With US News Being Challenged by Top Schools, Does it Make More Sense to Combine Rankings?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This page is exactly what’s wrong with rankings. Quibbling over Duke, Georgetown, Columbia is nonsense. There is no way anyone can credibly say any of these are “better” than the others. They are just different, with different areas of strength and different weakness. Many of the supposed strengths and weaknesses are just value judgments. There is no actual science behind college rankings and we should all just ignore them.

And, to the poster who keeps chiming in that it helped them cull down the 3000+ colleges, you could absolutely do that without any ordinal ranking.

Why is the blame on the consumers seeking information instead of the subterfuge by the schools by trying to block public information about admissions processes and graduate outcomes?

These schools basically are telling us, “Forget about rankings and pick a school that makes you *feel* good.” I’m sorry, but when people are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for each child, that’s crap.

Frankly, the most honest information is probably coming from the Department of Education College Scorecard. It’s incomplete information since it’s only based on those who took out federal student loans, but it’s at least better than the fuzzy platitudes of the schools. It’s funny that, as far as I’ve seen, the schools that have so much zeal in criticizing the US News rankings rarely point to any other alternative like the College Scorecard (lest they find about the amount of student loans people are taking out for how a whole lot of schools and/or majors that have pretty terrible income prospects).

If the primary interest is ROI and financial outcomes, then Wall Street Journal and Forbes are the best rankings. Wall Street Journal actually has a subranking that ranks undergrad schools by outcomes:

1. Princeton
1. Yale
3. Duke
3. Harvard
3. MIT
3. Stanford
7. Cornell
8. Caltech
8. UChicago
8. Dartmouth
11. JHU
12. Northwestern
13. UPenn
14. Brown
15. Vanderbilt
16. UMich
17. WashU
18. UCLA
19. Amherst
19. Berkeley
21. Williams
22. UNC
23. Columbia
24. USC
25. Emory

Excellent list that tracks with what we've seen anecdotally.

I agree with it except I believe UPenn and Columbia should be higher. UPenn has Wharton which feeds almost exclusively into high earning careers, and Columbia being in Manhattan tends to do the same. In my experience it makes sense to swap Cornell and UPenn, and swap WashU and Columbia.

OMG Who cares?!?! Here are a bunch of great schools. How can anyone possibly know enough about the ins and outs of all of them to to make such fine gradations of distinction. If you have the profile to have a shot at getting in, pick from these based on whatever factors actually matter to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem I have with Duke is that its overall departmental rankings are not nearly as high as its so called peers. A top ten school should be loaded with top ten, even top 20 departments. Duke is severely lacking in that regard.

Duke law and medicine are both T5. Law and Medicine covers a lot. You should be able to find a lot of sub-disciplines in T10 within law and medicine. Duke Business is T11, should have a lot of sub-disciplines in T10. Duke's BME is T3, public policy T5, environment T5, econ T5, just list a few.

Will also add that it has a great statistics department (T10) and nursing program (generally ranked 1-5 for everything). Duke econ students also generally have very good outcomes, and most finance/consulting/etc people major or minor in econ at duke. Their overall engineering program is solid along with their CS department (both are in/around T20). And other programs like Psycholgoy, biology, math, English, etc. are all ranked very well too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This page is exactly what’s wrong with rankings. Quibbling over Duke, Georgetown, Columbia is nonsense. There is no way anyone can credibly say any of these are “better” than the others. They are just different, with different areas of strength and different weakness. Many of the supposed strengths and weaknesses are just value judgments. There is no actual science behind college rankings and we should all just ignore them.

And, to the poster who keeps chiming in that it helped them cull down the 3000+ colleges, you could absolutely do that without any ordinal ranking.

Why is the blame on the consumers seeking information instead of the subterfuge by the schools by trying to block public information about admissions processes and graduate outcomes?

These schools basically are telling us, “Forget about rankings and pick a school that makes you *feel* good.” I’m sorry, but when people are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for each child, that’s crap.

Frankly, the most honest information is probably coming from the Department of Education College Scorecard. It’s incomplete information since it’s only based on those who took out federal student loans, but it’s at least better than the fuzzy platitudes of the schools. It’s funny that, as far as I’ve seen, the schools that have so much zeal in criticizing the US News rankings rarely point to any other alternative like the College Scorecard (lest they find about the amount of student loans people are taking out for how a whole lot of schools and/or majors that have pretty terrible income prospects).

If the primary interest is ROI and financial outcomes, then Wall Street Journal and Forbes are the best rankings. Wall Street Journal actually has a subranking that ranks undergrad schools by outcomes:

1. Princeton
1. Yale
3. Duke
3. Harvard
3. MIT
3. Stanford
7. Cornell
8. Caltech
8. UChicago
8. Dartmouth
11. JHU
12. Northwestern
13. UPenn
14. Brown
15. Vanderbilt
16. UMich
17. WashU
18. UCLA
19. Amherst
19. Berkeley
21. Williams
22. UNC
23. Columbia
24. USC
25. Emory

+1 outcomes are a much better way to measure the usefulness of a school since that’s the main reason most people send their kids to college

But the devil is in the details--how much are outcomes tied to the status of the students' families? Are they controlling for all the factors? And how much of a difference is there in outcomes between 1 and 25 and between 25 and 50 etc.? Are these distinctions without a difference or are these meaningful?

WSJ actually breaks down how it's calculated, the main factor in outcomes is value added to graduate salary (i.e. how much more a graduate goes on to earn compared to if they didn't graduate from that school). Here's the list with the overall outcome scores (out of 40):

1. Princeton - 39.7
1. Yale - 39.7
3. Duke - 39.6
3. Harvard - 39.6
3. MIT - 39.6
3. Stanford - 39.6
7. Cornell - 39.3
8. Caltech - 39.0
8. UChicago - 39.0
8. Dartmouth - 39.0
11. JHU - 38.9
12. Northwestern - 38.8
13. UPenn - 38.7
14. Brown - 38.2
15. Vanderbilt - 38.1
16. UMich - 38.0
17. WashU - 37.8
18. UCLA - 37.7
19. Amherst - 37.4
19. Berkeley - 37.4
21. Williams - 37.3
22. UNC - 37.1
23. Columbia - 36.9
24. USC - 36.6
25. Emory - 36.5

It looks like HPSM, Duke, and Yale pretty much cluster near the top with high 39s. Then several schools at the low 39s-high 38s. The only slightly meaningful drop is between UPenn and Brown. As for meaningful differences, in the grand scheme all in the top 25 are more or less similar for outcomes, but if you're looking to maximize and nitpick, probably a difference of ~1 out of the 40 point scale starts to become meaningful.

Thank you for listing it out!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This page is exactly what’s wrong with rankings. Quibbling over Duke, Georgetown, Columbia is nonsense. There is no way anyone can credibly say any of these are “better” than the others. They are just different, with different areas of strength and different weakness. Many of the supposed strengths and weaknesses are just value judgments. There is no actual science behind college rankings and we should all just ignore them.

And, to the poster who keeps chiming in that it helped them cull down the 3000+ colleges, you could absolutely do that without any ordinal ranking.

Why is the blame on the consumers seeking information instead of the subterfuge by the schools by trying to block public information about admissions processes and graduate outcomes?

These schools basically are telling us, “Forget about rankings and pick a school that makes you *feel* good.” I’m sorry, but when people are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for each child, that’s crap.

Frankly, the most honest information is probably coming from the Department of Education College Scorecard. It’s incomplete information since it’s only based on those who took out federal student loans, but it’s at least better than the fuzzy platitudes of the schools. It’s funny that, as far as I’ve seen, the schools that have so much zeal in criticizing the US News rankings rarely point to any other alternative like the College Scorecard (lest they find about the amount of student loans people are taking out for how a whole lot of schools and/or majors that have pretty terrible income prospects).

If the primary interest is ROI and financial outcomes, then Wall Street Journal and Forbes are the best rankings. Wall Street Journal actually has a subranking that ranks undergrad schools by outcomes:

1. Princeton
1. Yale
3. Duke
3. Harvard
3. MIT
3. Stanford
7. Cornell
8. Caltech
8. UChicago
8. Dartmouth
11. JHU
12. Northwestern
13. UPenn
14. Brown
15. Vanderbilt
16. UMich
17. WashU
18. UCLA
19. Amherst
19. Berkeley
21. Williams
22. UNC
23. Columbia
24. USC
25. Emory

Where's Georgetown, remember Schools like it Emory, Williams etc don't have engineering programs. So they overperform compared to Schools like Columbia and USC that underperformed. Especially Columbia

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This page is exactly what’s wrong with rankings. Quibbling over Duke, Georgetown, Columbia is nonsense. There is no way anyone can credibly say any of these are “better” than the others. They are just different, with different areas of strength and different weakness. Many of the supposed strengths and weaknesses are just value judgments. There is no actual science behind college rankings and we should all just ignore them.

And, to the poster who keeps chiming in that it helped them cull down the 3000+ colleges, you could absolutely do that without any ordinal ranking.

Why is the blame on the consumers seeking information instead of the subterfuge by the schools by trying to block public information about admissions processes and graduate outcomes?

These schools basically are telling us, “Forget about rankings and pick a school that makes you *feel* good.” I’m sorry, but when people are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for each child, that’s crap.

Frankly, the most honest information is probably coming from the Department of Education College Scorecard. It’s incomplete information since it’s only based on those who took out federal student loans, but it’s at least better than the fuzzy platitudes of the schools. It’s funny that, as far as I’ve seen, the schools that have so much zeal in criticizing the US News rankings rarely point to any other alternative like the College Scorecard (lest they find about the amount of student loans people are taking out for how a whole lot of schools and/or majors that have pretty terrible income prospects).

If the primary interest is ROI and financial outcomes, then Wall Street Journal and Forbes are the best rankings. Wall Street Journal actually has a subranking that ranks undergrad schools by outcomes:

1. Princeton
1. Yale
3. Duke
3. Harvard
3. MIT
3. Stanford
7. Cornell
8. Caltech
8. UChicago
8. Dartmouth
11. JHU
12. Northwestern
13. UPenn
14. Brown
15. Vanderbilt
16. UMich
17. WashU
18. UCLA
19. Amherst
19. Berkeley
21. Williams
22. UNC
23. Columbia
24. USC
25. Emory

+1 outcomes are a much better way to measure the usefulness of a school since that’s the main reason most people send their kids to college

But the devil is in the details--how much are outcomes tied to the status of the students' families? Are they controlling for all the factors? And how much of a difference is there in outcomes between 1 and 25 and between 25 and 50 etc.? Are these distinctions without a difference or are these meaningful?

Well which school is 50 and how well does it compare to Emory.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This page is exactly what’s wrong with rankings. Quibbling over Duke, Georgetown, Columbia is nonsense. There is no way anyone can credibly say any of these are “better” than the others. They are just different, with different areas of strength and different weakness. Many of the supposed strengths and weaknesses are just value judgments. There is no actual science behind college rankings and we should all just ignore them.

And, to the poster who keeps chiming in that it helped them cull down the 3000+ colleges, you could absolutely do that without any ordinal ranking.

Why is the blame on the consumers seeking information instead of the subterfuge by the schools by trying to block public information about admissions processes and graduate outcomes?

These schools basically are telling us, “Forget about rankings and pick a school that makes you *feel* good.” I’m sorry, but when people are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for each child, that’s crap.

Frankly, the most honest information is probably coming from the Department of Education College Scorecard. It’s incomplete information since it’s only based on those who took out federal student loans, but it’s at least better than the fuzzy platitudes of the schools. It’s funny that, as far as I’ve seen, the schools that have so much zeal in criticizing the US News rankings rarely point to any other alternative like the College Scorecard (lest they find about the amount of student loans people are taking out for how a whole lot of schools and/or majors that have pretty terrible income prospects).

If the primary interest is ROI and financial outcomes, then Wall Street Journal and Forbes are the best rankings. Wall Street Journal actually has a subranking that ranks undergrad schools by outcomes:

1. Princeton
1. Yale
3. Duke
3. Harvard
3. MIT
3. Stanford
7. Cornell
8. Caltech
8. UChicago
8. Dartmouth
11. JHU
12. Northwestern
13. UPenn
14. Brown
15. Vanderbilt
16. UMich
17. WashU
18. UCLA
19. Amherst
19. Berkeley
21. Williams
22. UNC
23. Columbia
24. USC
25. Emory

+1 outcomes are a much better way to measure the usefulness of a school since that’s the main reason most people send their kids to college

But the devil is in the details--how much are outcomes tied to the status of the students' families? Are they controlling for all the factors? And how much of a difference is there in outcomes between 1 and 25 and between 25 and 50 etc.? Are these distinctions without a difference or are these meaningful?

Well which school is 50 and how well does it compare to Emory.

50 is Claremont McKenna College. Relatively, 49 is Purdue and 51 is Haverford College.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This page is exactly what’s wrong with rankings. Quibbling over Duke, Georgetown, Columbia is nonsense. There is no way anyone can credibly say any of these are “better” than the others. They are just different, with different areas of strength and different weakness. Many of the supposed strengths and weaknesses are just value judgments. There is no actual science behind college rankings and we should all just ignore them.

And, to the poster who keeps chiming in that it helped them cull down the 3000+ colleges, you could absolutely do that without any ordinal ranking.

Why is the blame on the consumers seeking information instead of the subterfuge by the schools by trying to block public information about admissions processes and graduate outcomes?

These schools basically are telling us, “Forget about rankings and pick a school that makes you *feel* good.” I’m sorry, but when people are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for each child, that’s crap.

Frankly, the most honest information is probably coming from the Department of Education College Scorecard. It’s incomplete information since it’s only based on those who took out federal student loans, but it’s at least better than the fuzzy platitudes of the schools. It’s funny that, as far as I’ve seen, the schools that have so much zeal in criticizing the US News rankings rarely point to any other alternative like the College Scorecard (lest they find about the amount of student loans people are taking out for how a whole lot of schools and/or majors that have pretty terrible income prospects).

First of all you, mischaracterized what I wrote. I never said or implied you should pick a college based in “feelings.” I believe in facts and want as many good ones as I can get.

But overall college rankings aren’t facts and I’ve yet to see one that is. USNWR is opinion. By far its biggest factor is its “reputation” score, which is what other college administrators report knowing about a subject college. For 99% of colleges, most other college administrators know only where they’ve fallen in prior rankings. So they are self-fulfilling opinions.

Second, how in the world can you possibly assign an overall score to a college that isn’t necessarily values driven. Different applicants value different things. So it’s necessarily opinion and values based. Not science.

Again, if someone wants to build a sortable database of all the colleges, CDS reports and fact books etc, I’d love to use that. But assigning a single reductive score to a college is oversimplifying a complex process. It caters to our lazy instincts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This page is exactly what’s wrong with rankings. Quibbling over Duke, Georgetown, Columbia is nonsense. There is no way anyone can credibly say any of these are “better” than the others. They are just different, with different areas of strength and different weakness. Many of the supposed strengths and weaknesses are just value judgments. There is no actual science behind college rankings and we should all just ignore them.

And, to the poster who keeps chiming in that it helped them cull down the 3000+ colleges, you could absolutely do that without any ordinal ranking.

Why is the blame on the consumers seeking information instead of the subterfuge by the schools by trying to block public information about admissions processes and graduate outcomes?

These schools basically are telling us, “Forget about rankings and pick a school that makes you *feel* good.” I’m sorry, but when people are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for each child, that’s crap.

Frankly, the most honest information is probably coming from the Department of Education College Scorecard. It’s incomplete information since it’s only based on those who took out federal student loans, but it’s at least better than the fuzzy platitudes of the schools. It’s funny that, as far as I’ve seen, the schools that have so much zeal in criticizing the US News rankings rarely point to any other alternative like the College Scorecard (lest they find about the amount of student loans people are taking out for how a whole lot of schools and/or majors that have pretty terrible income prospects).

First of all you, mischaracterized what I wrote. I never said or implied you should pick a college based in “feelings.” I believe in facts and want as many good ones as I can get.

But overall college rankings aren’t facts and I’ve yet to see one that is. USNWR is opinion. By far its biggest factor is its “reputation” score, which is what other college administrators report knowing about a subject college. For 99% of colleges, most other college administrators know only where they’ve fallen in prior rankings. So they are self-fulfilling opinions.

Second, how in the world can you possibly assign an overall score to a college that isn’t necessarily values driven. Different applicants value different things. So it’s necessarily opinion and values based. Not science.

Again, if someone wants to build a sortable database of all the colleges, CDS reports and fact books etc, I’d love to use that. But assigning a single reductive score to a college is oversimplifying a complex process. It caters to our lazy instincts.

In a way, isn’t that what OP solved by posting a combined ranking list? Schools that do well consistently across a wide range of criteria used by these different rankings are probably really strong overall, right? Sure, putting all eggs in something like US News is a bad idea, but what about 8 independent rankings that look at different factors?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This page is exactly what’s wrong with rankings. Quibbling over Duke, Georgetown, Columbia is nonsense. There is no way anyone can credibly say any of these are “better” than the others. They are just different, with different areas of strength and different weakness. Many of the supposed strengths and weaknesses are just value judgments. There is no actual science behind college rankings and we should all just ignore them.

And, to the poster who keeps chiming in that it helped them cull down the 3000+ colleges, you could absolutely do that without any ordinal ranking.

Why is the blame on the consumers seeking information instead of the subterfuge by the schools by trying to block public information about admissions processes and graduate outcomes?

These schools basically are telling us, “Forget about rankings and pick a school that makes you *feel* good.” I’m sorry, but when people are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for each child, that’s crap.

Frankly, the most honest information is probably coming from the Department of Education College Scorecard. It’s incomplete information since it’s only based on those who took out federal student loans, but it’s at least better than the fuzzy platitudes of the schools. It’s funny that, as far as I’ve seen, the schools that have so much zeal in criticizing the US News rankings rarely point to any other alternative like the College Scorecard (lest they find about the amount of student loans people are taking out for how a whole lot of schools and/or majors that have pretty terrible income prospects).

If the primary interest is ROI and financial outcomes, then Wall Street Journal and Forbes are the best rankings. Wall Street Journal actually has a subranking that ranks undergrad schools by outcomes:

1. Princeton
1. Yale
3. Duke
3. Harvard
3. MIT
3. Stanford
7. Cornell
8. Caltech
8. UChicago
8. Dartmouth
11. JHU
12. Northwestern
13. UPenn
14. Brown
15. Vanderbilt
16. UMich
17. WashU
18. UCLA
19. Amherst
19. Berkeley
21. Williams
22. UNC
23. Columbia
24. USC
25. Emory

Georgetown and Notre Dame are better than sevral schools here for ROI

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This page is exactly what’s wrong with rankings. Quibbling over Duke, Georgetown, Columbia is nonsense. There is no way anyone can credibly say any of these are “better” than the others. They are just different, with different areas of strength and different weakness. Many of the supposed strengths and weaknesses are just value judgments. There is no actual science behind college rankings and we should all just ignore them.

And, to the poster who keeps chiming in that it helped them cull down the 3000+ colleges, you could absolutely do that without any ordinal ranking.

Why is the blame on the consumers seeking information instead of the subterfuge by the schools by trying to block public information about admissions processes and graduate outcomes?

These schools basically are telling us, “Forget about rankings and pick a school that makes you *feel* good.” I’m sorry, but when people are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for each child, that’s crap.

Frankly, the most honest information is probably coming from the Department of Education College Scorecard. It’s incomplete information since it’s only based on those who took out federal student loans, but it’s at least better than the fuzzy platitudes of the schools. It’s funny that, as far as I’ve seen, the schools that have so much zeal in criticizing the US News rankings rarely point to any other alternative like the College Scorecard (lest they find about the amount of student loans people are taking out for how a whole lot of schools and/or majors that have pretty terrible income prospects).

If the primary interest is ROI and financial outcomes, then Wall Street Journal and Forbes are the best rankings. Wall Street Journal actually has a subranking that ranks undergrad schools by outcomes:

1. Princeton
1. Yale
3. Duke
3. Harvard
3. MIT
3. Stanford
7. Cornell
8. Caltech
8. UChicago
8. Dartmouth
11. JHU
12. Northwestern
13. UPenn
14. Brown
15. Vanderbilt
16. UMich
17. WashU
18. UCLA
19. Amherst
19. Berkeley
21. Williams
22. UNC
23. Columbia
24. USC
25. Emory

Georgetown and Notre Dame are better than sevral schools here for ROI

Also CMU

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem I have with Duke is that its overall departmental rankings are not nearly as high as its so called peers. A top ten school should be loaded with top ten, even top 20 departments. Duke is severely lacking in that regard.

Duke law and medicine are both T5. Law and Medicine covers a lot. You should be able to find a lot of sub-disciplines in T10 within law and medicine. Duke Business is T11, should have a lot of sub-disciplines in T10. Duke's BME is T3, public policy T5, environment T5, econ T5, just list a few.

Will also add that it has a great statistics department (T10) and nursing program (generally ranked 1-5 for everything). Duke econ students also generally have very good outcomes, and most finance/consulting/etc people major or minor in econ at duke. Their overall engineering program is solid along with their CS department (both are in/around T20). And other programs like Psycholgoy, biology, math, English, etc. are all ranked very well too.

So very few top ten programs. Thanks for confirming. By the way, Duke Econ is not top 5!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This page is exactly what’s wrong with rankings. Quibbling over Duke, Georgetown, Columbia is nonsense. There is no way anyone can credibly say any of these are “better” than the others. They are just different, with different areas of strength and different weakness. Many of the supposed strengths and weaknesses are just value judgments. There is no actual science behind college rankings and we should all just ignore them.

And, to the poster who keeps chiming in that it helped them cull down the 3000+ colleges, you could absolutely do that without any ordinal ranking.

Why is the blame on the consumers seeking information instead of the subterfuge by the schools by trying to block public information about admissions processes and graduate outcomes?

These schools basically are telling us, “Forget about rankings and pick a school that makes you *feel* good.” I’m sorry, but when people are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for each child, that’s crap.

Frankly, the most honest information is probably coming from the Department of Education College Scorecard. It’s incomplete information since it’s only based on those who took out federal student loans, but it’s at least better than the fuzzy platitudes of the schools. It’s funny that, as far as I’ve seen, the schools that have so much zeal in criticizing the US News rankings rarely point to any other alternative like the College Scorecard (lest they find about the amount of student loans people are taking out for how a whole lot of schools and/or majors that have pretty terrible income prospects).

If the primary interest is ROI and financial outcomes, then Wall Street Journal and Forbes are the best rankings. Wall Street Journal actually has a subranking that ranks undergrad schools by outcomes:

1. Princeton
1. Yale
3. Duke
3. Harvard
3. MIT
3. Stanford
7. Cornell
8. Caltech
8. UChicago
8. Dartmouth
11. JHU
12. Northwestern
13. UPenn
14. Brown
15. Vanderbilt
16. UMich
17. WashU
18. UCLA
19. Amherst
19. Berkeley
21. Williams
22. UNC
23. Columbia
24. USC
25. Emory

Georgetown and Notre Dame are better than sevral schools here for ROI

The schools included are all very strong so it’s hard to say

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem I have with Duke is that its overall departmental rankings are not nearly as high as its so called peers. A top ten school should be loaded with top ten, even top 20 departments. Duke is severely lacking in that regard.

Duke law and medicine are both T5. Law and Medicine covers a lot. You should be able to find a lot of sub-disciplines in T10 within law and medicine. Duke Business is T11, should have a lot of sub-disciplines in T10. Duke's BME is T3, public policy T5, environment T5, econ T5, just list a few.

Will also add that it has a great statistics department (T10) and nursing program (generally ranked 1-5 for everything). Duke econ students also generally have very good outcomes, and most finance/consulting/etc people major or minor in econ at duke. Their overall engineering program is solid along with their CS department (both are in/around T20). And other programs like Psycholgoy, biology, math, English, etc. are all ranked very well too.

So very few top ten programs. Thanks for confirming. By the way, Duke Econ is not top 5!

No horse in the race but just googling for best undergrad economics and Duke is 4 behind Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and ahead of UChicago: https://www.niche.com/colleges/search/best-colleges-for-economics/

Either way, for undergrad there are many great programs, including Duke

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem I have with Duke is that its overall departmental rankings are not nearly as high as its so called peers. A top ten school should be loaded with top ten, even top 20 departments. Duke is severely lacking in that regard.

Duke law and medicine are both T5. Law and Medicine covers a lot. You should be able to find a lot of sub-disciplines in T10 within law and medicine. Duke Business is T11, should have a lot of sub-disciplines in T10. Duke's BME is T3, public policy T5, environment T5, econ T5, just list a few.

Will also add that it has a great statistics department (T10) and nursing program (generally ranked 1-5 for everything). Duke econ students also generally have very good outcomes, and most finance/consulting/etc people major or minor in econ at duke. Their overall engineering program is solid along with their CS department (both are in/around T20). And other programs like Psycholgoy, biology, math, English, etc. are all ranked very well too.

So very few top ten programs. Thanks for confirming. By the way, Duke Econ is not top 5!

No horse in the race but just googling for best undergrad economics and Duke is 4 behind Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and ahead of UChicago: https://www.niche.com/colleges/search/best-colleges-for-economics/

Either way, for undergrad there are many great programs, including Duke

+1 Duke undergrad in general is great, it feels like their hallmark offering even though their grad schools have been getting better too. Very impressed when we visited for our DS interested in economics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This page is exactly what’s wrong with rankings. Quibbling over Duke, Georgetown, Columbia is nonsense. There is no way anyone can credibly say any of these are “better” than the others. They are just different, with different areas of strength and different weakness. Many of the supposed strengths and weaknesses are just value judgments. There is no actual science behind college rankings and we should all just ignore them.

And, to the poster who keeps chiming in that it helped them cull down the 3000+ colleges, you could absolutely do that without any ordinal ranking.

Why is the blame on the consumers seeking information instead of the subterfuge by the schools by trying to block public information about admissions processes and graduate outcomes?

These schools basically are telling us, “Forget about rankings and pick a school that makes you *feel* good.” I’m sorry, but when people are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for each child, that’s crap.

Frankly, the most honest information is probably coming from the Department of Education College Scorecard. It’s incomplete information since it’s only based on those who took out federal student loans, but it’s at least better than the fuzzy platitudes of the schools. It’s funny that, as far as I’ve seen, the schools that have so much zeal in criticizing the US News rankings rarely point to any other alternative like the College Scorecard (lest they find about the amount of student loans people are taking out for how a whole lot of schools and/or majors that have pretty terrible income prospects).

If the primary interest is ROI and financial outcomes, then Wall Street Journal and Forbes are the best rankings. Wall Street Journal actually has a subranking that ranks undergrad schools by outcomes:

1. Princeton
1. Yale
3. Duke
3. Harvard
3. MIT
3. Stanford
7. Cornell
8. Caltech
8. UChicago
8. Dartmouth
11. JHU
12. Northwestern
13. UPenn
14. Brown
15. Vanderbilt
16. UMich
17. WashU
18. UCLA
19. Amherst
19. Berkeley
21. Williams
22. UNC
23. Columbia
24. USC
25. Emory

Georgetown and Notre Dame are better than sevral schools here for ROI

Not really apparently. Especially when you take diversity into account. Wealthy students staying wealthy after graduation isn't impressive.