Anonymous wrote:I know this may sound crazy, but UC Merced is stealing applicants and students from Yale, Oxford and Cambridge. It is a force.

I know my neighbor, 1600 SAT, 4.0, math olympiads, gunning either for hedge fund or biomedical research whose dream school is UC Merced.

That does sound crazy. The student you are describing should be gunning for Stanford.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.wsj.com/rankings/college-rankings/best-colleges-2025
https://www.wsj.com/rankings/college-rankings/best-colleges-2024

I have to say, I find it hard to believe in the credibility of a ranking that can have a school in the top 10 one year and outside the top 100 the next. Amherst College: #8 to #120.

I recovered my Wall Streef Journal account and figured out why this list is so weird:

- It’s been a bad summer for web traffic and ad sales. A weird list that generates angry traffic beats a good list that gets fewer views.

- Roughly half of the results are based on a *student survey*, even when the team was creating statistics on what seem like factors that should be based on hard, common data set data or alumni surveys. Example: learning opportunities and learning opportunities. The “character building” factor seems to be based on a proprietary set of survey questions that isn’t available online, or at least was hard to find online.

- Some of the more concrete numbers were calculated in unusual ways. Example: 94% of Washington University undergraduates get their bachelor’s degrees within six years, but it got a 71 on that indicator in the WSJ rankings. That’s because the team adjusted the graduation rate to adjust for the test scores of the freshman and the percentage of freshman with household income over $110,000 per year. So, due to the adjustments, that indicator punishes schools with a lot of high-income-family students with high test scores, even though going to a school with smart rich kids might generally be considered a good thing. MIT gets dinged hard on that factor for the same reason.

These descriptions continue to get crazier and crazier - is THIS is how college rankings have always been created? If so, my god.

First, news websites need hits. No one is asking the reporters if these lists make any sense. Hits are God. No stupid lists means no reporters.

Second, I think one thing that happened here is that the WSJ team (apparently, maybe including one of more people here in this thread), came up with the adjustments to try to make certain indicators (example: graduation rates) more fair than usual. But the problem is that the adjustment algorithms weren’t well-designed and are too hard on schools with rich, smart students.

Third, it’s hard to tell how the surveys worked, but the WSJ probably should have figured out a way to calibrate the data by comparing student positivity with some objective school statistic. Example: The WSJ shows Elon University having a higher learning opportunities score than my alma mater, Washington University. Both Elon and Wash. U. have higher learning opportunities scores than Yale, UC Berkeley and the University of Michigan.

I’m sure that many Elon students get a great education, but maybe they’re simply very positive people and Yale students are much more critical. Otherwise, it’s hard to see how Elon could beat Yale, Wash. U., Berkeley and Michigan on learning opportunities.

Maybe I missed something, but I think the income impact factor is another problem. I think the WSJ team adjusted that factor for incoming student test scores and the cost of living in the college’s state, but not for major mix or gender mix. One way to adjust for that would be to base the income factor solely on the income of math majors, to filter out any differences caused by what majors students pick. You figure, any school in the top 500 must have a few math majors, and that’s both a STEM topic and one of the liberal arts. So, both the engineering schools and the liberal arts colleges should have math major data.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.wsj.com/rankings/college-rankings/best-colleges-2025
https://www.wsj.com/rankings/college-rankings/best-colleges-2024

I have to say, I find it hard to believe in the credibility of a ranking that can have a school in the top 10 one year and outside the top 100 the next. Amherst College: #8 to #120.

I recovered my Wall Streef Journal account and figured out why this list is so weird:

- It’s been a bad summer for web traffic and ad sales. A weird list that generates angry traffic beats a good list that gets fewer views.

- Roughly half of the results are based on a *student survey*, even when the team was creating statistics on what seem like factors that should be based on hard, common data set data or alumni surveys. Example: learning opportunities and learning opportunities. The “character building” factor seems to be based on a proprietary set of survey questions that isn’t available online, or at least was hard to find online.

- Some of the more concrete numbers were calculated in unusual ways. Example: 94% of Washington University undergraduates get their bachelor’s degrees within six years, but it got a 71 on that indicator in the WSJ rankings. That’s because the team adjusted the graduation rate to adjust for the test scores of the freshman and the percentage of freshman with household income over $110,000 per year. So, due to the adjustments, that indicator punishes schools with a lot of high-income-family students with high test scores, even though going to a school with smart rich kids might generally be considered a good thing. MIT gets dinged hard on that factor for the same reason.

These descriptions continue to get crazier and crazier - is THIS is how college rankings have always been created? If so, my god.

Anonymous wrote:https://www.wsj.com/rankings/college-rankings/best-colleges-2025
https://www.wsj.com/rankings/college-rankings/best-colleges-2024

I have to say, I find it hard to believe in the credibility of a ranking that can have a school in the top 10 one year and outside the top 100 the next. Amherst College: #8 to #120.

I recovered my Wall Streef Journal account and figured out why this list is so weird:

- It’s been a bad summer for web traffic and ad sales. A weird list that generates angry traffic beats a good list that gets fewer views.

- Roughly half of the results are based on a *student survey*, even when the team was creating statistics on what seem like factors that should be based on hard, common data set data or alumni surveys. Example: learning opportunities and learning opportunities. The “character building” factor seems to be based on a proprietary set of survey questions that isn’t available online, or at least was hard to find online.

- Some of the more concrete numbers were calculated in unusual ways. Example: 94% of Washington University undergraduates get their bachelor’s degrees within six years, but it got a 71 on that indicator in the WSJ rankings. That’s because the team adjusted the graduation rate to adjust for the test scores of the freshman and the percentage of freshman with household income over $110,000 per year. So, due to the adjustments, that indicator punishes schools with a lot of high-income-family students with high test scores, even though going to a school with smart rich kids might generally be considered a good thing. MIT gets dinged hard on that factor for the same reason.

Anonymous wrote:Davidson at 10.

Middlebury, Grinnell, Carleton.. nowhere.. LOL

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s trash. 100% acceptance rate schools in the Top 20, sub-10% acceptance rates not even in the Top 250, the most applied to school in the country not even in the Top 50?

Commendable clickbait, but nothing more. The authors get a solid A- for getting people upset, but expelled immediately if their goal was to actually rearrange the academic paradigm.

You seem to be the only person who is upset...

You can’t get upset at something this detached from reality. Pity? Sure. Upset? Nah. Just nah.

How many posts have you written on this thread?

This makes three. How about you?

I'm not the one claiming this list is "trash" or "clickbait, but nothing more" - and then returning over and over to reiterate how stupid I think the list is. Oh, while simultaneously pretending not to be quite upset.

Returning over and over? I posted once, then replied to two criticisms of my initial post. This makes four total, three of them responding to your insane posts.

Sounds like the one upset is you, I guess because the list is being mocked? Are you a graduate of Babson or Bentley?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s trash. 100% acceptance rate schools in the Top 20, sub-10% acceptance rates not even in the Top 250, the most applied to school in the country not even in the Top 50?

Commendable clickbait, but nothing more. The authors get a solid A- for getting people upset, but expelled immediately if their goal was to actually rearrange the academic paradigm.

You seem to be the only person who is upset...

You can’t get upset at something this detached from reality. Pity? Sure. Upset? Nah. Just nah.

How many posts have you written on this thread?

This makes three. How about you?

I'm not the one claiming this list is "trash" or "clickbait, but nothing more" - and then returning over and over to reiterate how stupid I think the list is. Oh, while simultaneously pretending not to be quite upset.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Top 20 for those interested without subscriptions:
1: Princeton
2: Babson
3: Stanford
4: Yale
5: Claremont McKenna
6: MIT
7: Harvard
8: Berkeley
9: Georgia Tech
10: Davidson
11: Bentley
12: UC Davis
13: Penn
14: Columbia
15: Lehigh
16: San Jose State
17: Notre Dame
18: UC Merced
19: Virginia Tech
20: Harvey Mudd

I kind of like the list - very pre-professional focused and makes sense for the type who read WSJ. Methodology is 70% Student Outcomes, 20% Learning Environment, and 10% Diversity, with each of those broken up with different metrics.

Babson at #2 is a typo, right? Bentley? San Jose State?

You, again? Good grief.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s trash. 100% acceptance rate schools in the Top 20, sub-10% acceptance rates not even in the Top 250, the most applied to school in the country not even in the Top 50?

Commendable clickbait, but nothing more. The authors get a solid A- for getting people upset, but expelled immediately if their goal was to actually rearrange the academic paradigm.

You seem to be the only person who is upset...

You can’t get upset at something this detached from reality. Pity? Sure. Upset? Nah. Just nah.

How many posts have you written on this thread?

This makes three. How about you?

Anonymous wrote:Top 20 for those interested without subscriptions:
1: Princeton
2: Babson
3: Stanford
4: Yale
5: Claremont McKenna
6: MIT
7: Harvard
8: Berkeley
9: Georgia Tech
10: Davidson
11: Bentley
12: UC Davis
13: Penn
14: Columbia
15: Lehigh
16: San Jose State
17: Notre Dame
18: UC Merced
19: Virginia Tech
20: Harvey Mudd

I kind of like the list - very pre-professional focused and makes sense for the type who read WSJ. Methodology is 70% Student Outcomes, 20% Learning Environment, and 10% Diversity, with each of those broken up with different metrics.

Babson at #2 is a typo, right? Bentley? San Jose State?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s trash. 100% acceptance rate schools in the Top 20, sub-10% acceptance rates not even in the Top 250, the most applied to school in the country not even in the Top 50?

Commendable clickbait, but nothing more. The authors get a solid A- for getting people upset, but expelled immediately if their goal was to actually rearrange the academic paradigm.

You seem to be the only person who is upset...

You can’t get upset at something this detached from reality. Pity? Sure. Upset? Nah. Just nah.

How many posts have you written on this thread?

Anonymous wrote:Never heard of a top 50. Top 25 yes.

Everyone else has heard of Top 50.

"Half of the colleges in the top 50..."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careersandeducation/the-2025-best-colleges-in-the-u-s-princeton-babson-and-stanford-take-the-top-3-spots/ar-AA1q11zY

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s trash. 100% acceptance rate schools in the Top 20, sub-10% acceptance rates not even in the Top 250, the most applied to school in the country not even in the Top 50?

Commendable clickbait, but nothing more. The authors get a solid A- for getting people upset, but expelled immediately if their goal was to actually rearrange the academic paradigm.

You seem to be the only person who is upset...

You can’t get upset at something this detached from reality. Pity? Sure. Upset? Nah. Just nah.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only nine of the top 20 USNWR made top 20 on this list.

Princeton
Stanford
Yale
MIT
Harvard
Berkeley
Penn
Columbia
Notre Dame

OK had a bit of time to cross reference the top 50 USNWR.

Those USNWR top 50 that made WSJ top 50:

Princeton
MIT
Harvard
Stanford
Yale
Penn
Cal Tech
Duke
Brown
Cornell
Columbia
Berkeley
Rice
Vanderbilt
Notre Dame
Lehigh
Virginia Tech
Michigan
Georgetown
Wash U
UVA
USC
UC San Diego
UC Davis
UT Austin
UC Irvine
Gtech

Those USNWR top 50 that didn't make top 50 WSJ and along with their WSJ rank:

Hopkins 92
Northwestern 62
Chicago 75
UCLA 79
Dartmouth 57
UNC 59
Emory 103
CMU 56
U Florida 83
NYU 273
UC Santa Barbara 179
Wisconsin 73
U Illinois 53
Boston College 100
Wake Forest 137
U Rochester 316
William and Mary 178
Brandeis 335
Case Western 224
Tulane 451
Northeastern 168
U Georgia 151
Ohio State 329

FIFY

Thank you! Glad to see VA Tech on the list, DD is freshman at VT in Electrical Engineering this school year......

Anonymous wrote:It’s trash. 100% acceptance rate schools in the Top 20, sub-10% acceptance rates not even in the Top 250, the most applied to school in the country not even in the Top 50?

Commendable clickbait, but nothing more. The authors get a solid A- for getting people upset, but expelled immediately if their goal was to actually rearrange the academic paradigm.

You seem to be the only person who is upset...