If what you are saying about the value of “perceived reputation” is true, then why not just poll the general public and forget about asking college Presidents and high school guidance counselors for their opinions?
The bottom line is that no college President or administrator and no high school college counselor is in a position to assess the relative strengths of more than a handful of other colleges and universities, and most will admit that.
@EyeVeee: Stats counted by USNews are only the fall freshman enrollment stats.
Moving those 50 may not affect the acceptance rate much, but as you know, those aren’t the only stats. Test scores and GPA are also stats.
@fivesages:
“While you may be correct about CC community, I think rank is a dominant factor only at the very top. After that it tends go more into ranges. For example, yield rate for schools like Northwestern tend to hover around 50% or below…these schools loose out to top public schools (e.g. UC Berkeley) and the top liberal arts schools (e.g. Williams, Amherst). So I don’t think ranking is a driving factor after the top 10 or so when it comes to most of the high school students.”
???
- Cal, Amherst, and Williams all have yield rates below 50%.
- Amherst and Williams aren't even in the same ranking as NU.
The facts don’t back up your conclusion that the rankings only matter at the top.
That is probably part of it, but it does not help Northwestern when President Shapiro insults a significant number of his potential customers by calling them idiots and lunatics.
This stereotype was true a decade or more ago, but is is less valid today. Chicago has moved aggressively to change their student body and institution to the type of student that would previously fit the pre-professional nature of Northwestern and some of the Ivies.
@PurpleTitan I am talking about when students are faced with two options (e.g. Northwestern vs Williams, Rice vs Amherst, WashU vs UC Berkeley). Bottomline, I don’t think ranking is a driving factor in the decision on where to attend college after the top 10 or so when it comes to most of the high school students. I am not saying it is not a factor, just not a driving factor as it is in case of the tippy top. For example, have you seen someone select a college because it is ranked 37 and his/her other option is ranked 52; someone select 71 because his/her other option is 95? While US News ranks 1500-2000 colleges, it only becomes a driving factor for a few.
@fivesages: You must not have been on CC a long time.
If you have, you certainly would have seen kids factor in rankings when deciding between even schools outside the very top.
BTW, USNews rankings don’t come in to play when comparing NU/Rice vs. Williams/Amherst because, again, LACs aren’t even in the same ranking at research U’s.
BTW, I have seen some folks say that the Prez of NU shouldn’t complain about the USNews ranking methodology because NU is ranked so highly. Yet if a Prez of some college ranked far lower complained, some people (possibly even the same ones!) would write it off as sour grapes.
So if people from highly-ranked schools should not judge the USNews rankings and people from lower-ranked schools should not judge the USNews rankings, then who is allowed to critique the US News rankings?
I sometimes wonder if some folks in here actually work for US News.
@fivesages …you’re not making a ton of sense mate.
@PurpleTitan @Boothie007 We can go on forever on this. I believe the article was too much of how others are cheating or could cheat Vs what can be done to improve the ranking. To beginning with, I just agreed with @Wilson98 at the beginning of this thread…“The Op-ed (which is excerpted from a book by Northwestern’s president and a professor there) comes off not so much as an attack on US News but more like Northwestern whining about all the other colleges being dishonest and gaming the system. They go through a number of dubious practices that a school could do or “allegedly” has done without naming any names, and without stating how widespread these things are, or how much effect they really have.”. Even after all the discussion, I feel the same way. I rest my case:)
@fivesages: “I believe the article was too much of how others are cheating or could cheat”
They have an incentive to and we definitely know some have.
“other colleges being dishonest and gaming the system”
They have an incentive to and we definitely know some have.
“They go through a number of dubious practices that a school could do or “allegedly” has done without naming any names”
Schools have an incentive to and we definitely know some schools have.
“Even after all the discussion, I feel the same way. I rest my case”
It seems that you are the type who would always go with first preconceptions regardless of what data or logic is presented (which makes you among the vast majority of humans, so don’t feel too bad, though it also means there’s no reason for me to care what you think).
Either that or you work for USNews.
I dont think anyone is taking USNews super literally, i.e. thinking that schools with a few spots difference are actually different. A lot of the individual positioning USNews gets a bit wrong, because they completely disregard outcomes. However, USNews does a fairly good job group schools into tiers. I don’t think most people object with what schools USNews consistently places in the top 10, top 11-15 and top 16-20.
If Schapiro is so miffed with the rankings, his time would be better spent in convincing 20-25 of his other colleagues to stop participating in the ranking. If the top 20-25 schools decided to boycott USNews and came out with a strong statement against it, it would make a big difference.
I am not holding my breath though. I think a lot of these schools want to have their cake and eat it too. They want the advantages that being recognized as a top school provides in terms of press coverage, alum donations, increased applications etc, but are also deeply offended that they have to participate in a beauty contest, which they consider beneath them.
How dare a magazine, rank and stack them!! Oh! the unfairness of it all!
US News rankings have so much power because the information provided by colleges is not released in a consistent and user friendly way, and a lot of information that could be very helpful in making informed decisions is not provided at all by many schools.
Many schools don’t release helpful information like avg. hs gpa of admitted students, grad school placement detail, job placement details, impact of various majors on outcomes, etc. If they do release it, it is in inconsistent formats that are difficult or impossible to compare.
How else can potential students and their parents make informed decisions? They talk to their counselor, they look at US News, and they visit schools, and then they guess. It is all very confusing for parents.
There really needs to be more information that is provided in a standardized way to allow families to make more informed decisions. Unfortunately, most schools would not benefit from standardized, more clear information being provided to students and parents. They rely on the fog to hide their weaknesses.
@pupflier: “How dare a magazine, rank and stack them!! Oh! the unfairness of it all!”
The objection isn’t with the ranking but that the USNews data are easily gamed and not checked by USNews.
That’s why I much prefer my tiers by alumni achievements:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1893105-ivy-equivalents-ranking-based-on-alumni-outcomes-take-2-1-p1.html
All that info come from third-party sources and aren’t easily gamed.
@Much2learn: College Scorecard.
Or the tiers I made in the link above.
@PurpleTitan The outcomes ranking just perpetuates the old boy network. Top students go to top schools and tend to do better often with their parents assistance. Very elitist.
Both New College of Florida and Mudd have existed for only a couple generations and are already Near-Ivies by my tiers.
My tiers are no more elitist than the USNews rankings.
@purpleTitan In my opinion, your output-based rankings should include graduation rates and salaries. To me, the current approach makes it look like the goal is a graduate degree, which is not true for many students.
I also think that USNews should could improve it’s results by assessing student quality through a combination of gpa and test scores. That would be much more accurate than only test scores.
If you want a college ranking system that heavily values outputs, look no further than the Economist rankings that came out several years ago.
https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/10/value-university
The stress that rankings cause outweight any benefit from it, which are not many.
I can name OTTOMH ten negatives of ranking including US News, can anyone list ten beneficial aspects of the rankings? Good luck.
I would say this is an interesting data point in terms of rankings that a lot of people ignore.