The people who are writing the reviews are not faculty, they are administrators, many who have either never taught or done research, or it has been years to decades since they have done so.
That is one of the the issues that I have, especially since they are called “Top Academics”, which I feel is like calling HR personnel at JPMorgan “Bankers”.
University administrators is a broad category which covers everything from tenured faculty in roles running the university or departments to staff who may not have PhDs and are higher ed professionals but not academics. Is there a source that tells us who actually fills these surveys out?
But even “smart” people on CC are accepting of it, without reasonable skepticism. Similarly, I don’t agree students do not use it. In fact, I think T10, T20, T50 refers to USN; if not, what alternate list?
People often use the terms T10, T20, etc., without referring to any list, and without any idea of which list they would look at, if they did refer to a list… so it is not surprising to me that college students would talk about T10, T20, etc. while at the same time not knowing exactly which institutions are meant, or the ranking of their own institution.
Tell that to the 100k students on Reddit.
I posted the methodology above for the USNWR undergrad overall college rankings.
ETA: USNWR doesn’t publish exactly who fills these out, and I’m not sure they have visibility if someone other than the survey recipient fills these out. As I also said above, some admin do pass the survey down to a staffer to complete. Of course most survey recipients (or their staff) don’t complete the survey.
I think very very few high school kids or their parents have the ability to do that, especially for the 10+ schools they are applying to (or the 50 they want to apply to). Those who are lucky and at a top hs may have great guidance counselors who can recommend an LAC for an outstanding English student. Or maybe a great STEM student has a parent who works in STEM or teaches at a school known for math or physics so can steer him to a program at Hopkins or Stanford. But the rest of us just try to match the child’s interests from column A with the school’s reputation or offerings from column B and hope for a match.
You learn about the famous grads when you tour, and get to talk to a few students about their experiences, but how much deep research can you do before deciding which 5-10 schools you can visit? I’d guess there are only a few on CC who have the luxury of digging deep before making an exploratory list, and CC is only a fraction of those applying to college in any one year.
When I went to a college fair with my daughter, there were a few tables that were overrun with students, and those were the big sports schools, in the south, so mostly SEC and ACC, and very few of the students at this fair had a chance at these schools. We were in a heavily military area so the line for the Coast Guard Acad was several layers deep, but again, not a lot of hope for that admit.
I guess my point is that not many of these kids had any idea how to dig deep. Same with my the kids at our suburban hs (considered one of the best districts in Florida but NOT a top academic school). Of the kids going to college (about 2/3rds of the class?), I’d guess 90% went to school in state (some to private schools in state, as my daughter did). I know there was one MIT, one Naval Acad, one Ithica and probably a dozen more to other OOS schools, many athletes. But the big ‘wins’ were getting into UF then FSU, and then other state schools in a hierarchy known only to them.
Just to be clear, that’s not my quote. It’s a quote from the author of an article I linked above.
They are very clear that they’re talking about higher administrators who do not teach or do research, and many of whom have never taught at college level or done research.
From: https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/ranking-criteria-and-weights
Thanks. This is the part I was asking about because some posters were suggesting people with no real knowledge or expertise were filling them out so I was trying to understand if it was actually reported somewhere who does them or if posters are just speculating.
To be clear, I am not trying to argue that it is some rigorous/reliable process. I was just trying to disentangle fact from assertion. Thank you for your response.
Thanks. I think it was your calling the folks who fill it out equivalent to HR at JP Morgan that made me ask the question about who is actually doing these surveys. While I now get your point, I certainly would not put Presidents and Provosts on the level of HR (or even admissions directors for that matter).
These rankings rarely, almost never change - and there’s a reason. People are pre-determined to certain names. When you look at, career outcomes, for example, you’ll find “lesser” names per US News outperform the top on occasion, etc. But those lesser names have little to no chance to move up.
Even in 50 years from now, the UCs, U Michigan, etc. will be the top schools, etc. as will the Ivies.
That’s fine. But it has nothing to do with my question or my post.
Their formula is as follows: Sample College
Overall yield = 50% (1000 out of 2000)
ED enrolled = 500 (ED admits 505)
RD enrolled = 500 (RD admits 2000 - 505 = 1495)
HONEST YIELD = 500/1495 = 33.4%
I think we can sometimes forget that the sorts of people who find this community are not a representative subset of college applicants and parents. Many of those people will never participate in a forum like this.
Similarly, I don’t agree students do not use it. In fact, I think T10, T20, T50 refers to USN; if not, what alternate list?
I’ll have to see if I can find the study in question, but it was based on an actual survey of applicants.
Just anecdotally, I was generally familiar with US colleges and universities before my S24 was applying, and was aware of the US News rankings, but I had never heard of the “T20” before. I only encountered that term once I started helping my S24 with his college search, and started seeing it in certain online forums.
So yes, in those forums, there is a lot of familiarity with the US News, and a lot of chatter about exactly where institutions rank on the National Universities list. But again, the populations of those forums is not necessarily representative of broader populations out in the real world.
So, this isn’t inconsistent with the survey results I am reporting. It is not that no applicants made a lot of use of the US News. But it was only a minority fraction that did. But across millions of college applicants, even a majority fraction is plenty to provide the populations of forums like this.
This is why I sometimes (somewhat controversally) direct people to alternative rankings. There is no ranking that doesn’t have some methodological issues, and none should be treated as comprehensive “where should everyone go” rankings. But there are alternative rankings that are focused on academic matters, are more or less empirical in nature, and don’t just end up lists of all the usual suspects.
So, for example, for research universities I sometimes suggest people consider EduRank, which is research based. Again for example, here are their top US departments for Biomedical Engineering:
Some of the usual suspects are quite high, but so are Pitt, Washington, Case, Wisconsin, Wake, Utah, Minnesota, and so on.
Another thing I sometimes direct people to are the College Transitions PhD feeder study. When looking at the totals version, it can be similar to EduRank in that there are obviously important departments at a lot of public research universities that are not among the most selective few. But the per capita lists then pull in a lot of LACs, private research universities that are not quite as famous as the Ivy+ and such but have some very strong departments, and so on.
Again, things like this should never be used as standalone college choice lists. But to the extent they can help kids get excited about a broader range of colleges than just working down the US News generic National Universities list, I think that can be helpful.
How many people can we actually help this way? Drop in the bucket, I suppose. But we can try, and who knows, maybe it will spread around a bit.
That was my fault for the way I quoted it. Sorry!
UMCP’s rate is around the mid 40s, so not quite > 50%. I think its academic rigor is top 25 quality, so by that criterion, I’d certainly call it prestigious.
Also, I don’t know that location is that much of a factor. Johns Hopkins is universally considered a T15 school (at the very least) despite being located in godforsaken Baltimore.
Prestige is somewhat nebulous, though obviously schools like Ivy League or Stanford or MIT are considered prestigious all around.
But region plays a big part of it. Perfect example is USC (Southern california). In the West Coast, USC is seen as prestigious as Stanford or CalTech. But in the East Coast, people think either USC is just some party school for rich people or they think it’s University of South Carolina. University of Southern California holds a ton of weight in the West Coast and is even viewed on par with Stanford and the Ivy League. The Trojan network is vast and powerful, but mostly confined to the West Coast, and mostly to the LA, San Diego or OC areas (something like 80%+ of USC alumni stay in Southern California). So USC, while an excellent institution, is mostly still regional.
Penn State is like USC of the East Coast. Penn State holds little weight in California and a lot of people think Penn State is a “Cal State” school (Cal State schools are considered second tier and inferior to University of California schools). On the other hand, Penn State is highly regarded in the East Coast and midwest, and while not on par with Berkeley or Michigan, is still considered a public Ivy.
While I agree that region can play a role, the examples you used are not inline with “what the east coast thinks.”