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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]  The rankings are only a guide and really are bogus in many cases.

For instance: the undergrad engineering rankings for USNWR are "based on surveys of deans and senior faculty members at engineering programs". It's a popularity contest. I can only imagine the behind scenes negotiations between universities.
It's why programs like WPI/clarkson/Stevens IT are lower ranked simply because many have not heard about them. Smaller, not as well known nationally schools will simply not move up in rankings with this criteria.

So we use them as an initial guide, but visiting gives a MUCH better indicator. And yes, a 17/18yo can tell where they will fit in best. My kid will do their best if they are somewhere THEY want to be. If we as parents "force" them into a decision that we think is right they might regret that.

fyi---my own kids all ended up at what I thought was their "top choice" after first visits. When they set foot on a campus that is the right fit you just see it in their response. All are succeeding/did succeed at college---I think being at the right place goes a long way to making this happen and most importantly for them to be happy while doing it![/quote]

okay, sure, all the different ranking systems are bogus and the products of behind the scenes conspiracies (despite the fact that they explicitly lay out their criteria), a short visit is the best way to gauge what a school will be like for four years, and your 17/18 year old has the best judgment about an institution they have no firsthand experience of.

or, in the real world:
- ranking systems look (in exhaustive detail) at the qualifications of students who attend, the resources available to them, and the post-graduate outcomes for each school
- a short visit is incredibly subjective and usually overwhelmed by irrelevant factors (like the weather or the guide's personality or the time of day or whether the college was on vacation when you visited) or statistically insignificant factors (the 10-20 students your eyes happened upon during the tour, or the architecture of the main buildings).   
- 17/18 year olds don't have perfect judgment about adult decisions, and they're particularly ill-equipped to gauge what they'll like or dislike about college since they've never been.   No one is suggesting their views are worthless or irrelevant, but what they think will matter a lot to them freshman fall will almost certainly not matter nearly as much when they're juniors or seniors (or when they look back at the choice they made, and why, in the years to come).
- no one is suggesting you "force" a kid to attend a school they don't want to.   Presumably they applied to a school because they thought it was potentially of interest.   The point is, if they say to you "Counter-intuitively, of the schools I was admitted to, I want to select the less good option" it's not just fair but actually a parental responsibility to say "okay, I want to see you succeed and I know a fair amount about college myself and i'm paying for this, so tell me exactly why you want to choose the school that most people feel doesn't do as much to set you up for success, and let's talk about that."

Or you can insist (IN CAPS) "my kid is so smart they're always right about their needs, the empirical data suggesting they're actually not right is bogus and a conspiracy, my role is to endorse whatever my kid decides is best, I'm going to tell them all schools are the same anyway, and there's nothing better for me than seeing their happy smile when they get what they want."    Some might see that as both spoiling the kid and abdicating one's parental responsibilities, but it's certainly a well trod path on DCUM and in the DMV so you wouldn't be alone.[/quote]

"ranking systems look (in exhaustive detail) at the qualifications of students who attend, the resources available to them, and the post-graduate outcomes for each school"

NP--I don't know about the rest, but the PP is way closer to the truth than you are about how the rankings of individual departments are created. Here's a direct quote from USNWR:

"Rankings are based solely on surveys of engineering deans and senior faculty at accredited programs."

The business an computer science rankings are done exactly the same way.[/quote]

Exactly!  It's a "good ole boys network".  THat's why all the Large schools (outside of MIT/Stanford/CMU/CalTech/etc) are tops in the rankings, because everyone who isn't an idiot has heard of GaTech for engineering.  Not everyone has heard of Co School of mines or WPI or Clarkson or name the smaller engineering schools.  If you go only on rankings, you would not visit or consider these excellent schools.  IMO, WPI is a true hidden gem, yet many, even in the Northeast have not heard of it.  Their loss IMO

and nowhere did I state go solely on what my 17/18yo thinks/feels.  Obviously we do our own research to determine what the school has to offer.  But going by USNWR popularity contest rankings, WPI falls way below many other schools, yet the avg GPA Unweighted is over 3.9 and has been for years.  They have totally eliminated SAT/ACT and began trending that way in 2012 time frame.  It's a school with really smart kids (3.9 UW gpa is ridiculously high), highly involved kids with their ECs (be it stem or otherwise).  A STEM school that actively worked to get to 50/50 M/F split and are almost there (and likely as close as they will get, I think it's 55/45 currently).   My own research tells me much more than USNWR.  I can see how the student outcomes are, where kids get jobs, what avg pay is, student satisfaction, coop and internship opportunities, etc.

I'm not obsessed with rankings.  I know that my kid will do well anywhere, and ultimately will do their best where they pick and are HAPPY.  as an engineering/cs major, I know it does NOT matter where my kid goes, beyond a decent program, it matters what my kid does there and the happier they are with fit and the choices they make the better they will produce during college and afterwards.

That being said, my kid picked a higher ranked school than WPI (top safety) but kept WPI in the mix until the end.  The 7-8 week fast paced quarters was the deciding factor along with the other school having an open curriculum that allows them to continue their EC as major part of the core curriculum.  My kid ultimately ended up at the school where they just lit up each time we visited---they saw themselves in the tour guides, and other students we met on campus.  Adjusting to college 3K miles from home is hard, and I'm so very happy they were at a place that is a fit for them.  By Oct they had adjusted and made many friends, involved in both STEM based and their favorite EC based activities.  They are happy and thriving, but might not be if we just forced "the higher ranked school", of which they got into 3 that they turned down

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