Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not just publish admissions stats and let people decide for themselves.

A few colleges lie about stats, as we saw with Columbia. The ranking data gives us a sanity check. If a college suddenly rockets to a suspiciously high ranking, people smell a rat.

+1. Honestly the next rat is looking like UChicago. Look at their comparison of rankings, US News looks like an outlier

Not publishing a CDS invites suspicion. Does Chicago publish one?

Columbia and UChicago were the only top schools that didn’t publish CDS before the scandal. Definitely suspicious.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did I miss something? USNWR is being challenged by law schools not undergrads

It’s wishful thinking.

Let's hope.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not just publish admissions stats and let people decide for themselves.

A few colleges lie about stats, as we saw with Columbia. The ranking data gives us a sanity check. If a college suddenly rockets to a suspiciously high ranking, people smell a rat.

+1. Honestly the next rat is looking like UChicago. Look at their comparison of rankings, US News looks like an outlier

Not publishing a CDS invites suspicion. Does Chicago publish one?

Anonymous wrote:It doesn’t make sense because each ranking system prioritizes different things. If you care most about earning potential, look at Forbes; if you qualify for aid and care most about “best value,” look at Money, etc. US News puts a lot
of weight on entering student stats and peer reputation, WSJ lets you tinker with the weighting so you can customize the list to whatever you care about (diversity, outcomes, etc.)

Agreed each ranking prioritizes different things, having the combined ranking is interesting for getting a general sense of which schools check all the boxes. Correct me if I’m wrong, but all the schools at the top of the combined list have great programs and students in most fields. Stanford at #1 reflects the shift towards technology, but they excel across the board.

It doesn’t make sense because each ranking system prioritizes different things. If you care most about earning potential, look at Forbes; if you qualify for aid and care most about “best value,” look at Money, etc. US News puts a lot
of weight on entering student stats and peer reputation, WSJ lets you tinker with the weighting so you can customize the list to whatever you care about (diversity, outcomes, etc.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not just publish admissions stats and let people decide for themselves.

A few colleges lie about stats, as we saw with Columbia. The ranking data gives us a sanity check. If a college suddenly rockets to a suspiciously high ranking, people smell a rat.

+1. Honestly the next rat is looking like UChicago. Look at their comparison of rankings, US News looks like an outlier

It’s been over a year since Columbia was caught cheating. No one has produced evidence of cheating by any school other than Columbia.

Anonymous wrote:Did I miss something? USNWR is being challenged by law schools not undergrads

It’s wishful thinking.

Did I miss something? USNWR is being challenged by law schools not undergrads

Anonymous wrote:Why not just publish admissions stats and let people decide for themselves.

What “admissions stats”? Colleges already publish through CDS the number of applicants and acceptances by gender. And the publish mid 50% ACT/SAT and GPA and class rank breakdown. All of these have very little relevance to how “good” a university is, let alone being the exclusive parameters.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not just publish admissions stats and let people decide for themselves.

A few colleges lie about stats, as we saw with Columbia. The ranking data gives us a sanity check. If a college suddenly rockets to a suspiciously high ranking, people smell a rat.

+1. Honestly the next rat is looking like UChicago. Look at their comparison of rankings, US News looks like an outlier

For sure, same with JHU

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not just publish admissions stats and let people decide for themselves.

A few colleges lie about stats, as we saw with Columbia. The ranking data gives us a sanity check. If a college suddenly rockets to a suspiciously high ranking, people smell a rat.

+1. Honestly the next rat is looking like UChicago. Look at their comparison of rankings, US News looks like an outlier

Anonymous wrote:Why not just publish admissions stats and let people decide for themselves.

A few colleges lie about stats, as we saw with Columbia. The ranking data gives us a sanity check. If a college suddenly rockets to a suspiciously high ranking, people smell a rat.

Anonymous wrote:It's ridiculous for ANYONE to think they can create a ranking whose formula makes sense for everyone. When will someone finally create a tool that provides the data and allows us to choose which criteria to use and what weight to give it? This should include the ability to create our own measures, too. It seems like it would be very easy to do, and whoever did this would quickly make all the other lists irrelevant, b/c who cares about someone else's opinion of what we should care about when we can make the decision ourselves?

I’m a huge vocal opponent of all these rankings. But the bolded text is EXACTLY why people care so much about the rankings. They need that kind of external validation to believe they are getting something better than almost everyone else. That’s what feeds the mania.

It's ridiculous for ANYONE to think they can create a ranking whose formula makes sense for everyone. When will someone finally create a tool that provides the data and allows us to choose which criteria to use and what weight to give it? This should include the ability to create our own measures, too. It seems like it would be very easy to do, and whoever did this would quickly make all the other lists irrelevant, b/c who cares about someone else's opinion of what we should care about when we can make the decision ourselves?

Why not just publish admissions stats and let people decide for themselves.