Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

USNWR has Stanford at #7 as well.

Not even USNWR can hold Stanford down. With the possible exception of Harvard, it is probably favored by cross-admits over any other schools. You can say the same for Harvard. Princeton is almost always #1 in USNWR. What percentage of cross-admits choose Princeton over Harvard? I'd bet no more than 25%.

You're assessing popularity, not quality. There may be an assumption that the selection is based on perceived quality but maybe it's just the weather.

Does the weather impact Harvard positively for cross-admits with Princeton? I was simply saying there is a limit in the USNWR influence. They can put Princeton over Harvard for the next 10 years and most cross-admits will choose Harvard. They can rank Berkeley below UCLA and even de-list it, but it will still remain the most selective of the UC schools and will still get lots of applicants.

And I would certainly question that USNWR really does a good or valuable job of measuring quality.

Anonymous wrote:I appreciate that the LACs are listed with the Universities. Makes it a bit easier to compare.

Anonymous wrote:

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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

USNWR has Stanford at #7 as well.

Not even USNWR can hold Stanford down. With the possible exception of Harvard, it is probably favored by cross-admits over any other schools. You can say the same for Harvard. Princeton is almost always #1 in USNWR. What percentage of cross-admits choose Princeton over Harvard? I'd bet no more than 25%.

You're assessing popularity, not quality. There may be an assumption that the selection is based on perceived quality but maybe it's just the weather.

Anonymous wrote:

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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!

Well, all of the methodology and criteria are fine, if mostly manipulated (how does one evaluate teaching quality or reputation?), but when presented with the choice, where do people actually choose to go? They choose Stanford and Harvard over every other school on the list. And it doesn't appear to be particularly close.

But that's my point exactly -- because of prestige.

What good would a ranking list based solely on that be?

I wouldn't being to guess why some of the smartest high school students in the country choose a school. I think yours is a fairly simplistic assumption about why people choose a college. Are you really that patronizing and smug about your own superiority?

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

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

USNWR has Stanford at #7 as well.

Not even USNWR can hold Stanford down. With the possible exception of Harvard, it is probably favored by cross-admits over any other schools. You can say the same for Harvard. Princeton is almost always #1 in USNWR. What percentage of cross-admits choose Princeton over Harvard? I'd bet no more than 25%.

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.

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.

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

USNWR has Stanford at #7 as well.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only value of these rankings is when they are interactive and you can personalize them based on your own priorities.

You can these rankings...with a paid subscription

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.

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Anonymous wrote:Can someone spot Penn State? (as least I don't see it at the ridiculous #27 that USNWR had it for one minute a few years ago)

105

So #27 USNWR to #105 WSJ in a few (post scandal) years? Hmmm.
(it may have been #37 on USNWR but whatever, it shot up one year and come back down the next -- made the entire ranking process so suspect.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone spot Penn State? (as least I don't see it at the ridiculous #27 that USNWR had it for one minute a few years ago)

105

Anonymous wrote:I do appreciate the attempt at more of an "output"-based ranking (where students end up after college) by the Wall Street Journal, whereas the US News ranking is more of an "input"-based ranking (how hard it is to get *into* a particular college). Neither approach is necessarily better or worse or even using the proper methodology to measure what they claim to be measuring, but it's interesting to see the contrasts.

It seems like most people quibble over where the Harvard or Standard-type schools are placed, but that's not where I personally see the value in these rankings. Most of us don't need to be told that the Ivy League schools and others on that tier (e.g. Stanford, MIT, UChicago, Duke, Northwestern, et. al) are prestigious and difficult to get into. Instead, the real value in these rankings is getting more information about those schools *outside* of the top 20 or so that the vast, vast, vast majority of the population will attend. For instance, a lot of people just lump all "state schools" together as a big mass of interchangeable institutions, but there are some real differences between them, particularly when you break down specific majors.

The chances that your child is going to be choosing between Harvard and Stanford is about as likely as you winning the lottery. Even in high income and highly educated areas, the more likely scenario is that your child is going to be weighing going to an in-state public school versus an out-of-state public school versus a good (but not necessarily elite) private school that are all similarly ranked and priced versus a lower ranked school that's offering a significant scholarship.

No one should use rankings as the sole basis of a decision, but those rankings can certainly help put some context into evaluating the much more common and realistic situation that I've described above.