<p>First of all, I know many of you think the ranking is BS. But for high school kids and the large pubic, it’s a pretty big factor to consider when judging which school is better.</p>
<p>And in terms of job searching, many firms do considering the ranking because there is no other easy ways for them to know what’s going on in TODAY’s world of higher education. Especially for the firms out of the US…</p>
<p>I’m a brown lover. But honestly the relatively low ranking makes it somewhat less ideal. Especial if people have the choice between say Duke/U chicago and brown. God knows how many talented students we have lost due to the stupid ranking.At least Columbia and Upenn take too much cross-admitted students than they should. There should be some ways to deal with the ranking system, USC and UPenn gamed with it very well in the last 15 years. The admission strategy may cause some lost but looking back 15 years later, it definitely made USC and UPenn better. ( In california, there is less and less people think it’s a university for spoiled children, and increasing number of people believe it may have the ability to challenge stanford in 20 years. / many applicants 15 years ago think penn is somewhat like cornell, and brown is better or at least no less than penn. But for the last few years it’s the other way around.) </p>
<p>It’s not wise to believe it’s gaming of the ranking system makes some school better, because they have done many other things to improve themselves. But I personally believe it is something worth considering.</p>
<p>No, Brown won’t do that. That’s what makes us awesome as opposed to WashU/Northwestern and whatever else. </p>
<p>Revealed preference shows that Brown loses more than half of their cross admits with Harvard (1), Yale (3), Princeton (6), Stanford (5), Caltech (2) and MIT (4). I’m sure this would happen no matter what our ranking is. </p>
<p>Brown (7) wins against Dartmouth (10), Columbia (8), Cornell (15), UChicago (28), Duke (19), UPenn (12) etc. Brown doesn’t need to game a magazine ranking to attract students. It’s attraction lies between Princeton’s and Columbia’s. That’s good enough.</p>
<p>Notice I said Brown ‘won’t’ do that. Not whether they should or whatever. They don’t care about pointless vanity. It is a community with some integrity. I think Dartmouth is pretty similar.</p>
<p>*parentheses contain the institution’s revealed preference rank.</p>
<p>Do you care about Ivy League that much? At least I don’t. How often you see a harvard kid proudly announce that he went to an Ivy league school? If you went to the so called “Ivy Summit” at Princeton last year, you would see brown kids fill up the room while there is not a lot of kids from Harvard, yale, Upenn etc</p>
<p>Only on CC would Brown’s ranking be considered “relatively low.” That’s like saying a 2350 SAT score is “relatively low.” Frankly, anyone who doesn’t apply or attend simply because of the ranking - fine with me, I’d rather they not go to Brown.</p>
<p>I really respect Brown, MIT and Stanford for not gaming the USNWR. They take a hit in the rankings, but nobody of note is fooled by those rankings.</p>
<p>To mgcsinc: All i try to do is posting a question and asking other people for their opinions. I just personally feel it’s a topic worth discussing. If you are really a Brown graduate, you should have learned how to discuss and to understand/tolerate other people’s views. If you may, write something analytical to offer your insight on the topic</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Your posts read oddly to me (misspellings, halting style, spacing problems), and you’re new. That suggests classic ■■■■■.</p></li>
<li><p>Other than Wash U., I know of no school that has substantially improved it’s real public reputation by gaming the rankings. USC and Penn are, from all I know, terrible examples.</p></li>
<li><p>The only way in which gaming the rankings (which is, by definition, improving ranking without genuinely improving the school) can improve the education that a school offers is if it allows the school to be more selective in admissions. Brown is basically already at threshold when it comes to admissions; higher rankings aren’t going to help anything.</p></li>
<li><p>Somehow you care about rankings but you couldn’t give a darn about the Ivy League cachet. That makes no sense to me.</p></li>
<li><p>The idea that employers or graduate schools in the US care one iota about the US News ranking of an applicant’s undergraduate school is pure fantasy.</p></li>
<li><p>As for foreign employers, they’re more interested either in reputation abroad (where schools like BU and Georgetown beat Brown) or ridiculous rankings that are obsessed with graduate program output (where Brown will never – and should never – be able to compete). The US News ranking plays no role abroad, and Brown’s recent emphasis on international initiatives is much more likely to have a positive impact on Brown’s reputation abroad.</p></li>
<li><p>What fireandrain said.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>^ That’s the improvement that Brown should work for. And it has, evidently. I could see the university rise in the ranks because of its over-the-top success through Boldly Brown, but even if it doesn’t, Brown isn’t at a loss. It’s made tangible improvements rather than deceptive, game-oriented ones.</p>
<p>I haven’t looked at the situation, but seems to me they would have to build up their graduate programs to get better peer assessment scores, and that might change the nature of the university a good bit.</p>
<p>How does WashU or Northwestern game the system? Conversely, how is Brown more noble than others? Please look at the rankings again to see where Brown is lacking. You can’t say other schools are gaming the system just because they are ranked higher in faculty or financial resources or whatever.</p>
<p>Sam, most top 20 universities manipulate data. NU is no exception. For example, Northwestern university only includes undergraduate students in its student to faculty ratio. Brown is one of the few private elite universities that does not do that. MIT and Stanford do not do that either.</p>
<p>WashU is notorious for doing this. I’m not sure what they do. I read that NU sent their alumni a letter to contribute more so that they could improve their USNEWS ranking. Not for some academic plan etc… but for the ranking. Apparently, USNEWS factors in alumni donations (or used to) in their rankings.</p>
<p>Brown has integrity for providing a unique college experience for its students and professors, not for changing its principals, financial policies, etc just to please the crowd (or in this case, USNews). </p>
<p>It’s an Ivy institution; it’s world renowned, it’s a beautiful campus with intellectual students and excellent professors. More so than other Ivies, Brown promotes an atmosphere of creative thinking and independence. Hence, I find it admirable and very “Brown-like” that Brown chooses not to conform to the USNews ranking system by altering its policies or, on a greater scale, its identity.</p>
<p>Brown & MIT count ALL faculty in their total. Stanford counts very much the same way as Northwestern, which EXCLUDES ~2000 faculty in the med, business, and law schools. You need to look at how they count the faculty also, not just the students. Every ratio involves TWO items. If you look at the class size distributions, they are not all that different from each other (actually Northwestern has larger fraction of small classes than Brown, believe it or not); they should have similar students:faculty ratios and magically they all do. This similarity tells me all schools feel the pressure and no one is totally immune.</p>
<p>guitarclassical,
I’d suggest you not to jump into conclusion based on one short email NU sent to alums. Alumni giving counts very little in the ranking. UConn does the same thing and the President said, "“We included it kind of for fun, just because we thought it would be nice to add some competitive spice to the appeal”. The focuse was obviously the fundraising, not the ranking. But I can see how cynics may not appreciate the humor.</p>
<p>I chose Brown over Columbia (UNEWS 4) and a bunch of other schools. I would hope that most would do the same (i.e. choose for fit amongst two equal schools). In my eyes, Brown and Columbia (and Penn + Dartmouth) are all pretty much peers. I did, however, go to a very high ranked private school in Mass with years of sending kids to the Ivies so Brown’s reputation in my eyes had been practically set in stone. I think amongst anyone who is aware of schools Brown is right after HYPS and in-line with the non-Cornell Ivies. The quality of our students and number of applications increases yearly in spite of USNEWS. However, it does frustrate me that as more students from all over the country and world are applying, people might not be as educated about colleges and might take USNEWS at its word. </p>
<p>I love Brown’s laid back approach. If you read the Penn or Columbia board its always about rankings and minor prestige differences. Brown students seem beyond this, they already know how great of a school we are and that’s that. But in all honestly I wish we played the USNEWS game a little better, its sadly good for the institution overall.</p>
<p>Obviously so. Since the ranking is “worse” than the selectivity, people who are at that selectivity level but think rankings are highly important would not choose to attend. Leaving its student population to be more highly populated by those who are less so attuned (aka “beyond this”).</p>
<p>Brown is a very solid school, but no amount of “gaming” will substantively increase its image/rank relative to other top universities (USNWR) or top liberal arts colleges (Forbes, WSJ, etc.), as it really is not on a par with many of those institutions with regard to renown of faculty, research, resources (endowment) or peer assessment. It is selective with respect to percentage of admits, but this largely reflects the popularity of the school among high school students and the fact that those who think the “Ivy League” is magic tend to shot-gun applications to all of them, and are less likely to automatically apply to some largely self-selective intellectual powerhouses such as Chicago, CalTech.</p>