<p>Many of the rankings have changed now, 2 weeks after the last post on this thread. For example, Texas State Technical College now is at 143, not 94. Columbia and U Penn have moved up (a little). </p>
<p>Granted, there are still many oddities in these rankings (including the Columbia and Penn positions). It looks to me as if somebody jumped the gun on publishing this thing, so the quality control suffered. Follow the link to the full entry for Middlebury, whose total cost is listed at $3,250. Gee, do you think there’s any chance that’s correct? Is there still time to apply?</p>
<p>That said, this is a very interesting resource. The full records for each college contain a wealth of information that you don’t find elsewhere, not even in the common data set documents. For instance, if you care about “diversity”, you can get a breakdown of race/ethnic distribution by major. The detailed faculty salary data may be informative to some people, too, though as somebody pointed out it’s not clear how this might be adjusted for local cost of living.</p>
<p>But notice among the top ranked schools how little difference there is, in some of the most important factors, between schools ranked 20 or more points apart. Colorado College (number 40) has a retention rate of 94% , a student ratio of 11:1, and selectivity of 32%. Wesleyan (number 17) has a retention of 95% , student ratio of 9:1, and selectivity of 28%. If those numbers are at all accurate, it goes to show that “objective” rankings (by themselves) provide a rather slim basis for distinguishing schools within a narrow peer group. If you have strong feelings about the weather, the geographic location, or some other feature that is not ranked (and perhaps can’t be ranked), then these may be worth a lot more in your personal assessment than small differences in the features that are ranked.</p>