Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. UVA #9 public

#10

UCLA, Michigan, UNC, Berkeley, UC Davis, UC San Diego, Washington, Purdue, Illinois, UVA

Oops. That's why I wasn't accepted to any of these schools.

Anonymous wrote:Any ranking that does not have Harvard and Stanford as the top two, in whatever order, is suspect.

I get your point and it has some validity, but I respectfully suggest you consider the following:

- Any ranking that values undergraduate experience more than both grad and undergrad will skew those. Harvard has more than twice as many grad students as undergrads, yet Princeton has nearly the reverse. Don't you think that will affect the undergraduate experience (profs teaching instead of TAs) and should thusly affect the ranking?

- Rankings do take prestige and reputation into account, but not solely. Do you think ranking should be based solely on prestige and reputation? if you do, than your point is correct, but if not...

- How much of your position is self-fulfilling? That you believe those should be the rankings because USN has often ranked them that way?

- Lastly, and most importantly, increments of rankings are BS -- to say that #4 is better than #5 is totally arbitrary. Rankings gain more validity when they are grouped. Yet, no one does that with their rankings -- because then we would all agree on them and no one would click and read!

Anonymous wrote:The two asinine placements that stick out:

Stanford at #7 - easily #1b if not 1a to most teens

Norte Dame in the 30s - obvious anti-Catholic bias, ND is the Catholic Ivy, students live in dorms all 4 years, no Greek life, just a wonderful pure college with overachieving service-minded kids

USNWR has Stanford at #7 as well.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The two asinine placements that stick out:

Stanford at #7 - easily #1b if not 1a to most teens

Norte Dame in the 30s - obvious anti-Catholic bias, ND is the Catholic Ivy, students live in dorms all 4 years, no Greek life, just a wonderful pure college with overachieving service-minded kids

You are one gigantic moron. Go read the methodology and see if you can understand it.

Actually, the fact that ND is Catholic hurt its ranking. Not saying that the methodology is anti-Catholic, however, the lack of diversity is what pushes its ranking down, so in a sense, the PP is pinpointing the correct element in what hurt its ranking.

Catholicism is diverse; Notre Dame is not.

Any ranking that does not have Harvard and Stanford as the top two, in whatever order, is suspect.

Anonymous wrote:The top LACs are ranked too low. Their methodology favor larger research-oriented universities. Schools like Amherst, Williams, Pomona should all be in the top 20, not just barely behind.

Forbes ranked most elite LACs around the same. Pomona 12 Williams 19 Mudd 23 Swat 25 Bowdoin 26 Amherst 28. They used to be ranked higher, I believe with Pomona and Williams routinely included in top 5? So perhaps it's the reality that top LACs are falling behind top universities these days, and the lower rankings are reflecting that change.

Elite LACs like Amherst and Williams won't be hurt by these rankings. It's more of an issue for smaller LACs ranked 200+

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The top LACs are ranked too low. Their methodology favor larger research-oriented universities. Schools like Amherst, Williams, Pomona should all be in the top 20, not just barely behind.

Amherst and Willliams ranking were hurt by "Engagement" ranking of >500. Apparently students are not particularly "engaged" at these schools.

Engagement
Does the college effectively engage with its students? Most of the data in this area are gathered through the THE US Student Survey. The Engagement area represents 20 per cent of the overall ranking. Within this we look at:
*Student engagement (7%)
*Student recommendation (6%)
*Interaction with teachers and students (4%)
*Number of accredited programmes (3%)

That literally doesn't make sense. You're going to believe that Amherst and Williams- widely considered two of the best liberal art colleges in the country, and among the few where kids getting into HYPS will turn the former down because they want top notch undergrad attention/professor interaction- don't even crack the top 500 of any school for engagement? Not to mention their retention rates- 98%- ranking in the top 10 for any school in the country- or their high alumni donation rates- also top 10 in the country for percent of alumni giving back. I really doubt they got a representative enough sample set, if anyone at all.

These rankings are useful for comparing two schools side-by-side. So if one is ranked #55 and one is #250 you can see why...

I disagree about the Stanford and Princeton rankings, but who cares?

At least WSJ is not using criteria like "acceptance rate" that can easily be gamed.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The top LACs are ranked too low. Their methodology favor larger research-oriented universities. Schools like Amherst, Williams, Pomona should all be in the top 20, not just barely behind.

Amherst and Willliams ranking were hurt by "Engagement" ranking of >500. Apparently students are not particularly "engaged" at these schools.

Engagement
Does the college effectively engage with its students? Most of the data in this area are gathered through the THE US Student Survey. The Engagement area represents 20 per cent of the overall ranking. Within this we look at:
*Student engagement (7%)
*Student recommendation (6%)
*Interaction with teachers and students (4%)
*Number of accredited programmes (3%)

My kid is at one of those schools, and the student engagement and interaction with profs is one of the strongest parts of the school. I bet they just didn't have enough student surveys returned to make a judgment. For me, that shows how useless this ranking is.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The two asinine placements that stick out:

Stanford at #7 - easily #1b if not 1a to most teens

Norte Dame in the 30s - obvious anti-Catholic bias, ND is the Catholic Ivy, students live in dorms all 4 years, no Greek life, just a wonderful pure college with overachieving service-minded kids

You are one gigantic moron. Go read the methodology and see if you can understand it.

Actually, the fact that ND is Catholic hurt its ranking. Not saying that the methodology is anti-Catholic, however, the lack of diversity is what pushes its ranking down, so in a sense, the PP is pinpointing the correct element in what hurt its ranking.

Anonymous wrote:The two asinine placements that stick out:

Stanford at #7 - easily #1b if not 1a to most teens

Norte Dame in the 30s - obvious anti-Catholic bias, ND is the Catholic Ivy, students live in dorms all 4 years, no Greek life, just a wonderful pure college with overachieving service-minded kids

You are one gigantic moron. Go read the methodology and see if you can understand it.

Anonymous wrote:The top LACs are ranked too low. Their methodology favor larger research-oriented universities. Schools like Amherst, Williams, Pomona should all be in the top 20, not just barely behind.

Amherst and Willliams ranking were hurt by "Engagement" ranking of >500. Apparently students are not particularly "engaged" at these schools.

Engagement
Does the college effectively engage with its students? Most of the data in this area are gathered through the THE US Student Survey. The Engagement area represents 20 per cent of the overall ranking. Within this we look at:
*Student engagement (7%)
*Student recommendation (6%)
*Interaction with teachers and students (4%)
*Number of accredited programmes (3%)

The top LACs are ranked too low. Their methodology favor larger research-oriented universities. Schools like Amherst, Williams, Pomona should all be in the top 20, not just barely behind.

Anonymous wrote:The two asinine placements that stick out:

Stanford at #7 - easily #1b if not 1a to most teens

Norte Dame in the 30s - obvious anti-Catholic bias, ND is the Catholic Ivy, students live in dorms all 4 years, no Greek life, just a wonderful pure college with overachieving service-minded kids

To assert a religion-based bias is absurd. The rankings are not slanted and simply reflect the results of the stated methodology, which is transparent.