago). Even Columbia wasn't that hard to get into. Cornell, easy. Same for UPenn. The number of seats at these schools has not changed while the population has grown, ergo, they're all more selective. Plus UChicago has been marketing itself like crazy for the past decade to increase its ranking. Same for Northeastern, which was a CC in my day, anyone could go there.

[Anonymous]

I graduated in 1982 and my parents were immigrants. Yes, there were rankings and we knew the ivy league schools but I couldn't distinguish from many of the smaller schools or liberal arts colleges. Univ of Rochester? No idea if it was better or worse than Univ of MD or than Gonzaga or than St. Louis. Generally, kids applied to local colleges and we applied to fewer. It was typical to apply to four: one reach, one safety (maybe even your community college) and two matches.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree with OP in that I’m opposed to the USNWR rankings. I don’t think tweaking the weightings etc would even help. They are a fool’s errand that should never have begun and should be given 0 weight by anyone. Colleges think this too, but because they know their customers do put stock in it, they are bound to play the game or face marginalization. And so they hypocritically play the game, further rigging and skewing the rankings. This won’t stop unless we collectively decide that the rankings are worthless.

Of course the USNWR rankings are worthless! They are essentially meaningless.

Why is Princeton #1? And what does that mean? If you are studying anthropology or business, I'm guessing you can find a better school than Princeton.

And Harvard isn't known for the quality of its education. Getting in is the hard part, but graduating isn't a huge challenge (Kusher graduated, and he's a moron). Why rank Harvard #2?

I wish USNWR would go out of business or be outlawed. All these college ratings systems should be outlawed. They are all about marketing, and very little about education.

DCUM LOVES USNR rankings!! So sad.

USNWR didn't go out of business specifically because of these rankings.

[Anonymous]

The process was more sane before USNWR. A failed weekly magazine rules the world of U.S. college admissions.

[Anonymous]

Barron's College Guide. They used a star rating, which in my view is better than ordinal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Back in the day there were these big college guides and they ranked them according to Most Competitive, Highly Competitive, Competitive and less competitive. It was pretty much as the rankings lump them today.

Yes, I graduated from high school in 1990 and this is what the giant Barron’s book I had did. I basically read the whole thing which is still why I’ve heard of and know something about every college mentioned here.

[Anonymous]

My father graduated from high school in 1956 from an adequate but not great high school in a middle class suburb and said his college research was entirely from a college guidebook that had a page or two about each school. When I graduated in the 80s we had a bunch of guidebooks in the career center plus US News, plus a computer program at school that returned a list of schools with certain characteristics, plus lots of mailings from schools. Now, of course, there's a firehose of info online.