Dave_Berry

"Forbes Magazine — in its “second annual” college rankings issue — has just awarded its top spot to an institution that doesn’t tend to win such beauty contests: the United States Military Academy at West Point."

As Forbes Sees It, West Point Beats Princeton (and Harvard, Too) - The Choice Blog - NYTimes.com

coase

Good for West Point. Alas, as has been documented in multiple threads such as this one

New Forbes college rankings: some surprises,

the methodology is laughable. The individual behind the rankings, is someone named Richard Vedder. Having just scanned his list of publications, I note that he never published in any of the top journals in his field. It is not a surprise, therefore, that he would produce such a deficient methodology. People can debate the merits of other methodologies such as the revealed preference method of Avery et al., but the latter are light years ahead of Vedder.

Luigi59

Any college ranking system that lists Johns Hopkins as #173 is seriously flawed.

Dave_Berry

Interesting comments at the end of the NYT article.

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aabbcc1789

wow this is almost as bad as that payscale survey they blogged about a few weeks ago.

curious77

Free education tied to a 4-year armed-services obligation, not my idea of a #1 college.

curious77

"equally determined by enrollment-adjusted entries in Who’s Who in America"
Oh my!

Descartesz

What is Annapolis doing wrong?!

SMurphy101

Well that's not hard to believe if 20% of their ranking is average indebtedness after college. Whether you agree with their methodology for ranking the "best" colleges or not, they seem to have done a good job according to their methodology.

beatfreaks

Oh no, the Ivies aren't the first 8 listed so this automatically means Forbes is retarded! </ends sarcasm>

allemanau

"Oh no, the Ivies aren't the first 8 listed so this automatically means Forbes is retarded! </ends sarcasm>"

Haha, yeah, no freakin' kidding.

silverturtle

No one claimed what the above two have referenced. Most criticized the list for its methodology not for its results.

silverturtle

With that said, the apparent absurdity of some of the placements of outstanding schools is strongly suggestive of a skewed methodology.

epicwinguy101

Well, West Point would obviously be far from tops for pure academia. But few schools produce students with the kind of discipline and work ethic that USMA does. Kids at the conventional top schools don't have the willpower to make it to 8AM classes, West Point kids have to be ready in uniform at 6 AM. And discipline and work ethic are just as important at success in life as academic prowess.

BrandoIsCool

LOL, so many annoyed people.

My school on USNews is in the top 50, but according to Forbes its in the 170's. That's a big difference...