Forget US News. That is for white, suburban moms. People who matter know which are the top Ivies and Brown and Cornell are not them. Ask Ted Cruz which schools are the top Ivies.

Anonymous wrote:
The reason we are having this conversation is that the US News rankings are:

1. filled with criteria that are not directly linked to academics.
2. manipulated by the US News rankings to have HYP always in the top spot.
3. US News exerts enormous pressure on all universities to give them their data otherwise they can downgrade in the ratings or disappear which loses them students.
4. as a result of which, universities manipulate their data (ie: cheat and lie) to claw their way up these rankings.
4. as a result of which, the rankings are completely meaningless yet each year become the Bible/bragging rights/nemesis for aspiring college students and their families.

It is SO INCREDIBLY MESSED UP.

To fix it, all universities should refuse to participate in the US News rankings survey.

+1000

Case in point, Reed College. Whatever you think of the culture of Reed, and is definitely not for everyone, it has one of the strongest academic programs in the country. All first years must take an extremely rigorous classics class, juniors must pass a qualifying exam in their department and seniors must write a thesis. They send more grads to Phd programs than any school except Cal Tech. When they decided (I think it was 10 or 15 years ago) to stop participating in the US News rankings -- they stopped submitting information and specifically asked not to be included -- US News reacted the following year by ranking them last. It was so obviously retaliatory that they now rank them somewhere randomly in the middle.

Schools like Wash U are legendary for manipulating the data.

I wish more schools would follow Reed's lead and bow out.

Anonymous wrote:OMG PP ... Your DC is at a TOP Ivy. Not one of those lesser Ivies. You must be SO SO SO PROUD. This is all about you after all. Please take a bow. We are so honored to have you here on this forum as a knowledgable parent of a DC at a TOP Ivy. As compared to one of those lesser Ivies. Just FYI, your DC will learn soon that TOP Ivy is no guarantee. I came through Montgomery College - working my way through, yes, $25 per credit hour was a lot for me to pay back then - I needed $3000 in student loans each year to get by. Then went to UMUC, graduated summa. On to grad school - a TOP one in the field. I had straight As, graduated summa, #1 in the class. No one from a TOP Ivy came close.

Love this!

Lol. DCUM is trying to turn the Ivies into the Big 3! So funny.

The reason we are having this conversation is that the US News rankings are:

1. filled with criteria that are not directly linked to academics.
2. manipulated by the US News rankings to have HYP always in the top spot.
3. US News exerts enormous pressure on all universities to give them their data otherwise they can downgrade in the ratings or disappear which loses them students.
4. as a result of which, universities manipulate their data (ie: cheat and lie) to claw their way up these rankings.
4. as a result of which, the rankings are completely meaningless yet each year become the Bible/bragging rights/nemesis for aspiring college students and their families.

It is SO INCREDIBLY MESSED UP.

To fix it, all universities should refuse to participate in the US News rankings survey.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just gotta know, which are the Top Ivies? While you're at it, maybe you could give me complete rankings - with citations of course.

The top 2 are Harvard and Yale, by any ranking you choose. The middle are open for debate, but Brown and Dartmouth are ranked by most people at the bottom.

That said, it's ridiculous to quibble over the #8 Ivy vs. the #3 Ivy.

Princeton would disagree.

Except some rankings put Columbia or Cornell as #3.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just gotta know, which are the Top Ivies? While you're at it, maybe you could give me complete rankings - with citations of course.

The top 2 are Harvard and Yale, by any ranking you choose. The middle are open for debate, but Brown and Dartmouth are ranked by most people at the bottom.

That said, it's ridiculous to quibble over the #8 Ivy vs. the #3 Ivy.

Princeton would disagree.

Top Ivies: Harvard, Princeton and Yale
Middle Ivies: UPenn, Dartmouth, Columbia
Bottom Tier: Brown and Cornell

You have tiers since not all ivies are equal. HYP are equal in prestige to MIT and Stanford but the other schools -- Lesser Ivie are not.

Anonymous wrote:I just gotta know, which are the Top Ivies? While you're at it, maybe you could give me complete rankings - with citations of course.

The top 2 are Harvard and Yale, by any ranking you choose. The middle are open for debate, but Brown and Dartmouth are ranked by most people at the bottom.

That said, it's ridiculous to quibble over the #8 Ivy vs. the #3 Ivy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just gotta know, which are the Top Ivies? While you're at it, maybe you could give me complete rankings - with citations of course.

Buh bye, troll.

Did you not see the obvious irony? (Which rescues ANY post from trolldom, according to the LOTI (Laws of the Internet)).

Anonymous wrote:I just gotta know, which are the Top Ivies? While you're at it, maybe you could give me complete rankings - with citations of course.

Buh bye, troll.

I just gotta know, which are the Top Ivies? While you're at it, maybe you could give me complete rankings - with citations of course.

Anonymous wrote:OMG PP ... Your DC is at a TOP Ivy. Not one of those lesser Ivies. You must be SO SO SO PROUD. This is all about you after all. Please take a bow. We are so honored to have you here on this forum as a knowledgable parent of a DC at a TOP Ivy. As compared to one of those lesser Ivies. Just FYI, your DC will learn soon that TOP Ivy is no guarantee. I came through Montgomery College - working my way through, yes, $25 per credit hour was a lot for me to pay back then - I needed $3000 in student loans each year to get by. Then went to UMUC, graduated summa. On to grad school - a TOP one in the field. I had straight As, graduated summa, #1 in the class. No one from a TOP Ivy came close.

Reposting, because you're the jerk with the reading comprehension problems who needs to read this:

PP here. Maybe the point wasn't clear, but I was criticizing the PP's Ivy obsession and saying that saying that learning goes on at hundreds of other great colleges. (And then I was deflecting the sour grapes attack that always happens on this insane forum.)

Some of you want to turn this into an attack on me for ... I dunno ... for the sake of being mean over the holidays. Have at it, I don't care about some nasties on this nutso Private School forum. For the rest of you, hope my point is clearer now.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^Nothing new under the sun except being a snowflake with straight As isn't a sure thing anymore.

It is not a sure thing, perhaps, if the Ivy college you are admitted to is your only goal. It is still a great accomplishment if you still aspire to learn for the sake of learning.

You can "learn for the sake of learning" at hundreds of great colleges around the country. I say this as the parent of a kid who is now at a top Ivy.

PP here. Maybe the point wasn't clear, but I was criticizing the PP's Ivy obsession and saying that saying that learning goes on at hundreds of other great colleges. (And then I was deflecting the sour grapes attack that always happens on this insane forum.)

Some of you want to turn this into an attack on me for ... I dunno ... for the sake of being mean over the holidays. Have at it, I don't care about some nasties on this nutso Private School forum. For the rest of you, hope my point is clearer now.

Anonymous wrote:Learning for the sake of learning pays off in the long run. The STEM worker bees need supervision and vision.

STEM managers are usually people who have STEM backgrounds. They hire graduates of LACs to answer the phones.