2024 US News rankings

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Michigan State starts to look fairly interesting in these new rankings. #60 with an 88% acceptance rate.

I noticed that too. A decent amount of separation from Indiana now (#73), which seems to be much more popular here at DCUM.

Minnesota beats both at #53.

Is this the schools with over 70% acceptance rate?

Sounds totally BS ranking

Your focus on acceptance rate is flawed

Graduation rate 81%
Median earning $65K

Nobody would buy this school is tied with Northeastern, W&M, and Case Western.
Ranking is flawed.

Sure they would. IRONICALLY my son applied to all four of these fine schools last year. Not kidding.

Of course you apply to multiple schools.
Some are safeties like UMN

Guess I don't understand how acceptance rate determines the quality of education or outcome. By that rationale, NEU should be a top 10 school with their 7% acceptance rate last year.

Acceptance rate correlates with quality of peer students, which is a very important factor that impacts the quality of education.
Public schools have a similar concept in honors colleges, which are harder to get into (lower acceptance rate) programs with higher quality peers.
If you are not aware of this and think that a 75% acceptance rate school is comparable to a 10% acceptance rate school, do not advise your kids.

You are exactly the kind of sucker these rankings and admission folks love!! Tell the sheep which school to apply.

Quality of peers matter a lot in education. Period.

It's a function of acceptance rate + stats + yield.

[Anonymous]

U.S News’ change in methodology has led to dramatic movement in the rankings overall, disadvantaging many private research universities while privileging large public institutions. To look at just a few examples, The University of Chicago dropped from sixth to 12th. Dartmouth moved down six places. Berkeley and UCLA are now tied for 15th after placing 20th last year, and UNC advanced seven places to 22nd. Some schools have seen quite dramatic declines: Wake Forest dropped 18 places, Tulane slid 29. Washington University in St. Louis dropped out of the top 20, and NYU lost 10 places, moving to 35 from 25.

Specifically, U.S. News has made significant methodological changes that reduce the emphasis on metrics that measure faculty and student quality—and that increase the emphasis on social mobility, which they measure using incomplete and misleading data.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:None of this is based on hard academic merit. It's social factors and diversity and first gen and holistic measures.

Only a school that requires all test scores (not test optional), gpa, course rigor and known for quality education should be in the top 10.

It's no longer a purely 'academic' list.

It's not obvious that a school should be ranked higher because those attending had higher SAT scores and grades in High School. Say you split Princeton (#1 in the current ranking) in half (facilities and professors teaching 50/50) and then put 1000 students in half A and 1000 in half B. If those in Half A has SATs of 1500+ and those in half B 1400-1500 - is Half A a better school and should be ranked 50 spots higher?

Quality of peer students should be a major factor.

Why?

Duh?

So in my hypothetical: Say you split Princeton (#1 in the current ranking) in half (facilities and professors teaching 50/50) and then put 1000 students in half A and 1000 in half B. If those in Half A has SATs of 1500+ and those in half B 1400-1500 .

Why is it obvious that Half A a better school and should be ranked 50 spots higher? (What question should the ranking answer more precisely - what is a better school?)

But maybe it's simply the higher quality peer students the better for you in terms of reputation. So then not only should grades and SATs have a high weight, but perhaps even more so the extent to which the student body is well connected and financially strong, which may be even better qualities of peers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Princeton and Williams remain the USNWR darlings.
Don't they know they'd get more headlines and interest if they mixed up those top spots, especially since everyone knows they are not undoubtedly the top schools (look at almost any other ranking)?

This. Why should lower tiered privates take a beating while the most elite schools - playgrounds for the wealthy, famous, and well-connected - stay virtually the same.

The so-called public Ivies (UCs, Michigan, etc.) do well by their in-state students but, again, the only OOS families that can afford them, and thus give them the vaunted geographic diversity, are also wealthy and well-connected.

[Anonymous]

Princeton puts its endowment to work. I mean, I think they should make tuition 20k and get out of the college financing industry full stop, but at least they try more than most. And the word has gotten out that they're the most generous. So I get why they remain on top.

[Anonymous]

These rankings are becoming less relevant. UMC and wealthy families seem to be diverging from USNWR and towards some other source of information (network of private HS college counselors, secret book?). I think the increased focus on Pell grant recipients/first gen just exacerbates the pressures not to provide any support to UMC/ UC families outside the 1% --and UMC includes very much MC families in HCOLA. So instead, these families are going to institutions that provide merit aid or more robust financial aid for higher income families. So these institutions are attracting more strong UMC families--which is what many people want in terms of developing social networks etc. The rankings are diverging from reality--and with test optional there's less of a way to consistently judge merit.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:These are the dumbest US News rankings yet. Should just be called US Pell Grant rankings.

I thought the suburban milk toast DC area moms were the classic PC crowd who would eat this DEI/PC bs up. Maybe do as I say not as I do going on again.

Yep. That's it. They want diversity but are OK with US News not rewarding it in some instances.. Michigan is 50% OOS compared to hte pathetic OOS numbers at the other 4 top 5 publics. Where's the reward? Wellesley is all girls. They discriminate against 50% of the population. Where's the punishment?

UVA also has a decent amount of OOS students compared to Berkeley, UCLA, and UNC. Among the top 4 however, (UCB, UCLA, UNC) it definitely stands out.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:USC no longer top 25…again. Just as I figured.

Good. It should have never gone that high. Ask anyone (intelligent) who lives in so California. They are bewildered by its popularity

Yup, this. +1,000,000 (and for the record, I still think that Cal and UCLA are underrated)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:U.S News’ change in methodology has led to dramatic movement in the rankings overall, disadvantaging many private research universities while privileging large public institutions. To look at just a few examples, The University of Chicago dropped from sixth to 12th. Dartmouth moved down six places. Berkeley and UCLA are now tied for 15th after placing 20th last year, and UNC advanced seven places to 22nd. Some schools have seen quite dramatic declines: Wake Forest dropped 18 places, Tulane slid 29. Washington University in St. Louis dropped out of the top 20, and NYU lost 10 places, moving to 35 from 25.

Specifically, U.S. News has made significant methodological changes that reduce the emphasis on metrics that measure faculty and student quality—and that increase the emphasis on social mobility, which they measure using incomplete and misleading data.

I think Chicago and Dartmouth's updated rankings are fair.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Idiots.

1 Princeton
2 MIT
3 (Tie) Harvard, Stanford
5 Yale
6 UPenn
7 (Tie) CalTech, Duke
9 (Tie) Brown, JHU, Northwestern
12 (Tie) Columbia, Cornell, UChicago
15 (Tie) UCLA, UCB
17 Rice
18 (Tie) Dartmouth, Vanderbilt
20 Notre Dame
21 UMich
22 Georgetown
23 UNC
24 (Tie) CMU, Emory, Virgina, WashU StL
28 UCD, UCSD, UF, USC

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities

This is better than last year's, and still the most credible among the bevy of new rankings out there.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Idiots.

1 Princeton
2 MIT
3 (Tie) Harvard, Stanford
5 Yale
6 UPenn
7 (Tie) CalTech, Duke
9 (Tie) Brown, JHU, Northwestern
12 (Tie) Columbia, Cornell, UChicago
15 (Tie) UCLA, UCB
17 Rice
18 (Tie) Dartmouth, Vanderbilt
20 Notre Dame
21 UMich
22 Georgetown
23 UNC
24 (Tie) CMU, Emory, Virgina, WashU StL
28 UCD, UCSD, UF, USC

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities

This is better than last year's, and still the most credible among the bevy of new rankings out there.

And still just pointless. Rankings are dumb. Criterion selection and data are smart.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:USC no longer top 25…again. Just as I figured.

Good. It should have never gone that high. Ask anyone (intelligent) who lives in so California. They are bewildered by its popularity

Yup, this. +1,000,000 (and for the record, I still think that Cal and UCLA are underrated)

I think they’re overrated, 1000 students in a lecture hall and satellite rooms doesn’t make for an excellent education.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Should USNWR rank the service academies like they do? They must very loosely fit into USNWR's definition of a liberal arts college based on their degree granting but it is a big stretch to compare the Naval Academy with Amherst or Swarthmore. I'm surprised the service academies award at least half of their degrees in the liberal arts fields of study. Otherwise they'd be in the USNWR Regional Colleges category, where schools focus on undergraduate education but grant fewer than half their degrees in liberal arts disciplines.

I glanced at WSJ and Forbes and it didn't look like they rank the military academies in their combined rankings.

Is it fair to compare CalTech with Yale? Or Dartmouth with UCLA?

Schools are different. Most academy grads do their four years of service and that's it. Employers seem to like them and regard them as well educated as people that went to Amherst and Swarthmore.

CalTech, Yale, Dartmouth and UCLA are all highly competitive academic schools as reflected by the intellectual caliber of their respective undergrad student cohorts. The service academies are outliers in this respect.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Idiots.

1 Princeton
2 MIT
3 (Tie) Harvard, Stanford
5 Yale
6 UPenn
7 (Tie) CalTech, Duke
9 (Tie) Brown, JHU, Northwestern
12 (Tie) Columbia, Cornell, UChicago
15 (Tie) UCLA, UCB
17 Rice
18 (Tie) Dartmouth, Vanderbilt
20 Notre Dame
21 UMich
22 Georgetown
23 UNC
24 (Tie) CMU, Emory, Virgina, WashU StL
28 UCD, UCSD, UF, USC

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities

I don't have a problem with the schools listed 1-24. I quibble about the order. Berkeley and UCLA are obviously good schools. But the only reason they're in the top 15 is because USNWR no longer cares about class size. Both schools have classes with more than a 1000 students, which is ridiculous. That's not happening at Rice, Dartmouth, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame and other schools they've displaced. And USNWR seems to think six years is a reasonable time to graduate, which again helps UCLA and Berkeley where a lot of students have a hard time getting into all their required classes within four years. Again, not a problem at Rice, Dartmouth, Vanderbilt, and Notre Dame.

And then there's the fixation on Pell Grant students. And a reminder, colleges have no idea if a potential student will get a Pell Grant at the time of admittance. Obviously, two schools from the most economically diverse state in the country with a collective 90,000 students are going to clean up with the Pell Grant boost. With the exception of UC Merced, nearly all the UCs are now top 35 schools. Irvine, San Diego, Santa Barbara. And UC Merced is now ranked 60.

60!

UC Merced!

Out of 4000 colleges and universities!

Also think Penn, JHU, and Brown are ranked too high. But whatever.

The real absurdities are everything that happens below 24.

I don't know what this list is supposed to measure, but it's definitely not the Best National Universities in America

+1000, to make money, US News has gone bonkers with their methodology. The quality of these institutions do not change so suddenly in one year. To generate profits, US News created a new index based on the number/graduation of Pell Grant and first generation students. How does this matter to the quality of the education? Schools will now game this index by accepting more Pell and FG students and "making sure" these students graduate even if they are failing classes.

"quality" is a subjective term.

The previous rankings looked at alumni donation. That makes a ranking skew wealthy.

Alumni donation IS an indicator of the students' overall satisfaction with the school and quality of the education. Schools do not skew wealthy because of alumni donation--it's defined as the percentage of alumni that donate. The consequence of this idiotic index is more gaming and massaging of statistics to the detriment of the quality of peer students, faculty, and education.

Oh, so legacy. Gosh, that doesn't skew the rankings at all.

Alumni donation doesn't equate to satisfaction of current students. A lot of parents donate because they hope that this will help their kid get in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Princeton puts its endowment to work. I mean, I think they should make tuition 20k and get out of the college financing industry full stop, but at least they try more than most. And the word has gotten out that they're the most generous. So I get why they remain on top.

1000% if more colleges reduced their coa, then they wouldn't need legacy and rely on donors. You'd see more UMC/MC class students applying. Right now, a lot of high stats UMC/MC students don't even bother applying to those expensive colleges because of cost.