Anonymous wrote:The rankings have Dartmouth and U Penn in top ten.

Of the Ivies perhaps.

Penn is #8, Dartmouth is #11.

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Anonymous wrote:Though the College Niche rankings aren’t as well recognized as USNEWS, they are based on a methodology that IMHO provides a better snapshot of the whole college experience

METHODOLOGY: https://colleges.niche.com/rankings/best-colleges/methodology/

RANKING: https://colleges.niche.com/rankings/best-colleges/

UChicago at 20. LOL. *closes browser tab*

The list is alphabetical.

What? No it's not. Lol.

The preview list that person looked at was alphabetical and U of C was 20. The list released today was by rank and U of C was 3.

Niche has UChicago at #20; USNWR has it at #3.

Anonymous wrote:hah. I'll tell you what. DH and I both went to UChicago and did well BUT if I had gotten into HYP or Stanford (I didn't even apply) I would have gone to one of those in a heartbeat. No question.

But when you went to U of C, it wasn't as good as it is now and Harvard was actually better then than it is now. Stanford is much better now than it was when I was a HS Sr, but you're probably younger than I am. Princeton is also better now than it was then. Things change.

I went to Harvard. My kid, looking for many of the same things I was looking for, decades later, preferred Chicago to Harvard and I think she's probably right, given her interests/values.

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Anonymous wrote:Though the College Niche rankings aren’t as well recognized as USNEWS, they are based on a methodology that IMHO provides a better snapshot of the whole college experience

METHODOLOGY: https://colleges.niche.com/rankings/best-colleges/methodology/

RANKING: https://colleges.niche.com/rankings/best-colleges/

UChicago at 20. LOL. *closes browser tab*

The list is alphabetical.

What? No it's not. Lol.

The preview list that person looked at was alphabetical and U of C was 20. The list released today was by rank and U of C was 3.

You are crazy. The list that the person you are quoting lists U of C at 20. Did you attend U of C by any chance?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Though the College Niche rankings aren’t as well recognized as USNEWS, they are based on a methodology that IMHO provides a better snapshot of the whole college experience

METHODOLOGY: https://colleges.niche.com/rankings/best-colleges/methodology/

RANKING: https://colleges.niche.com/rankings/best-colleges/

UChicago at 20. LOL. *closes browser tab*

The list is alphabetical.

What? No it's not. Lol.

The preview list that person looked at was alphabetical and U of C was 20. The list released today was by rank and U of C was 3.

UVa is a good deal for in-state students and a good university. It's reputation doesn't travel well outside the Northeast and academic circles, though.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Though the College Niche rankings aren’t as well recognized as USNEWS, they are based on a methodology that IMHO provides a better snapshot of the whole college experience

METHODOLOGY: https://colleges.niche.com/rankings/best-colleges/methodology/

RANKING: https://colleges.niche.com/rankings/best-colleges/

UChicago at 20. LOL. *closes browser tab*

The list is alphabetical.

What? No it's not. Lol.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Though the College Niche rankings aren’t as well recognized as USNEWS, they are based on a methodology that IMHO provides a better snapshot of the whole college experience

METHODOLOGY: https://colleges.niche.com/rankings/best-colleges/methodology/

RANKING: https://colleges.niche.com/rankings/best-colleges/

UChicago at 20. LOL. *closes browser tab*

The list is alphabetical.

Anonymous wrote:An absurd analogy, but to play along- why invest in improvements in the factory that don't improve the output? How do you trick the best drivers into driving your substandard car??

You can invest in the factory by making aesthetic changes or adding new buildings with big donor names, or reduce the manager/worker ratio because those are the inputs that the ranking is measuring. It all sounds good and will help your car get higher ranked, though they have dubious correlations with the actual quality of the car.

You can then increase the number of crashes your car is associated with (since that is also in the ranking) by only allowing drivers who have not been in crashes to drive your car, even though worse drivers might actually benefit more from the safety features of your car. In fact, this makes your car more exclusive since only the best of drivers can be approved to buy one.

See how ridiculous it is when we rank based on inputs vs. outputs?

An absurd analogy, but to play along- why invest in improvements in the factory that don't improve the output? How do you trick the best drivers into driving your substandard car??

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Anonymous wrote:Everyone predicted UChicago would go to #3. They're gunning for #1. I believe they were #1 back 80-100 years ago.

Pretty impressive, especially given the location of UC in the south side of Chicago.

U of Chicago is gaming the system like no other. It's pretty shameless.

If you understand the math and methodology, you'd know how difficult it is to "game" the system- unless you use "gaming" in the sense of investing in resources. For example, some think schools "game" the system by encouraging applications so that the "acceptance" rate will decrease. In fact, acceptance rate is .0125 (1.25%) of the total ranking.

It's actually pretty easy and just takes dedication from the top. Here's a good article on what can be done: http://college-advisor.com/articles/fudging.html

Not only is that a 12 year old blog post, it is silly at best. The first two steps to "game" the system impact 1.25% of the ranking. Complains about using SAT scores as a measure of student quality (about 8%)- is that really easy to game? Complains about spending money on facilities and faculty - wouldn't want to do that, eh?

I guess rankings were made for people like you. Too dumb to understand the difference between inputs and outputs.

Ad Hominem #NotAnArgument

It's not an ad hominem if it's true. You are too dumb to understand the difference between inputs and outputs. If car rankings were like college rankings, it would take into account the driving skill of the buyer when calculating safety ratings, measure how much metal was consumed in the creation of the car as a justification for price, give bonus points to manufacturers that have more expensive factories, applaud cars that constantly have supply shortages for their selectivity, and ask the top competitors for opinions of each other's products. Any idiot can invest more into their car factory and only sell to the best drivers to increase their rankings while having no impact on the quality of the actual car produced when the methodology is so asinine.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone predicted UChicago would go to #3. They're gunning for #1. I believe they were #1 back 80-100 years ago.

Pretty impressive, especially given the location of UC in the south side of Chicago.

U of Chicago is gaming the system like no other. It's pretty shameless.

If you understand the math and methodology, you'd know how difficult it is to "game" the system- unless you use "gaming" in the sense of investing in resources. For example, some think schools "game" the system by encouraging applications so that the "acceptance" rate will decrease. In fact, acceptance rate is .0125 (1.25%) of the total ranking.

It's actually pretty easy and just takes dedication from the top. Here's a good article on what can be done: http://college-advisor.com/articles/fudging.html

Not only is that a 12 year old blog post, it is silly at best. The first two steps to "game" the system impact 1.25% of the ranking. Complains about using SAT scores as a measure of student quality (about 8%)- is that really easy to game? Complains about spending money on facilities and faculty - wouldn't want to do that, eh?

I guess rankings were made for people like you. Too dumb to understand the difference between inputs and outputs.

Ad Hominem #NotAnArgument

The man who wrote that blog post is the former chancellor of the University of Maine System. His concerns and proposed tactics don't seem to relevant to Top 25 type schools. He seems more concerned about less selective schools that are borderline national or regional and schools. I've never paid much attention to such schools, but I imagine it would be possible to game rankings of less well known schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone predicted UChicago would go to #3. They're gunning for #1. I believe they were #1 back 80-100 years ago.

Pretty impressive, especially given the location of UC in the south side of Chicago.

U of Chicago is gaming the system like no other. It's pretty shameless.

If you understand the math and methodology, you'd know how difficult it is to "game" the system- unless you use "gaming" in the sense of investing in resources. For example, some think schools "game" the system by encouraging applications so that the "acceptance" rate will decrease. In fact, acceptance rate is .0125 (1.25%) of the total ranking.

It's actually pretty easy and just takes dedication from the top. Here's a good article on what can be done: http://college-advisor.com/articles/fudging.html

Not only is that a 12 year old blog post, it is silly at best. The first two steps to "game" the system impact 1.25% of the ranking. Complains about using SAT scores as a measure of student quality (about 8%)- is that really easy to game? Complains about spending money on facilities and faculty - wouldn't want to do that, eh?

I guess rankings were made for people like you. Too dumb to understand the difference between inputs and outputs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone predicted UChicago would go to #3. They're gunning for #1. I believe they were #1 back 80-100 years ago.

Pretty impressive, especially given the location of UC in the south side of Chicago.

U of Chicago is gaming the system like no other. It's pretty shameless.

If you understand the math and methodology, you'd know how difficult it is to "game" the system- unless you use "gaming" in the sense of investing in resources. For example, some think schools "game" the system by encouraging applications so that the "acceptance" rate will decrease. In fact, acceptance rate is .0125 (1.25%) of the total ranking.

It's actually pretty easy and just takes dedication from the top. Here's a good article on what can be done: http://college-advisor.com/articles/fudging.html

Not only is that a 12 year old blog post, it is silly at best. The first two steps to "game" the system impact 1.25% of the ranking. Complains about using SAT scores as a measure of student quality (about 8%)- is that really easy to game? Complains about spending money on facilities and faculty - wouldn't want to do that, eh?