It makes ZERO sense for East Carolina University to be ranked higher than UNC Wilmington…maybe in the 90th dimension.
I don’t agree with their overall rankings (how can RPI not be in the top 100?), but their grades of different aspects of a university (academics, campus, food, party scene, etc.), and student comments, are useful. A single ranking is really hard (and usually flawed), so seeing which colleges are strong in the aspects that are important to you, is better.
@ClarinetDad16 So a quick read of the methodology says that 100% weight is given to student surveys which is quite interesting. Tells you a lot about the student populations at Drexel and UPenn.
“this is the Christian version of BYU” (#12)
Isn’t Mormonism a Christian faith?
@merc81 Mormonism is considered a cult by many evangelicals.
Aren’t Niche rankings based on student reviews? I hardly consider students to be reliable indicators of what is important to adults. I read the niche rankings only because my kid finds Niche useful. Niche is for students, not adults. As an adult, I like that it enables me to see what is important to kids.
The only thing my school is nationally ranked for is parties. I’ll take it.
@merc81 They are considered “Christian” the same way “Christians” are considered Jewish by jews.
By Christian version of byu I meant that they have a strict abstinence and no alcohol policy. Violation of these rules is grounds for expulsion.
Lennon’s killer also went there so. If it’s good for him, it’s not good for me. Plus I don’t want to abstain from sex, I want to be able to do so if I wish.
Also, there are 4 religions that are all technically branches of each other. Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and Mormonism. All 4 don’t get along to well in the same room, especially when they are told that they are either wrong by the other brothers lol.
@Ruby789 It wasn’t so much the “better” but that there were some and that the student reveiws said they were a good environment.
@Ruby789 I created my own list of ratings. The reception was frosty at best. LOL
Huh? I’m Jewish and have never heard that Christians are considered Jewish by Jews.
niche seems like a group of clowns who decided to create a website and their own methodology to rank schools and colleges. any list where universities move up or down 30 spots is unstable. they emphasize things like campus food, parking and whatnot. its mumbo jumbo. at least the forbes ranking kind of makes some sense…
Niche Top 20
1 Stanford
2 MIT
3 Yale
4 Harvard
5 Rice
6 Penn
7 Duke
8 Brown
9 Cal Tech
10 USC
11 Princeton
12 Wash U
13 Notre Dame
14 Columbia
15 Bowdoin
16 Texas - Austin
17 Vanderbilt
18 Georgetown
19 Williams
20 Chicago
Hard to argue with the top 4 (though I’d replace Yale with CalTech, but that’s just me), but after that its very questionable. Rice is great, but it’s not better than Princeton (neither is Penn, which is definitely not better than CalTech), and hard to see how UT-Austin could beat Vandy or Williams. Also USC at #10 while Chicago is at #20 - is this based on football and sunshine?
Princeton below USC & Rice… Columbia below ND, Chicago below UT Austin… 'nuff said. Maybe they are overemphasizing things most people do not put much weightage on? Like dorm rooms etc? Aaargh, why even bother trying to figure these out. They are just flat out wrong. End of story.
@simba9 that’s the point. Mormons aren’t christians. They are mormons.
Same way christians are not jewish, they are christians.
I think the difference is that Mormons generally consider themselves Christians, even if many Christians denominations do not, while neither Christians nor Jews consider Christians Jewish.
@Sue22 To be fair though, they can believe what they want. They are ultimately considered a cult by the true definition. As they are very unorthodox.
@SeniorStruggling, I’d be careful about characterizing someone else’s religion based on your own religious beliefs. There are many different opinions as to the “true definition” of many religions.
But getting back to the original subject,
I’m not a fan of rankings in general, and the Niche methodology page doesn’t break down how they weight the various factors, but at least they include qualitative reports on various factors from students (or at least raters claiming to be students). Some of the weaknesses of the Niche ratings as I see them:
- Anyone can sign up for a Niche account. You can claim any school as yours and fill out the information any way you want. I could give my school all 5's or my rival's all 1's and there would be no control to catch it. Niche's reliance on student surveys is both a strength and a weakness.
- Some of the sample sizes are very small. Niche says they throw out results with too few responses, but how many responses do they need? Their methodology page doesn't specify, and I found ratings based on as few as 8 responses.
- The way they evaluate school quality is a bit strange at times. For instance, "school size" is one measure of diversity. Is a larger school necessarily more diverse? I don't think so. The "Guys and Girls" rating is made up of the student assessments of the attractiveness of their peers, as well as the athletics and diversity grades, but also the ratings for local area grade and campus grade. Since when does the quality of the neighborhood surrounding the school determine the quality of the students (or whatever "guys and girls" is supposed to measure)?
I looked at two peer schools, in the the same state, with similar admit rates and student populations. In 10 of the 18 categories in which they were both ranked they were tied. One beat the other college in 7 of the categories, including drug safety and campus quality. The other won out in one category-parking. Yet guess which was ranked over 25 spots higher. The one with the better parking.
Colleges earn good marks for a vibrant party scene but are dinged at the same time for drug use. So apparently getting drunk is good but smoking pot is bad. A’s in party scene, D-'s in drug safety at the same schools.
- What ratings Niche chooses to emphasize seem a bit strange to me at times. For instance, they highlight the ratings for parking and technology but not career services, something I think most families care more about.
Niche ratings can offer food for thought. For instance, I’d want to investigate the safety of a school that got a D or F in that category. What I wouldn’t do is take the rating as gospel truth.
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Hey guys, lets not bring religious debate into this forum. We could argue forever about it.