<p>^^Oh oh. Some of the mighty will be falling. If only it were true!</p>
<p>By the way everyone, PABank is a ■■■■■ on this thread, first claiming he’s heard from several sources that MIT will be 1st this year, then innocently asking whether anyone has heard of this, and now exciting over it as if it were true.</p>
<p>^Yeah, I know. In plenty of threads, he randomly comes in and bashes schools for no apparent reason. Just ignore him.</p>
<p>"To try and make an example for you, defend for me that having 25% of the ranking be peer review. "</p>
<p>okay, yeah.</p>
<p>But how robust is the USNWR methodology, at least wrt to the top 5 schools? suppose you modified the weights. Or just dropped admit ratio entirely. Or added yield or GC assessment as some say they will do. Would HYP fall that far? </p>
<p>To move them really far down, you have to do something like Forbes, and introduce elements based on a radically different approach to ranking. </p>
<p>I don’t use USNWR to judge schools close to each other in the rankings. Each metric is too gameable, the weights are too arbitrary, and fit is more important than the differences the measure. But when I want an intro to a school I have never heard of or no nothing about, I find them quite useful, in giving me some context.</p>
<p> August 17th <thread></thread></p>
<p>Well, I suppose anything that helps one look at a school is a good thing, if it is one you might never have noticed. On the other hand, you must have seen on here how many really great schools get tossed aside because they are not ranked “high enough”. This is sometimes more of a problem with parents than kids! When I was looking, pre-ranking days, I just devoured one of those huge guides and narrowed my list based on factors important to me. It worked for me, anyway, Tulane was a superb fit.</p>
<p>Of course HYP won’t change much unless one has a very particular measuring system for what makes a great school. But one doesn’t need a USNWR to tell you that. My point is that does ranking #25, or #67, really mean anything? Even if, and this is a huge if for me anyway, one were to agree that one could measure how “good” a school is, we cannot know that USNWR has it right just because HYP come out on top. You make that point very nicely, since they are likely relatively insensitive to major changes in the factors and their weighting, although I haven’t done any analysis to confirm that, and never will. But even if that is so, it could very likely be decidedly different for schools at #15 and below, or #25 and below. Who knows.</p>
<p>I guess I only disagree with your last statement, that it gives you context. Context relative to what? That they are below HYP? You already knew that. After that, I remain unconvinced it tells you much of anything, especially with 25% of the score being peer review, a notoriously biased and unreliable method for ranking huge numbers of anything, like songs, movies, and in this case, colleges. People love to do it, but it means little other than like you said, you might see a movie on the list you were not so familiar with so you look into it.</p>
<p>IMO peer review can actually be very important. Especially in a competitive employment world.</p>
<p>somebody post a top 50 prediction</p>
<p>“That they are below HYP? You already knew that. After that, I remain unconvinced it tells you much of anything, especially with 25% of the score being peer review, a notoriously biased and unreliable method for ranking huge numbers of anything, like songs, movies, and in this case, colleges”</p>
<p>I wasnt talking about the schools just below HYP so much. When we were discussing High Point, or we hear a friends kid when to Indiana U of Penn, or someplace like that, we arent going to spend the time doing deep research on it ourselves, but it helps to place it by broad tier, for which I have found it generally accurate. </p>
<p>In terms of college search we never used it to rule out a college. Instead it was useful to rule in colleges - when DW got all panicky about a proposed safety or low match, I pointed out the USNWR being not as low as she expected, which reassured her. </p>
<p>Our DD got into RPI, Case, and Lehigh, and applied to Lafayette, URoch, Tulane, Swat, WUSTL, and List/Columbia. We visited all but WUSTL, Tulane and Swat. I think we studied those colleges in some depth (esp the ones we visited). I can’t say I think USNWR was an order of magnitude off for them (except maybe Tulane and WUSTL, and even those not THAT far off) </p>
<p>I think the assesment of colleges by other colleges is about the best non stats (in the narrower sense) measure. At least equal to GC assesment, better than assessment by any other demographic I can think of (and that would included employers - as witness the Design Intel rankings of Arch schools, based on a survey of arch firms, which from all I have read have a much looser relationship to the actual education going on at those schools then USNWR rankings)</p>
<p>nothingto - You must not understand what peer review is when it comes to USNWR rankings.</p>
<p>"My point is that does ranking #25, or #67, really mean anything? "</p>
<p>as it happens, 25 is UVA and 67 is UConn. </p>
<p>I would say if one were to draw the conclusion that UVA is A. More selective B. Has more prestige among most constituencies and C. Has a more intense, challenging intellectual atmosphere one probably would not be far off. You could figure that out in other ways, but if you just want a quick check, its useful. I would guess that in most such matches (between schools more than 25 places apart, and comparable types of institutions - in this case two state flagships) its pretty good. Where it gets much less useful is A. Comparing schools within a few places of each other and B. comparing schools that are dramatically different kinds of institutions - public vs private, big vs small, liberal artsy vs tech school, etc. </p>
<p>In those later case its also rather less likely that selectivity, prestige, and intellectual atmosphere will correlate so well. </p>
<p>And I agree, that doesnt make a school “good” in all cases. There are many factors to consider OTHER than selectivity, prestige (and of course many think that shouldnt matter at all) and intellectual atmosphere. And of course even those things can vary by department, and can be different in an honors college or other select program. Again, I wouldnt use those rankings when deciding “should I go to college A or college B”. But when you are say, trying to select the twenty or so colleges to send transcripts to (you can call that large, we had a hard time narrowing it down that far by the deadline) USNWR is helpful as ONE factor.</p>
<p>Fallen, peer review is opinions from a diverse number of fields, giving and ranking Universities. It’s only 25% of the ranking tally. If many businessman ranks Notre Dame better then another college, Notre Dame most likely has a better Business and Job Potential then the other college behind it.</p>
<p>As I said, it can also be useful.</p>
<p>" The peer assessment survey allows the top academics we consultpresidents, provosts, and deans of admissionsto account for intangibles such as faculty dedication to teaching."</p>
<p>nothingto–</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2009/08/19/how-we-calculate-the-college-rankings.html[/url]”>http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2009/08/19/how-we-calculate-the-college-rankings.html</a></p>
<p>fallen let me give an example.</p>
<p>We live in Va. A friend of ours recently said her D should have applied to UVA-Wise, cause its easier to get into than UVA-Charlottesville, and offers the same education. Had she spent 5 minutes consulting the USNWR rankings, she would not have sounded so foolish.</p>
<p>I really hope USNEWS follow these rankings: I believe they’re very indicative of “lay prestige” seen by the people if that’s what you want USNEWS to reflect.
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/2885267-post115.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/2885267-post115.html</a></p>
<p>Top 15</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
</ol>
<h2>5. MIT</h2>
<ol>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>Caltech</li>
</ol>
<h2>11. UPenn</h2>
<ol>
<li>Rice</li>
<li>UChicago</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Northwestern</li>
</ol>
<p>^Quite indicative of lay prestige, which means it’s bull crap.</p>
<p>When is the new edition coming out?</p>
<p>^ 16 days later.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not to split hairs, but UVA is #24.</p>