Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This ranking is so random except for the top 1-7. US Naval Academy is at #80 behind many public universities. No logic to its ranking.

Whoever wrote this really hates Columbia and loves Upenn.
Must've been a pro-Israel author that had a hand in writing this.
But seriously, they just lost a lot of credibility with this weird ranking.

Not a Jew, but having Jewish and non-Jewish friends from both schools, and I find this negative, ungrounded, and unnecessary.

Wait, let me try that again, this time with a smily face so I can look like I was joking instead of prejudiced:

Not a Jew, but having Jewish and non-Jewish friends from both schools, and I find this negative, ungrounded, and unnecessary.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This ranking is so random except for the top 1-7. US Naval Academy is at #80 behind many public universities. No logic to its ranking.

Whoever wrote this really hates Columbia and loves Upenn.
Must've been a pro-Israel author that had a hand in writing this.
But seriously, they just lost a lot of credibility with this weird ranking.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IMO, the best ranking happens when you combine a lot of different rankings (focusing only on the top 50 on WSJ)



So for top 10 universities, we have HYPMS, Caltech, UPenn, Duke, Brown, and Columbia. Only really missing UChicago, but they explicitly play to the US News rankings and thus might be a little overrated.
For top 5 LACs, we have Pomona, Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, and Bowdoin. Almost no one would disagree with these 5, though the order might shift around.
For top 5 public Us, we have Berkeley, UCLA, U of M, UVA, and UNC Chapel Hill. Again, that exact order is pretty much how undergrad reputation for public universities go.

It's interesting to see how different rankings vary. WSJ does seem to favor public universities.

Instead of 1 crap in, 1 crap out, u get more crap in, more crap out.

I've lived near Berkeley and UCLA. I know they are really good schools overall (particularly Berkeley), but I can't say I have a great view on their undergraduate education. It seems like undergraduates are often the afterthought compared to research and graduate students.

If you want no advising, difficulty getting required classes, teaching assistant that are difficult to understand, and faculty who are entirely motivated by research and publishing, and the option of only living on campus for one year, they make great choices.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IMO, the best ranking happens when you combine a lot of different rankings (focusing only on the top 50 on WSJ)



So for top 10 universities, we have HYPMS, Caltech, UPenn, Duke, Brown, and Columbia. Only really missing UChicago, but they explicitly play to the US News rankings and thus might be a little overrated.
For top 5 LACs, we have Pomona, Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, and Bowdoin. Almost no one would disagree with these 5, though the order might shift around.
For top 5 public Us, we have Berkeley, UCLA, U of M, UVA, and UNC Chapel Hill. Again, that exact order is pretty much how undergrad reputation for public universities go.

It's interesting to see how different rankings vary. WSJ does seem to favor public universities.

Instead of 1 crap in, 1 crap out, u get more crap in, more crap out.

I've lived near Berkeley and UCLA. I know they are really good schools overall (particularly Berkeley), but I can't say I have a great view on their undergraduate education. It seems like undergraduates are often the afterthought compared to research and graduate students.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

I find the opposite -- that it makes them useless. Totally different animals.

You can separate them from one another by using the filters.

Anonymous wrote:Please point me to all the impressive Northwestern alums that aren't journalists. I think the Groupon founder dropped out of Northwestern? It seems like the quintessential 'striver' college for Ivy rejects. What's distinct about it? Besides the j-school. Awful quarter system puts you out of rhythm for internships. What non j-school teens grow up and says I dream of going to Northwestern? Maybe it's a Midwest thing.

Anonymous wrote:

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

I find the opposite -- that it makes them useless. Totally different animals.

Anonymous wrote:IMO, the best ranking happens when you combine a lot of different rankings (focusing only on the top 50 on WSJ)



So for top 10 universities, we have HYPMS, Caltech, UPenn, Duke, Brown, and Columbia. Only really missing UChicago, but they explicitly play to the US News rankings and thus might be a little overrated.
For top 5 LACs, we have Pomona, Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, and Bowdoin. Almost no one would disagree with these 5, though the order might shift around.
For top 5 public Us, we have Berkeley, UCLA, U of M, UVA, and UNC Chapel Hill. Again, that exact order is pretty much how undergrad reputation for public universities go.

It's interesting to see how different rankings vary. WSJ does seem to favor public universities.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are looking at the quality of education you can get, there are a lot of small schools who don't rank very well that have a great curriculum and good professors that are actually much better than Harvard, Stanford etc.

Look at this website that actually looks at the curriculum and what kids actually get taught.

https://www.whatwilltheylearn.com/

It is surprising more families don't pay attention to what these schools really teach for the money they extract

Once you get past that, you are really looking at "Prestige" and bragging rights. Not a good way to select your school, but....

For that, the USNews ranking is the best "Prestige" "Bragging ranking" there is, provided you ignore the strict ranking and just group different colleges into rough prestige tiers

All these other rankings are trying to appear "scientific" but don't measure anything meaningful.

The tool you link to gives Williams College a D- and Pepperdine an A+.

I'll pass.

This ranking is really on curriculum. If you have a school with no core, where students can determine what classes they will take (think Brown), it will get an F. UVA gets an F, BTW.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IMO, the best ranking happens when you combine a lot of different rankings (focusing only on the top 50 on WSJ)



So for top 10 universities, we have HYPMS, Caltech, UPenn, Duke, Brown, and Columbia. Only really missing UChicago, but they explicitly play to the US News rankings and thus might be a little overrated.
For top 5 LACs, we have Pomona, Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, and Bowdoin. Almost no one would disagree with these 5, though the order might shift around.
For top 5 public Us, we have Berkeley, UCLA, U of M, UVA, and UNC Chapel Hill. Again, that exact order is pretty much how undergrad reputation for public universities go.

It's interesting to see how different rankings vary. WSJ does seem to favor public universities.

Instead of 1 crap in, 1 crap out, u get more crap in, more crap out.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are looking at the quality of education you can get, there are a lot of small schools who don't rank very well that have a great curriculum and good professors that are actually much better than Harvard, Stanford etc.

Look at this website that actually looks at the curriculum and what kids actually get taught.

https://www.whatwilltheylearn.com/

It is surprising more families don't pay attention to what these schools really teach for the money they extract

Once you get past that, you are really looking at "Prestige" and bragging rights. Not a good way to select your school, but....

For that, the USNews ranking is the best "Prestige" "Bragging ranking" there is, provided you ignore the strict ranking and just group different colleges into rough prestige tiers

All these other rankings are trying to appear "scientific" but don't measure anything meaningful.

The tool you link to gives Williams College a D- and Pepperdine an A+.

I'll pass.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. UVA #9 public

UVA is no. 2 public in America in USN&WR ranking.

Still listed as #3 despite the de-listing of Berkeley. I'm sure no one will apply to Berkeley now that it has be de-listed.

But if you had checked you would know that USN&WR lists UVA as 1 2 or 3 over the last 27 years, sometimes in a tie, and as no. 1 a few times . . . and always above Michigan. I would definitely look to USN&WR as the gold standard, not the WSJ.

Anonymous wrote:IMO, the best ranking happens when you combine a lot of different rankings (focusing only on the top 50 on WSJ)



So for top 10 universities, we have HYPMS, Caltech, UPenn, Duke, Brown, and Columbia. Only really missing UChicago, but they explicitly play to the US News rankings and thus might be a little overrated.
For top 5 LACs, we have Pomona, Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, and Bowdoin. Almost no one would disagree with these 5, though the order might shift around.
For top 5 public Us, we have Berkeley, UCLA, U of M, UVA, and UNC Chapel Hill. Again, that exact order is pretty much how undergrad reputation for public universities go.

It's interesting to see how different rankings vary. WSJ does seem to favor public universities.

Anonymous wrote:If you are looking at the quality of education you can get, there are a lot of small schools who don't rank very well that have a great curriculum and good professors that are actually much better than Harvard, Stanford etc.

Look at this website that actually looks at the curriculum and what kids actually get taught.

https://www.whatwilltheylearn.com/

It is surprising more families don't pay attention to what these schools really teach for the money they extract

Once you get past that, you are really looking at "Prestige" and bragging rights. Not a good way to select your school, but....

For that, the USNews ranking is the best "Prestige" "Bragging ranking" there is, provided you ignore the strict ranking and just group different colleges into rough prestige tiers

All these other rankings are trying to appear "scientific" but don't measure anything meaningful.

Anonymous wrote:IMO, the best ranking happens when you combine a lot of different rankings (focusing only on the top 50 on WSJ)



So for top 10 universities, we have HYPMS, Caltech, UPenn, Duke, Brown, and Columbia. Only really missing UChicago, but they explicitly play to the US News rankings and thus might be a little overrated.
For top 5 LACs, we have Pomona, Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, and Bowdoin. Almost no one would disagree with these 5, though the order might shift around.
For top 5 public Us, we have Berkeley, UCLA, U of M, UVA, and UNC Chapel Hill. Again, that exact order is pretty much how undergrad reputation for public universities go.

It's interesting to see how different rankings vary. WSJ does seem to favor public universities.