With all the schools in the US, do you think there is much difference between #2 and #12? Seems to me the rankings are consistent with negligible difference.
Overall its just another attempt at making the subjective (“best” colleges) objective by attaching numbers to various aspects of them, tallying up the numbers for each school and creating a sorted ranked list. If you don’t like the results of this list, don’t fret too much because there are others which may well include the schools of your favor ranked where you think they should be.
The only school that I think completely got snubbed is Caltech. Harvey Mudd also got screwed on the rankings imo, considering it has one of the best ROI and is an overall phenomenal school. I also don’t think BC should’ve been ahead of Duke, Cornell, Rice, Berkeley, WashU, or CMU, but that’s just my opinion.
But I can’t really complain since my school is about 15 ranks higher according to Forbes than USN. In reality I think they’re probably trying to shake things up to make their rankings a bit more interesting. Some schools are ranked a bit too high by USN, in my opinion. I think a lot of schools that are underappreciated by USNWR get some of the attention that they deserve in this ranking. I think these rankings highlight how interchangeable the top 20 or so schools are though, with the exception of maybe the top 5 research universities and top 3-5 LACs.
Overall, the list is decent if you ignore the order. I suppose it depends on what you mean by “Best.” To me, the ranking does not mean a lot without a clear explanation of what they mean by “Best.”
@Pizzagirl “How do I really “know” they are any good? USN tells me so - so then I believe they are good, and then I’m surprised they aren’t on this other list – but what does it really all mean? Nothing.”
I give you a 10 for snark. You always make me laugh.
I agree that USN is overrated. However, on cc: many of us have attended multiple colleges, have spouses who attended multiple colleges, and have kids who attend colleges now. Many posters have also been to the majority of the colleges on this list, and spent time learning about them from multiple sources as we helped our kids apply. We clearly don’t know everything, but far from nothing, and probably not meaningless.
While you suggest that posters think that USN is the correct order, I think that many of us have our own ideas about what makes a school “best.” There is a big range of meaningfulness between a definitive order, and a “meaningless” order. For me the question determining “Best” should be, “For a generic, well-rounded student who has the chance to go to any school, what order would you recommend that they choose them?”
It seems to me that there is a big LAC bias on this list that I do not understand the rationale for. I mean Wesleyan is a good school, but I can’t imagine any reasonable criteria that would put it above most of the schools on this list.
There are no public schools on the list at all. I understand that the publics are generally falling as their funding continues to be cut, but I would still think one or two would make the list, and at least push out Davidson college.
Given the “ROI” variable, I think it’s impressive that LACs made this list – after all, they do not hand out Engineering degrees (with few and notable exceptions, anyway…). So they must be making up for it elsewhere.
@pizzagirl, no Massachusetts, not California. Berkeley is on several rankings as top 10 in the world, not just in California or in my book. For ROI, it can’t be beat, but I understand that is only one of the components that went into the ranking. Still, behind BC? Come now. That’s just comedic. I’m tired of the state schools, Cal, Va, Michigan getting snubbed just because they’re not private. Berkeley rivals Stanford and MIT in so many areas. Stanford considers Berkeley one of its biggest rivals in the academic arena and in recruiting students. Caltech also got snubbed. The list just doesn’t carry credence like some of the other entities that rank.
@prezbucky, LACs tend to kill it in the “academic” categories (per capita PhDs produced and per capita prestigious national scholarships/fellowships won). Their small size helps in that regard. 5 Rhodes/Marshall/Fulbright scholars at a school of 1500 moves the needle a lot more than at a school of 15000 when it comes to per capita rankings.
Fully 30% of the Forbes ranking is based on the impact of a relatively small group of “exceptional” graduates:
22.5% based on alumni who end up on the "America's Leaders List"
7.5% based on students/alumni who win nationally prestigious scholarships and fellowships like the Rhodes, the National Science Foundation and the Fulbright
The high weighting of a small group of impactful individuals may or may not be appropriate (it implicitly suggests that exceptional success of a few individuals is a product of – or otherwise associated with – exceptional education of many individuals), but it can explain why the rankings change so much year to year.
I don’t know what’s stranger: the quirk noted by @foosondaughter or the fact that Ratemyprofessor student reviews matter more than insignificant things like a school’s graduation rate.
@foosondaughter, if you look at the criteria they use to assemble the Leader’s List, it’s actually a pretty big group of people. Basically every elected official of any significance, the board of the F500 companies, winners of a bunch of awards in the arts, journalism, science, the Big 5 orchestra members, and a bunch of others. But yes, it’s top-focused. So is the PhD recipients category.
"The only school that I think completely got snubbed is Caltech. "
I think one could make an argument – not that I’m making it, but one could – that Caltech is a specialty school that doesn’t belong on this kind of list, any more than Juilliard does.
“While you suggest that posters think that USN is the correct order, I think that many of us have our own ideas about what makes a school “best.” There is a big range of meaningfulness between a definitive order, and a “meaningless” order. For me the question determining “Best” should be, “For a generic, well-rounded student who has the chance to go to any school, what order would you recommend that they choose them?””
Well, to me, if my generic, well-rounded kid hypothetically got into all of the top 20 universities and top 20 LAC’s, and finances were not a determinative issue, I would think it would completely boil down to personal preferences (look and feel of campus, city vs suburb vs rural, part of the country, sports / Greek life or not, etc.). It would make little sense to me to slice the bologna much thinner than that.
It’s kind of like asking - which person on the Olympic team for gymnastics should teach my 8 yo how to do a somersault. They’re all more than good enough for my purposes.
Gosh, prepped parent. You have a kid who goes to Berkeley! So of COURSE you’re going to think it’s underrated on any list! Note I’m not saying anything about Berkeley one way or the other. But this is just so indicative of people’s reactions when they see these lists. They “feel” that X is overrated and Y is underrated and it’s just based on impressions, often based on where one’s friends and family have gone and / or where one has grown up. Just own it, already. Subjective feels.
Wow! My newer, still-developing undergraduate alma mater cracked the list (though barely - 500s) and my more-established graduate institution made it (later 100s).
It’s kind of funny looking at this list from a graduate school perspective, though. One school in the late 400s and two in the early 400s have some of the best PhD programs in my field, and ironically enough, there are only a handful of schools in the top 100 that have respectable programs in my field (at least that I know of/have heard of/have seen on people’s CVs).
Admittedly, there is some subjective bias. But I’m not saying Cal should be #1, but it definitely should not be #40 no matter whose scale is the yard stick. I do like the fact that its next to Caltech on this list. As someone said, Caltech got a raw deal, and in my humble opinion, Cal did too.
@Pizzagirl - It’s number 39. MIT, Mudd and other similar schools are also made the list, so Forbes isn’t making that argument either. I think “snubbed” referred to not breaking the top 25.
Forbes purports to measure different things than USNews. It also combines LACs and Us and regional (non PhD) Us in one list, which is going to (generally speaking) bump everyone down.
