US News 2020 rankings

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harvard
Stanford, Yale, Princeton, MIT
-gap-
Rest of the Ivies
-gap-
Duke, Notre Dame

To have any ranking credibility, Columbia belongs with Stanford, Yale, Princeton, MIT.

No.

Your list also places H with the rest of IVs.

This says more about you than Harvard or Columbia. There’s really no value to your list if all you’re doing is venting

TLDR: Wherever my kid goes is the bottom of the first tier.

[Anonymous]

20k/year at 2B or 45k/year at 1B??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't speak for medical school but I can for law school. I am an attorney with two high school seniors. I asked law school counselors about placement from colleges and they said it doesn't make a difference where you go--it is GPA and LSAT. Ivy level, Amherst, Williams, etc. do well because they are smart. See other thread on this.

I’ve heard this before and I’m not saying you’re wrong but it always strikes me as odd. I’ve had kids in five different colleges across the range of (perceived) excellence. The kids in the local not-flagship, uncompetitive enrollment schools do very little work for easy A’s while the ones at the harder schools work their butts off for A’s. It isn’t even close in terms of the amount of work demanded and the quality produced. Just amazes me that law schools think a Swarthmore A is the same as a Salisbury A. Yes, LSAT probably reveals some of that but not necessarily.

If two students both get a 3.8 GPA and a 168 on the LSAT, why would the law school care that the first student went to Swarthmore and the second went to Salisbury?

If anything, that the Salisbury student was able to get the same score on the LSAT speaks highly of their natural intelligence and potential, considering they probably come from a poorer background.

Law schools care about LSAT and GPA because it is heavily counted in ranking factors. No other reason at all.

This is why a double major engineering student with a 3.4 will be looked down upon compared to a 3.9 political science major. And the difference in difficulty between the majors is far bigger than between schools.

AKA Virginia Tech engineering is going to be more challenging and time-consuming than a Swarthmore Economics major.

And law schools don't even tend to look at rigor of courses.

Beyond the same LSAT and GPA, they start looking at leadership positions, extracurriculars, geographic diversity, college diversity (for which being from a masters-level public college rather than a top SLAC might help), etc.

[Anonymous]

The point of going to a more prestigious SLAC school more someone interested in Law/Medical school is

1. More academically inclined/focused peers - so you can spend college focused on studies without being a social outcast, because everyone else is trying to get into top medical/law/business schools and top jobs as well

2. Far better research opportunities, for medical school

3. Learning from better/more accomplished professors

4. For sciences, having letters from well-known research professors helps a lot. On the other hand, SLACs professors will write very good letters.

5. More resources: Better classrooms, better living areas, better amenities, etc.

6. Better reputation if you change your mind about law/medical school

Not the very marginally better weighing that an admissions officer might give, everything else being equal

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't speak for medical school but I can for law school. I am an attorney with two high school seniors. I asked law school counselors about placement from colleges and they said it doesn't make a difference where you go--it is GPA and LSAT. Ivy level, Amherst, Williams, etc. do well because they are smart. See other thread on this.

I’ve heard this before and I’m not saying you’re wrong but it always strikes me as odd. I’ve had kids in five different colleges across the range of (perceived) excellence. The kids in the local not-flagship, uncompetitive enrollment schools do very little work for easy A’s while the ones at the harder schools work their butts off for A’s. It isn’t even close in terms of the amount of work demanded and the quality produced. Just amazes me that law schools think a Swarthmore A is the same as a Salisbury A. Yes, LSAT probably reveals some of that but not necessarily.

If two students both get a 3.8 GPA and a 168 on the LSAT, why would the law school care that the first student went to Swarthmore and the second went to Salisbury?

If anything, that the Salisbury student was able to get the same score on the LSAT speaks highly of their natural intelligence and potential, considering they probably come from a poorer background.

Law schools care about LSAT and GPA because it is heavily counted in ranking factors. No other reason at all.

This is why a double major engineering student with a 3.4 will be looked down upon compared to a 3.9 political science major. And the difference in difficulty between the majors is far bigger than between schools.

AKA Virginia Tech engineering is going to be more challenging and time-consuming than a Swarthmore Economics major.

And law schools don't even tend to look at rigor of courses.

Beyond the same LSAT and GPA, they start looking at leadership positions, extracurriculars, geographic diversity, college diversity (for which being from a masters-level public college rather than a top SLAC might help), etc.

Because a ham sandwich could get a 3.8 at Salisbury. My kid has a 3.4 and says he “rarely” goes to class and says his HS classes were harder. A 3.8 at Swarthmore is someone who knows how to work hard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't speak for medical school but I can for law school. I am an attorney with two high school seniors. I asked law school counselors about placement from colleges and they said it doesn't make a difference where you go--it is GPA and LSAT. Ivy level, Amherst, Williams, etc. do well because they are smart. See other thread on this.

I’ve heard this before and I’m not saying you’re wrong but it always strikes me as odd. I’ve had kids in five different colleges across the range of (perceived) excellence. The kids in the local not-flagship, uncompetitive enrollment schools do very little work for easy A’s while the ones at the harder schools work their butts off for A’s. It isn’t even close in terms of the amount of work demanded and the quality produced. Just amazes me that law schools think a Swarthmore A is the same as a Salisbury A. Yes, LSAT probably reveals some of that but not necessarily.

If two students both get a 3.8 GPA and a 168 on the LSAT, why would the law school care that the first student went to Swarthmore and the second went to Salisbury?

If anything, that the Salisbury student was able to get the same score on the LSAT speaks highly of their natural intelligence and potential, considering they probably come from a poorer background.

Law schools care about LSAT and GPA because it is heavily counted in ranking factors. No other reason at all.

This is why a double major engineering student with a 3.4 will be looked down upon compared to a 3.9 political science major. And the difference in difficulty between the majors is far bigger than between schools.

AKA Virginia Tech engineering is going to be more challenging and time-consuming than a Swarthmore Economics major.

And law schools don't even tend to look at rigor of courses.

Beyond the same LSAT and GPA, they start looking at leadership positions, extracurriculars, geographic diversity, college diversity (for which being from a masters-level public college rather than a top SLAC might help), etc.

Because a ham sandwich could get a 3.8 at Salisbury. My kid has a 3.4 and says he “rarely” goes to class and says his HS classes were harder. A 3.8 at Swarthmore is someone who knows how to work hard.

A ham sandwich could get a 3.8 but your kid has a 3.4, that really doesn't sound good on your kid or you yourself as a parent.

There's a big difference between a 3.4 and a 3.8. Many, including "top", colleges will give a B+ to a empty paper turned in for an essay. Getting a A's on the other hand tends to require writing intelligent papers, not crap

And again, these schools don't care about "working hard". They care about 1) raw intelligence and 2) organization skills. Raw intelligence is the LSAT. GPA is organization skills.

If a Salisbury kid could get the same score on the LSAT/MCAT as a Swarthmore kid despite going to a school with less resources and academically worse peers, that makes the Salisbury kid look better, not worse.

[Anonymous]

^^ He’s a great kid but a lousy student and the first to admit it. Are you aware that not everyone was cut out for college? Nah, probably not. Too dim.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^ He’s a great kid but a lousy student and the first to admit it. Are you aware that not everyone was cut out for college? Nah, probably not. Too dim.

Sorry, in nutso DCUM world kids who are poor students are losers and their parents are too. Part of the toxicity that the douchebag above is demonstrating. Happens all the time here. I have a B- kid myself. We had all the arguments, tried everything. Made little difference. He just wasn’t willing or able to give more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ He’s a great kid but a lousy student and the first to admit it. Are you aware that not everyone was cut out for college? Nah, probably not. Too dim.

Sorry, in nutso DCUM world kids who are poor students are losers and their parents are too. Part of the toxicity that the douchebag above is demonstrating. Happens all the time here. I have a B- kid myself. We had all the arguments, tried everything. Made little difference. He just wasn’t willing or able to give more.

Perhaps such posters shouldn't be calling students that work all throughout college getting a 3.8 GPA "ham sandwiches" just because go to Salisbury then, if we are all worried about such toxicity.

[Anonymous]

When over-educated, non-essential people have too much time on their hands during a shutdown, you can pretty much guarantee that they are going to post crap about things like school rankings to make themselves feel better about their current situation. It’s a fairly obvious form of adult thumb sucking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

USN ranking used to put more weight on the graduate programs in which Berkeley etc shine. The graduate programs in Berkeley, Michigan etc are still top notch, but the undergraduate programs market is much bigger than the graduate one, so USN ranking has shifted the focus towards the undergraduate programs.

Public perception has changed and private schools started to gain a lot of money.

USNWR rankings now significantly weigh resources, which favors wealthy private schools and schools with medical schools (even though many of those resources may have nothing to do with the undergraduate program). It is likely one of the reasons Berkeley has fallen behind UCLA in public rankings is it does not have a medical school. The resources numbers in the IPEDS database, which is what USNWR uses, shows UCLA with far more resources.

That's a good thing. During times like these schools with wealth and financial stability should be rewarded. We see Georgetown in financial trouble, which is sad for such a great school.

Pertaining to the tiers, I find it interesting that 2B is very large compared to the other groupings.

Duke suspended retirement contributions. This Covid thing is going to impact all schools.

[Anonymous]

Question is whether a $4 billion endowment for a private university is the same as a $4 billion endowment for a public flagship university.

USNews will count it as the same. But the private university will entire depend on that $4 billion endowment not to go bankrupt during hard times

While decent states will never let their public flagships go bankrupt because it brings a lot of free federal research money into the state, educates the states populace, makes it more attractive place to live, etc.

Think California, Washington state, Texas, Minnesota

Of course thats changing based on what we saw with Wisconsin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Question is whether a $4 billion endowment for a private university is the same as a $4 billion endowment for a public flagship university.

USNews will count it as the same. But the private university will entire depend on that $4 billion endowment not to go bankrupt during hard times

While decent states will never let their public flagships go bankrupt because it brings a lot of free federal research money into the state, educates the states populace, makes it more attractive place to live, etc.

Think California, Washington state, Texas, Minnesota

Of course thats changing based on what we saw with Wisconsin.

USNews doesn't count endowment directly. "Free" federal research may dry up outside of obvious areas like Covid, and the institutions themselves have to come up with about 30 cents for each dollar of federal research. State budgets are crushed, so they will be significantly cutting funding for higher education. It is one of the easiest budget items they have to cut.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When over-educated, non-essential people have too much time on their hands during a shutdown, you can pretty much guarantee that they are going to post crap about things like school rankings to make themselves feel better about their current situation. It’s a fairly obvious form of adult thumb sucking.

Great line.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't speak for medical school but I can for law school. I am an attorney with two high school seniors. I asked law school counselors about placement from colleges and they said it doesn't make a difference where you go--it is GPA and LSAT. Ivy level, Amherst, Williams, etc. do well because they are smart. See other thread on this.

I’ve heard this before and I’m not saying you’re wrong but it always strikes me as odd. I’ve had kids in five different colleges across the range of (perceived) excellence. The kids in the local not-flagship, uncompetitive enrollment schools do very little work for easy A’s while the ones at the harder schools work their butts off for A’s. It isn’t even close in terms of the amount of work demanded and the quality produced. Just amazes me that law schools think a Swarthmore A is the same as a Salisbury A. Yes, LSAT probably reveals some of that but not necessarily.

If two students both get a 3.8 GPA and a 168 on the LSAT, why would the law school care that the first student went to Swarthmore and the second went to Salisbury?

If anything, that the Salisbury student was able to get the same score on the LSAT speaks highly of their natural intelligence and potential, considering they probably come from a poorer background.

Law schools care about LSAT and GPA because it is heavily counted in ranking factors. No other reason at all.

This is why a double major engineering student with a 3.4 will be looked down upon compared to a 3.9 political science major. And the difference in difficulty between the majors is far bigger than between schools.

AKA Virginia Tech engineering is going to be more challenging and time-consuming than a Swarthmore Economics major.

And law schools don't even tend to look at rigor of courses.

Beyond the same LSAT and GPA, they start looking at leadership positions, extracurriculars, geographic diversity, college diversity (for which being from a masters-level public college rather than a top SLAC might help), etc.

Because a ham sandwich could get a 3.8 at Salisbury. My kid has a 3.4 and says he “rarely” goes to class and says his HS classes were harder. A 3.8 at Swarthmore is someone who knows how to work hard.

A ham sandwich could get a 3.8 but your kid has a 3.4, that really doesn't sound good on your kid or you yourself as a parent.

There's a big difference between a 3.4 and a 3.8. Many, including "top", colleges will give a B+ to a empty paper turned in for an essay. Getting a A's on the other hand tends to require writing intelligent papers, not crap

And again, these schools don't care about "working hard". They care about 1) raw intelligence and 2) organization skills. Raw intelligence is the LSAT. GPA is organization skills.

If a Salisbury kid could get the same score on the LSAT/MCAT as a Swarthmore kid despite going to a school with less resources and academically worse peers, that makes the Salisbury kid look better, not worse.

What college gives a B+ for an empty?