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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Is top 30 the new top 20? [/quote]

Oh FFS. Splitting hairs on rankings that are meaningless to begin with is beyond stupid.  Any tiny amount of critical thought could point you to several fatal flaws in the USNWR ranking methodology.

1.  20% is based on peer assessment.  Basically a popularity contest.  How many college presidents know [b]anything[/b] about 99% of the colleges they are “assessing” other than where they’ve been in prior years’ rankings?  Hint: not many.    It would be like ranking restaurants by asking restaurant managers what they think of restaurants they’ve never been to.  And this is by far the single biggest factor.    So if College A rates College B highly because College A’s president sent them a nice Harry & David’s at the holidays, that alone moves them up several spots, without having ANYTHING to do with academic excellence.  
2.  Weighting of graduation rates.  The biggest factor in graduation rates is not the academics at the school, but non-academic factors of the students.  Students from non-upper classes struggle to stay in college for predominantly financial, non intellectual, reasons.  The rankings basically punish schools for not filling up with UMC and wealthy applicants.
3.  Endowment.  So much of today’s endowment dollars go to “amenities”.  To attract UMC and wealthy students (see #2 above), you need to built swanky dorms with luxury amenities.  Again, this may enhance a student’s “experience”, but has no bearing on academic excellence.

There are, what, 3000+ colleges in the US?  There is no methodology that could possibly accurately rank them, not even taking composites of USNWR, WSJ, Forbes, etc. They basically measure the same things with different weights.  Any attempt to do this is folly.  Trying to rank order, e.g., Dartmouth and UChicago and Duke based on what USNWR says about them is asinine.  They are different institutions with different strengths and weaknesses that appeal to different candidates.  I don’t know why we can’t just leave it at that and stop obsessing over which one is “better” or “best”.  [/quote]

Yes, for looking at graduation rates, I always delve into data from the university to see why the rate might not be 95%+. That means (for me) looking at % first generation, % low income, %Out of Country.  All 3 of those things can easily contribute to taking longer, dropping out, transferring for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with the university itself.  First gen students have it much harder with nobody at home to help guide them in this process.  Slip up once and miss taking a course that is only offered each fall that is a prerequisite for the next courses and you will not graduate in 4 years.  Low income students might be worried about how to pay the bills, or may need to take a semester off because the money is not available or they need to go home to help the family for some reason and take a semester off. Foreign students may struggle being far away from home and not able to afford to visit family.  So if you break down "the real why's" for a lower graduation rate, I'm fine if it's because any of the above reasons.  
Also, if school has students doing COOPs those students will not graduate in 4 years typically.  If engineering is a large major, many engineering students take more than 4 years to get thru---as most engineering programs require 18-19 credits each semester (norm is typically 15) and sometimes students just need a small break and decide to stretch it to a 9th semester.  To me, all are valid reasons and nothing that makes a school "lower ranked" IMO.  
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