I'm really happy to see that DC's first choice school went down a few notches because maybe some of the people who put weight on this ridiculousness won't apply.

Rankings are out: Wake Forrest now Top 25; BU and Penn State made big jumps

Anonymous wrote:SAT scores divided by family income would be meaningful.

The Washington Monthly rankings consider the number of low income students admitted and who graduate.

SAT scores divided by family income would be meaningful.

Wash U gives every student who visits a "free preliminary application" so -- shazam! -- they appear to have a high applicant rate and low acceptance rate.

Anonymous wrote:Washington University has been among the best schools in the country for a very long time - even if YOU didn't know it.

Maybe, maybe not. In 1988 WUSTL was tied with Wisconsin-Madison in the US News rankings. Not bad, but not top 20 either. After years of gaming, WUSTL peaked at #9 in 2004 before starting to backslide (now down to #14). Meanwhile Wisconsin is now at 41. This divergence could be explained by WUSTL's great gains in academics, but more likely is just a good example of the problems inherent with the USNews rankings.

It's all just another thing for insecure parents to latch onto, as if it really matters...

I agree rankings in general are bunk, and this is coming from someone who has constructed indices although not for education.

That said, it looks like some of the changes might be an improvement. They're not just increasing the weight of SAT scores as PP mentioned. They're also increasing weights for things like the school's graduation rate, which is an important measure of performance IMO. And because weights have to sum to 100%, they reduced the weights for class rank and the "peer opinion" or whatever it was called, which I always thought was particularly bogus.

Is it perfect now? Heck no. But I think at least some of the changes are going in the right direction.

Anonymous wrote:Washington University has been among the best schools in the country for a very long time - even if YOU didn't know it.

There's no way to tell from the rankings since they game them so much.

Remember when US News and World Report was a news organization and had something relevant to say in the world?

What a sad, sad shell of itself it's become.

Washington University has been among the best schools in the country for a very long time - even if YOU didn't know it.

Anonymous wrote:This is so much bullshit. They increased the weight of SAT scores? I don't need USNWR to tell me which schools have students with the highest SAT scores; that information is readily available. How is that value-added?

Further, given the correlation between SAT scores and family incomes, what these new rankings will be telling us is which schools have the wealthiest students.

And, there is no correlation between educational quality and selectivity at the college level. None. So knowing where all the smart wealthy kids go to school tells you nothing about whether they are getting a good education there.

This emperor has no clothes.

Word.

The whole US News project is bunk. The sooner it goes away, the better. Colleges continually game the rankings and then USNews changes the system. Then the colleges find new ways to game the system. Some colleges like Washington U in St Louis are really good at the game. Some people think they are practically Ivy League because they put so much effort into gaming the system. Other colleges like George Washington have been thrown out of the rankings for gaming them too much.

Anonymous wrote:This is so much bullshit. They increased the weight of SAT scores? I don't need USNWR to tell me which schools have students with the highest SAT scores; that information is readily available. How is that value-added?

Further, given the correlation between SAT scores and family incomes, what these new rankings will be telling us is which schools have the wealthiest students.

And, there is no correlation between educational quality and selectivity at the college level. None. So knowing where all the smart wealthy kids go to school tells you nothing about whether they are getting a good education there.

This emperor has no clothes.

Sour grapes.

This is so much bullshit. They increased the weight of SAT scores? I don't need USNWR to tell me which schools have students with the highest SAT scores; that information is readily available. How is that value-added?

Further, given the correlation between SAT scores and family incomes, what these new rankings will be telling us is which schools have the wealthiest students.

And, there is no correlation between educational quality and selectivity at the college level. None. So knowing where all the smart wealthy kids go to school tells you nothing about whether they are getting a good education there.

This emperor has no clothes.

USNews is tweaking its methodology in a way that will change the rankings of many schools:

http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/college-rankings-blog/2013/09/03/preview-methodology-changes-for-2014-best-colleges-rankings

Results are out on Tuesday