WSJ/Times Higher Education: College Rankings for 2021

[Anonymous]

I think the top 3 military academies should all be top 25 -- West Point, Naval Academy, Air Force Academy. I'm generally very impressed with the kids who go to them. They never get the credit they deserve from these lists, which makes them seem non-prestigious to non-military families. You'd recruit even smarter non-military kids if they had more name rec and rankings reflecting how amazing they truly are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I speak on good authority:
nobody chooses Northwestern over Ivies
nobody chooses Brown over Princeton
nobody chooses Chicago over Columbia
and Georgetown is 10 spots too low

I chose Chicago over Columbia! Better aid package, better city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I speak on good authority:
nobody chooses Northwestern over Ivies
nobody chooses Brown over Princeton
nobody chooses Chicago over Columbia
and Georgetown is 10 spots too low

I chose Chicago over Columbia! Better aid package, better city.

We are not talking Columbia College, in Columbia, MO. You sound like the parent in the other thread who chose Haverford over Harvard because she thought Haverford WAS Harvard.

[Anonymous]

“ Michigan 23? Lol. It's 40 at best”

Top ranked public school. Should be rated even higher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:“ Michigan 23? Lol. It's 40 at best”

Top ranked public school. Should be rated even higher.

Higher? Its acceptance rate is 65% and the average SAT is 1220 lol. With those stats it doesnt even come close to a lower ranked private like Emory

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
“ Michigan 23? Lol. It's 40 at best”

Top ranked public school. Should be rated even higher.


“Higher? Its acceptance rate is 65% and the average SAT is 1220 lol. With those.....”

Oh I understand now. I’m dealing with a moron who cant even look up statistics properly or reasonably analyze them. No need to further comment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the top 3 military academies should all be top 25 -- West Point, Naval Academy, Air Force Academy. I'm generally very impressed with the kids who go to them. They never get the credit they deserve from these lists, which makes them seem non-prestigious to non-military families. You'd recruit even smarter non-military kids if they had more name rec and rankings reflecting how amazing they truly are.

the service academies are so unique that their ranking on the list is somewhat irrelevant. I don't think lots of harvard bound student would choose west point over harvard even if it it was ranked higher. You are required to serve on active duty for a period of years to attend a service academy and that is not for everyone.

[Anonymous]

I agree that the students I have known that attended service academies are impressive people but those schools only work for folks willing and able to serve on active duty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“ Michigan 23? Lol. It's 40 at best”

Top ranked public school. Should be rated even higher.

Higher? Its acceptance rate is 65% and the average SAT is 1220 lol. With those stats it doesnt even come close to a lower ranked private like Emory

I think you are seriously confused. Acceptance rate is under 23% (and much lower for out of state, which is half the classs) and average SAT is 1435 (that was a couple of years ago, it may be higher now).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The WSJ rankings also let you reweight the factors you care more about. So for example I put 70% on outcomes and 10% on resources, engagement, and environment. If you do this, Cornell jumps to 7, Columbia falls a few places, Virginia jumps up to the 30s and Maryland jumps to the 40s.

+1.

I think 20% engagement methodology in the ranking is not reasonable. Also, they couldn't include 2020 survey because of the coronavirus pandemic.


https://www.timeshighereducation.com/USmethodology2021#

Engagement (20%)

Decades of research has found that the best way to truly understand teaching quality at an institution – how well it manages to inform, inspire and challenge students – is through capturing what is known as “student engagement”. This was described by Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker in 2011 as “the extent to which students immerse themselves in the intellectual and social life of their college – and a major component of engagement is the quality of a student’s contacts with faculty”.

THE has captured student engagement across the US through its US Student Survey, carried out in partnership with two leading market research providers. In 2018 and 2019, we gathered the views of more than 170,000 current college and university students on a range of issues relating directly to their experience at college (see key changes detailed above).

Students answer 12 core questions about their experience that are either multiple choice or on a scale from 0 to 10, and also provide background information about themselves. The survey was conducted online and respondents were recruited by research firm Streetbees using social media, facilitated, in part, by student representatives at individual schools. We also worked with participating institutions that distributed the survey to random samples of their own students. Respondents were verified as students of their reported college using their email addresses. We used an aggregated group of respondents from both years (2018 and 2019 surveys). At least 50 validated responses in the 2019 survey were required for a university to be included.

To capture engagement with learning (7%), we look at the answers to four key questions:

*to what extent does the student’s college or university support critical thinking? For example, developing new concepts or evaluating different points of view;
*to what extent does the teaching support reflection on, or making connections among, the things that the student has learned? For example, combining ideas from different lessons to complete a task;
*to what extent does the teaching support applying the student’s learning to the real world? For example, taking study excursions to see concepts in action;
*to what extent do the classes taken in college challenge the student? For example, presenting new ways of thinking to challenge assumptions or values

To capture a student’s opportunity to interact with others (4%) to support learning, we use the responses to two questions: to what extent does the student have the opportunity to interact with faculty and teachers? For example, talking about personal progress in feedback sessions; and to what extent does the college provide opportunities for collaborative learning? For example, group assignments.

The final measure in this area from the survey is around student recommendation (6%): if a friend or family member were considering going to university, based on your experience, how likely or unlikely are you to recommend your college or university to them?

In this pillar of indicators we also seek to help a student understand the opportunities that are on offer at the institution, and the likelihood of getting a more rounded education, by providing an indicator of the number of different subjects taught (3%). While other components of the Engagement pillar are drawn from the student survey, the source of this metric is IPEDS. We are using the average of two years of data for this metric in order to provide a better long-term view.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I speak on good authority:
nobody chooses Northwestern over Ivies
nobody chooses Brown over Princeton
nobody chooses Chicago over Columbia
and Georgetown is 10 spots too low

So glad to know you have decided you have good authority, but Brown and Princeton are very different schools and there are plenty of people who would love to go to Brown and wouldn’t even apply to Princeton (and v.v. of course)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I speak on good authority:
nobody chooses Northwestern over Ivies
nobody chooses Brown over Princeton
nobody chooses Chicago over Columbia
and Georgetown is 10 spots too low

So glad to know you have decided you have good authority, but Brown and Princeton are very different schools and there are plenty of people who would love to go to Brown and wouldn’t even apply to Princeton (and v.v. of course)

Don’t knock her. Her uncle went to Princeton. So she knows.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I speak on good authority:
nobody chooses Northwestern over Ivies
nobody chooses Brown over Princeton
nobody chooses Chicago over Columbia
and Georgetown is 10 spots too low

So glad to know you have decided you have good authority, but Brown and Princeton are very different schools and there are plenty of people who would love to go to Brown and wouldn’t even apply to Princeton (and v.v. of course)

It's not the 80s. Overachievers apply everywhere with a few clicks of their mouse. All the top schools have basically the same coddled luxury ethos.

[Anonymous]

Thoughts on this list? None whatsoever. ~yawn~

[Anonymous]

I have my own DIY ranking list.

I loved schools that loved my kid and for this reason, they are on the top of the list as #1, 2, and 3. From #4 and down, who really cares about schools that didn't even medal?