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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I would put W&M and UVA as tied for first place. They are really both top tier schools. [/quote]

and you'd be wrong. [/quote]

+1
Years ago, perhaps.  No longer.[/quote]

I think they are same level depending on what you want from a school.[/quote]

You can say that for pretty much every school. If all I want and care about is a degree, then what’s the difference between UVa and Strayer?  They both offer a bachelor degree and therefore are same level.   But obviously, most people would disagree.

The USnews is trying to provide ranking that [b]*most* people would agree with[/b] and while their methodology is not perfect, I do think UVa and WM used to be equal and now WM is slightly falling behind. [/quote]

DP: I disagree--I think most people agree with them because they are conditioned to believe that the rankings mean anything and real at the numeric level.  If they added quality of undergraduate teaching to a higher degree (which they rank in other categories) W&M would rise higher than other schools in their category and pretty soon that ranking would be what "most people agree with" too.  Most people just don't have enough knowledge about schools and they like to believe there's an objective ranking among them. 
[/quote]

Adding this is not to say that there aren't meaningful differences in quality of schools--I would say it would be better to just choose roughly top 50 schools as one band of "top schools" and not rank within those.    Then the next 50 or so as tier 2, without ranking within.  And then have data that lets you look for features that you care about.  But that wouldn't sell as many papers as the horse race style rankings.[/quote]

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