Reply to WSJ/College Pulse 2026 Best Colleges in America published today

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The WSJ rankings actually fill a very important niche for families that have little to no hope of attending even a top 50 school.

As an example, they list schools that we all know aren't "the best", but they represent likely great values and options for a lot of kids.  Just looking at the list, below is an interesting sampling:

13.  UC Davis
14.  UC Merced
17.  San Jose State University
19.  Loyola University MD (I actually don't know if that's a great value)
21.  Cal State Stanislaus
22.  Cal State Pomona
28.  Cal State San Obispo
32.  Cal State Fresno
36.  University of Detroit Mercy
38.  University of Delaware
44.  Baruch

It's not really saying these are the "best" colleges, but rather these colleges have the best relative outcomes for students.

I think including schools like Babson and Bentley is a bit unfair because they are 100% business...it's unclear how those schools would rank if only compared to Wharton, Stern, Ross et al.[/quote]

End of the day, why do you go to college?  To get a job.  My problem with US News is it puts too much emphasis on graduation rate (like 25 percent).  Most, if not all, high achieving students have no concern with graduating so this is not really something that should be weighted heavily.  [b]Also, it doesn’t consider academic rigor.  For instance, Berkeley might be punished for being more rigorous than UCLA.[/b][/quote]

How would you ever be able to rank based on academic rigor?  I assume Berkeley has hundreds of known "gut" classes, as does UCLA.  How would you determine that Berkeley's Econ 101 class is more rigorous than UCLA or anyone else, and then apply this across an entire university's course offerings and do this in any kind of systematic fashion?[/quote]

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