Are US News rankings making DC rethink college list?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, here is a question for all those who claim the rankings have no impact on your college decision.

How do you even come up with a list from the start? If your kid is generally just interested in a common major...say finance, CS, mechanical engineering, political science...how do you come up with your list of say 30 schools (to start)?

Is there some easy way to find out class sizes by school and all these other criteria you espouse? Won't that search still result in hundreds of schools that meet those criteria? Are you limiting geographic search so that the first cut is manageable?

Putting aside the overall USNews rankings...are the rankings by Major/Specialty done by the same criteria as the list as a whole, or are those more "honest" rankings of the quality of the program?

I don't disagree that the ultimate decision is not based on the rankings...but again, how do you come up with your initial list of 30 schools without at least looking at the top 150 schools as determined by USNews?

My kid wants to go to a women’s college, that sets an easy filtering parameter. That’s the right fit in my opinion for her interests and personality. Pretty much every school in that genre is good. Those get looked at first.

So we are looking at those plus our in-state excellent Virginia institutions for price protection. Again, hard to go wrong.

It adds up to around 20-30 schools for the first round of sorting.

For this approach to work your kid has to actually be interested in stuff, so talk to them and really try to find out. Ask good questions. Why do they like what they like? What are they interested in learning? What do they need?

They like business? Okay! What aspect? Entrepreneurship? Finance/IB? Working at a big corporation? Innovation? Management? Sales? International trade?

They like CS? Okay! What aspect? Languages? Theory? Applied tech? Machine learning/AI? Robotics? Encryption? Fintech?

There are interesting schools with strengths in all of these areas, and they differ. They may be ranked generically all over the place but very well regarded in their specific niche. If you want to manage ships go to SUNY Maritime or the Merchant Marine Academy, not Princeton.

For example, for Product Design there are very strong programs at Stanford, MIT… and RISD. Fine-tuning the WHY and the WHAT DO YOU ACTUALLY WANT TO LEARN will reveal which program is right.

Where is FIT ranked? What’s the average SAT? Who cares! But in the fashion world it’s very important. If you want to learn how to do that kind of work and make the right connections that’s the only place to be.

“You have very high grades and test scores” is not an interest or a field of study.

[Anonymous]

We started by defining what my kid wanted:Southern, medium to large school, excellent academics, decent football/spectator sports and Greek life.

This was the initial list, in no particular order: Florida, UNC, UVA, Duke, Vandy, Emory, Texas, Wake Forest, Davidson, Clemson. Duke came off because no one gets in from their school, and Davidson was deemed too small. Emory moved to the bottom because they didn’t like the social scene but stayed on list because of excellent pre med. Ultimately all schools applied to, other than Clemson, had a medical school and hospital, which was a nice plus since student is starting out premed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We started by defining what my kid wanted:Southern, medium to large school, excellent academics, decent football/spectator sports and Greek life.

This was the initial list, in no particular order: Florida, UNC, UVA, Duke, Vandy, Emory, Texas, Wake Forest, Davidson, Clemson. Duke came off because no one gets in from their school, and Davidson was deemed too small. Emory moved to the bottom because they didn’t like the social scene but stayed on list because of excellent pre med. Ultimately all schools applied to, other than Clemson, had a medical school and hospital, which was a nice plus since student is starting out premed.

Given that med schools and hospitals are often inaccessible to undergrads (even physically in different places), what made that important? Plenty of kids go to med school from places that have neither and they don't usually impact undergrad experience even at schools with even the best med schools and hospitals like Stanford and Hopkins.

[Anonymous]

Any kid who did this is likely way too dumb to matriculate to one of the top schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid doesn’t read [magazines] so no, I don’t think he’s aware and it’s not affecting his decision making. Now if a prominent tiktok admissions guru had a bad thing to say about a school, it might be a different story.

Ha! Underrated comment right here. The kids pay attention to what is on Tiktok, not USNWR.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, here is a question for all those who claim the rankings have no impact on your college decision.

How do you even come up with a list from the start? If your kid is generally just interested in a common major...say finance, CS, mechanical engineering, political science...how do you come up with your list of say 30 schools (to start)?

Is there some easy way to find out class sizes by school and all these other criteria you espouse? Won't that search still result in hundreds of schools that meet those criteria? Are you limiting geographic search so that the first cut is manageable?

Putting aside the overall USNews rankings...are the rankings by Major/Specialty done by the same criteria as the list as a whole, or are those more "honest" rankings of the quality of the program?

I don't disagree that the ultimate decision is not based on the rankings...but again, how do you come up with your initial list of 30 schools without at least looking at the top 150 schools as determined by USNews?

My kid wants to go to a women’s college, that sets an easy filtering parameter. That’s the right fit in my opinion for her interests and personality. Pretty much every school in that genre is good. Those get looked at first.

So we are looking at those plus our in-state excellent Virginia institutions for price protection. Again, hard to go wrong.

It adds up to around 20-30 schools for the first round of sorting.

For this approach to work your kid has to actually be interested in stuff, so talk to them and really try to find out. Ask good questions. Why do they like what they like? What are they interested in learning? What do they need?

They like business? Okay! What aspect? Entrepreneurship? Finance/IB? Working at a big corporation? Innovation? Management? Sales? International trade?

They like CS? Okay! What aspect? Languages? Theory? Applied tech? Machine learning/AI? Robotics? Encryption? Fintech?

There are interesting schools with strengths in all of these areas, and they differ. They may be ranked generically all over the place but very well regarded in their specific niche. If you want to manage ships go to SUNY Maritime or the Merchant Marine Academy, not Princeton.

For example, for Product Design there are very strong programs at Stanford, MIT… and RISD. Fine-tuning the WHY and the WHAT DO YOU ACTUALLY WANT TO LEARN will reveal which program is right.

Where is FIT ranked? What’s the average SAT? Who cares! But in the fashion world it’s very important. If you want to learn how to do that kind of work and make the right connections that’s the only place to be.

“You have very high grades and test scores” is not an interest or a field of study.

So...who determined the Product Design programs were strong at Stanford, MIT, RISD, etc.? Did you independently go through their course curriculums, along with hundreds of other schools that offer Product Design...or did you look at some "rankings" to figure that out?

Let's take CS...so if my kid is interested in Machine Learning, there are literally hundreds of schools that offer Machine Learning...is one supposed to go through each program on their own to determine which are worthwhile...or like most people...are you now looking at rankings of those programs?

I just think it is hypocritical for people to say they don't look at rankings at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We started by defining what my kid wanted:Southern, medium to large school, excellent academics, decent football/spectator sports and Greek life.

This was the initial list, in no particular order: Florida, UNC, UVA, Duke, Vandy, Emory, Texas, Wake Forest, Davidson, Clemson. Duke came off because no one gets in from their school, and Davidson was deemed too small. Emory moved to the bottom because they didn’t like the social scene but stayed on list because of excellent pre med. Ultimately all schools applied to, other than Clemson, had a medical school and hospital, which was a nice plus since student is starting out premed.

Given that med schools and hospitals are often inaccessible to undergrads (even physically in different places), what made that important? Plenty of kids go to med school from places that have neither and they don't usually impact undergrad experience even at schools with even the best med schools and hospitals like Stanford and Hopkins.

It makes it far easier to do research, volunteering and shadowing if you can do it during the school year instead of having only the summer as an option. I disagree about Hopkins, spouse works there and undergrads are definitely working in labs. Obviously plenty of kids get into med school from schools that don’t themselves have medical schools., it’s just a nice extra that had value to our student.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We started by defining what my kid wanted:Southern, medium to large school, excellent academics, decent football/spectator sports and Greek life.

This was the initial list, in no particular order: Florida, UNC, UVA, Duke, Vandy, Emory, Texas, Wake Forest, Davidson, Clemson. Duke came off because no one gets in from their school, and Davidson was deemed too small. Emory moved to the bottom because they didn’t like the social scene but stayed on list because of excellent pre med. Ultimately all schools applied to, other than Clemson, had a medical school and hospital, which was a nice plus since student is starting out premed.

Are you trying to claim that this list of schools had nothing to do with rankings? They are all very highly ranked schools...and you omitted hundreds of other schools that fit your criteria...and you have a school like Emory that has no football and really not great spectator sports (according to our tour guide)...but it is ranked highly!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, here is a question for all those who claim the rankings have no impact on your college decision.

How do you even come up with a list from the start? If your kid is generally just interested in a common major...say finance, CS, mechanical engineering, political science...how do you come up with your list of say 30 schools (to start)?

Is there some easy way to find out class sizes by school and all these other criteria you espouse? Won't that search still result in hundreds of schools that meet those criteria? Are you limiting geographic search so that the first cut is manageable?

Putting aside the overall USNews rankings...are the rankings by Major/Specialty done by the same criteria as the list as a whole, or are those more "honest" rankings of the quality of the program?

I don't disagree that the ultimate decision is not based on the rankings...but again, how do you come up with your initial list of 30 schools without at least looking at the top 150 schools as determined by USNews?

My kid wants to go to a women’s college, that sets an easy filtering parameter. That’s the right fit in my opinion for her interests and personality. Pretty much every school in that genre is good. Those get looked at first.

So we are looking at those plus our in-state excellent Virginia institutions for price protection. Again, hard to go wrong.

It adds up to around 20-30 schools for the first round of sorting.

For this approach to work your kid has to actually be interested in stuff, so talk to them and really try to find out. Ask good questions. Why do they like what they like? What are they interested in learning? What do they need?

They like business? Okay! What aspect? Entrepreneurship? Finance/IB? Working at a big corporation? Innovation? Management? Sales? International trade?

They like CS? Okay! What aspect? Languages? Theory? Applied tech? Machine learning/AI? Robotics? Encryption? Fintech?

There are interesting schools with strengths in all of these areas, and they differ. They may be ranked generically all over the place but very well regarded in their specific niche. If you want to manage ships go to SUNY Maritime or the Merchant Marine Academy, not Princeton.

For example, for Product Design there are very strong programs at Stanford, MIT… and RISD. Fine-tuning the WHY and the WHAT DO YOU ACTUALLY WANT TO LEARN will reveal which program is right.

Where is FIT ranked? What’s the average SAT? Who cares! But in the fashion world it’s very important. If you want to learn how to do that kind of work and make the right connections that’s the only place to be.

“You have very high grades and test scores” is not an interest or a field of study.

So...who determined the Product Design programs were strong at Stanford, MIT, RISD, etc.? Did you independently go through their course curriculums, along with hundreds of other schools that offer Product Design...or did you look at some "rankings" to figure that out?

Let's take CS...so if my kid is interested in Machine Learning, there are literally hundreds of schools that offer Machine Learning...is one supposed to go through each program on their own to determine which are worthwhile...or like most people...are you now looking at rankings of those programs?

I just think it is hypocritical for people to say they don't look at rankings at all.

I think rankings can be useful when they are focused on a particular thing, like a particular major or some other element of the student experience and the choices on the list come from people who would actually have some view into that. The problem with the big overall rankings is that they are averaging together a whole lot of metrics with weighting that probably doesn't match how we would weight things.

I like the lists at Collegexpress.com for early exploration. https://www.collegexpress.com/lists/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, here is a question for all those who claim the rankings have no impact on your college decision.

How do you even come up with a list from the start? If your kid is generally just interested in a common major...say finance, CS, mechanical engineering, political science...how do you come up with your list of say 30 schools (to start)?

Is there some easy way to find out class sizes by school and all these other criteria you espouse? Won't that search still result in hundreds of schools that meet those criteria? Are you limiting geographic search so that the first cut is manageable?

Putting aside the overall USNews rankings...are the rankings by Major/Specialty done by the same criteria as the list as a whole, or are those more "honest" rankings of the quality of the program?

I don't disagree that the ultimate decision is not based on the rankings...but again, how do you come up with your initial list of 30 schools without at least looking at the top 150 schools as determined by USNews?

My kid wants to go to a women’s college, that sets an easy filtering parameter. That’s the right fit in my opinion for her interests and personality. Pretty much every school in that genre is good. Those get looked at first.

So we are looking at those plus our in-state excellent Virginia institutions for price protection. Again, hard to go wrong.

It adds up to around 20-30 schools for the first round of sorting.

For this approach to work your kid has to actually be interested in stuff, so talk to them and really try to find out. Ask good questions. Why do they like what they like? What are they interested in learning? What do they need?

They like business? Okay! What aspect? Entrepreneurship? Finance/IB? Working at a big corporation? Innovation? Management? Sales? International trade?

They like CS? Okay! What aspect? Languages? Theory? Applied tech? Machine learning/AI? Robotics? Encryption? Fintech?

There are interesting schools with strengths in all of these areas, and they differ. They may be ranked generically all over the place but very well regarded in their specific niche. If you want to manage ships go to SUNY Maritime or the Merchant Marine Academy, not Princeton.

For example, for Product Design there are very strong programs at Stanford, MIT… and RISD. Fine-tuning the WHY and the WHAT DO YOU ACTUALLY WANT TO LEARN will reveal which program is right.

Where is FIT ranked? What’s the average SAT? Who cares! But in the fashion world it’s very important. If you want to learn how to do that kind of work and make the right connections that’s the only place to be.

“You have very high grades and test scores” is not an interest or a field of study.

So...who determined the Product Design programs were strong at Stanford, MIT, RISD, etc.? Did you independently go through their course curriculums, along with hundreds of other schools that offer Product Design...or did you look at some "rankings" to figure that out?

Let's take CS...so if my kid is interested in Machine Learning, there are literally hundreds of schools that offer Machine Learning...is one supposed to go through each program on their own to determine which are worthwhile...or like most people...are you now looking at rankings of those programs?

I just think it is hypocritical for people to say they don't look at rankings at all.

I think rankings can be useful when they are focused on a particular thing, like a particular major or some other element of the student experience and the choices on the list come from people who would actually have some view into that. The problem with the big overall rankings is that they are averaging together a whole lot of metrics with weighting that probably doesn't match how we would weight things.

I like the lists at Collegexpress.com for early exploration. https://www.collegexpress.com/lists/

Also I don't have an issue with general tiers of schools. Obviously some schools attract much higher-achieving students and have better name recognition. The fallacy of these ordinal lists is they make it feel like there is a vast difference between #10 and #80 and I just don't see that in the real world. Still, personally, I'd say if it doesn't make at least the top 100-150 I'd be unlikely to consider it further even if it ticks a lot of other boxes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, here is a question for all those who claim the rankings have no impact on your college decision.

How do you even come up with a list from the start? If your kid is generally just interested in a common major...say finance, CS, mechanical engineering, political science...how do you come up with your list of say 30 schools (to start)?

Is there some easy way to find out class sizes by school and all these other criteria you espouse? Won't that search still result in hundreds of schools that meet those criteria? Are you limiting geographic search so that the first cut is manageable?

Putting aside the overall USNews rankings...are the rankings by Major/Specialty done by the same criteria as the list as a whole, or are those more "honest" rankings of the quality of the program?

I don't disagree that the ultimate decision is not based on the rankings...but again, how do you come up with your initial list of 30 schools without at least looking at the top 150 schools as determined by USNews?

My kid wants to go to a women’s college, that sets an easy filtering parameter. That’s the right fit in my opinion for her interests and personality. Pretty much every school in that genre is good. Those get looked at first.

So we are looking at those plus our in-state excellent Virginia institutions for price protection. Again, hard to go wrong.

It adds up to around 20-30 schools for the first round of sorting.

For this approach to work your kid has to actually be interested in stuff, so talk to them and really try to find out. Ask good questions. Why do they like what they like? What are they interested in learning? What do they need?

They like business? Okay! What aspect? Entrepreneurship? Finance/IB? Working at a big corporation? Innovation? Management? Sales? International trade?

They like CS? Okay! What aspect? Languages? Theory? Applied tech? Machine learning/AI? Robotics? Encryption? Fintech?

There are interesting schools with strengths in all of these areas, and they differ. They may be ranked generically all over the place but very well regarded in their specific niche. If you want to manage ships go to SUNY Maritime or the Merchant Marine Academy, not Princeton.

For example, for Product Design there are very strong programs at Stanford, MIT… and RISD. Fine-tuning the WHY and the WHAT DO YOU ACTUALLY WANT TO LEARN will reveal which program is right.

Where is FIT ranked? What’s the average SAT? Who cares! But in the fashion world it’s very important. If you want to learn how to do that kind of work and make the right connections that’s the only place to be.

“You have very high grades and test scores” is not an interest or a field of study.

So...who determined the Product Design programs were strong at Stanford, MIT, RISD, etc.? Did you independently go through their course curriculums, along with hundreds of other schools that offer Product Design...or did you look at some "rankings" to figure that out?

Let's take CS...so if my kid is interested in Machine Learning, there are literally hundreds of schools that offer Machine Learning...is one supposed to go through each program on their own to determine which are worthwhile...or like most people...are you now looking at rankings of those programs?

I just think it is hypocritical for people to say they don't look at rankings at all.

PP here, I’ve worked closely in the past with successful Innovation and Design firms on projects and took notice of where they hire from and where they look to for intelligence on the subject. I’ve also had people I respect directly tell me to engage with these specific programs when I needed advice on problems/issues.

If someone very successful in their field is telling me “I really respect this school/program, they are smart, they add a lot of value” that holds more weight with me than a defunct news magazine.

Sorting is also a lot easier if you actually know what you are looking for.

First step is figure out what you/child actually want. If your kid does not know yet what they want it’s okay, time to take a journey of discovery together.

Start with big question like is Greek life appealing or not? City or rural? Public or private?

Above poster who listed that their kid wanted “Southern, Greek, big, sports” did great, they had the “what kind of college lifestyle do you want” conversation and then you can fine tune with “well what kind of program do you want”? Premed! Sure thing, let’s see who does that well and has a hospital attached.

If there are “hundreds” of schools doing Subject X and employers don’t strongly care which program you went to and leaders in the field went all over the place for school then the market is sending a signal that it’s a commodity program and it doesn’t really matter what school you learn it at, so go wherever it’s cheapest and offers the favored lifestyle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We started by defining what my kid wanted:Southern, medium to large school, excellent academics, decent football/spectator sports and Greek life.

This was the initial list, in no particular order: Florida, UNC, UVA, Duke, Vandy, Emory, Texas, Wake Forest, Davidson, Clemson. Duke came off because no one gets in from their school, and Davidson was deemed too small. Emory moved to the bottom because they didn’t like the social scene but stayed on list because of excellent pre med. Ultimately all schools applied to, other than Clemson, had a medical school and hospital, which was a nice plus since student is starting out premed.

Are you trying to claim that this list of schools had nothing to do with rankings? They are all very highly ranked schools...and you omitted hundreds of other schools that fit your criteria...and you have a school like Emory that has no football and really not great spectator sports (according to our tour guide)...but it is ranked highly!

We didn’t need to go to US News to be aware of the existence of these schools. What a strange comment. You can search by size and location on Naviance, College kick start, etc. . . Our student had the stats to be competitive at all these schools, we didn’t have to seek out schools we weren’t familiar with.

And yes, no football is one of the reasons Emory went to the bottom of the list but it didn’t seem an important enough factor to rule it out entirely. It isn’t the school my student is attending.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FFS, no. The biggest problem with college rankings is SOMEONE else is telling you WHAT is important and HOW important in evaluating a college It’s utter nonsense, and a paradigm of intellectual laziness.

As an example, USNWR tweaked it to favor Pell grant admissions and graduation. Laudable goals for universities, to be sure. But how many in the DCUM world really care about that as far as their own kid’s concerns? If, eg, Harvard were to drop in this metric, people on DCUM wouldn’t want Harvard any less.

No, instead, what you’re doing is using rankings to justify schools you already liked or to avoid ones you don’t for whatever reason. Northeastern climbs but they are “gaming the system” or “cheating”. Chicago falls and they “never deserved to be that high anyway”.

The biggest thing most of you care about is how it will sound to your peer group. Just start being honest with yourself; you’ll be happier for it.

You win the thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not at all.

But it’s making me rethink USNWR !

I’d +1. But I’ve never been a great believe in their metrics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:USNWR will not even be a consideration. Maybe they are relevant for first generation kids? The things I care about as a parent paying the bills and my kid cares about as a student were eliminated from the USNWR rankings. Pell grants, percent first generation, graduation rate for Pell grant recipients, etc. have nothing to do with the quality of the education. We are full pay, already in the UMC and parents have graduate degrees, so social mobility means nothing to us. Already in the 1%. We care about student class size, professors with PHDs, how many kids were in the top 10% of their class - all the things that were eliminated from consideration.

+1000, those are the factors we were looking for in terms of the quality of the education and peer group.

+1
So answer to the OP's question.
Yes, US News rankings are making me reconsider their reliability.