Reply to Is it not fair to say college rankings are basically just test score rankings?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The most highly ranked schools have the highest score profiles and it gradually declines as you go down the list. It’s all just a sorting mechanism based on test scores (outside of hooks). It seems nearly impossible that an unhooked student can get into a T15 type school without super high scores. Ironically TO may have made the emphasis on scores more pronounced because unhooked students essentially need great scores. For all the yapping about curating a class, they are really just filling their classes when the highest scoring kids they can get. This shouldn’t be interpreted as meaning a high score automatically gets you in anywhere. [/quote]

I think USNWR is now kind of a mashup of two lists.  The first is highly selective (high stat), wealthy schools (high resources) that are predominantly private.  The second is high mobility (Pell grant), high research schools that are predominantly public.  To boost schools in the second group, they dropped ranking criteria like class size, student-to-faculty ratio, and alumni giving %.[/quote]

Yes, and rankings are better as a result. There are excellent private [b]and[/b] public colleges out there.

Most of the DCUMers complaining are for their privates they attended 30 years ago "dropping" in USNWR ranking. [/quote]

I think the rankings should focus on educational quality and cost.  [/quote]

Absolutely not. Cost varies from family to family. Some are full pay, some get full rides. Anyway, we want to know the best schools- we don’t need a ranking system to tell us the cheapest schools, you can just look that up. It’s mixing apples and oranges. Many people (like me) don’t care how much it costs, we are not trying to save 10-40k, we just want the best product. I personally find roi calculations idiotic because it makes it seem like you are better off going to a lesser cheaper school because you invested less initially even though you are earning less in the future because the school is inferior. [/quote]

ROI by definition depends on up front investment.[/quote]

Yes which is why it’s dumb. Would you rather spend $20k and earn $80k five years later or spend $80k and earn $200k five years later? The less the upfront investment, the higher the ROI will be. Going to community college for free will produce an infinite ROI if someone then has a minimum wage career the rest of their life.

The only people who are concerned about cost are price sensitive donut holers. What they should do is figure out how much they can afford and then go with the school that produces the best outcomes at that price point. But folks getting full rides and rich people don’t care about ROI. 
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