Us news rankings 2011

[gadad]

<p>^^^ Why vent? The top 50 on the first page are Tier 1. The top half of the remaining ranked schools are Tier 2. The lower half of the remaining ranked schools are Tier 3. The unranked schools are Tier 4.</p>

[Brooklynborndad]

<p>"Absolutely, because you are able to ascertain your own GC’s individual level of knowledge and trust their advice accordingly. "</p>

<p>I know my GC is not an idiot. I do not know exactly how much they know about each school they suggest. and more importantly, they are one individual. There are going to be lots of schools they know little about, and several where there opinions are wrong. Individual indiosyncrasies are going to drop out over a large number of GCs.</p>

<p>Most GCs are going to make their suggestions based on what they have heard back from graduates of their HS. At my HS, there are going to only a few grads who have gone to many colleges I am interested in. It could have been a disaster for them, or a perfect fit, for personal reasons my nonidiot GC is not aware of. over a large group of non-idiot GC’s that should balance out.</p>

<p>Now if MOST GCs at USNWR top ranked HS’s are idiots, then its of course not meaningful. Are we going to go by CC gripe threads to determine that? I mean if thats a meaningful sources for GC idiocy levels, is ratemyprofessor.com really that bad?</p>

[UCBChemEGrad]

<p>

@warblers

2. It agrees with their own personal ideas of how colleges should be rated (particularly their own)

Well then I plead guilty…Imagine that; my opinion agrees with the collective opinion of ~2,000 academics.</p>

[warblersrule]

<p>

@sentimentGX4

Um, no not really. If Berkeley dropped to #70, many Californians would divert to the other UC campuses. Presuming that it was still the top UC, those with enough money will flock to better private schools…A large chunk of us can afford to go to private school but we just choose not to due to our state schools not being utterly awful.

That assumes that a drop in the US News ranking actually signifies a marked decrease in quality, which is obviously in many cases verifiably false. </p>

<p>Fortunately, we have examples to counter that assumption. In the early 1980s, Berkeley, Michigan, and UNC were ranked as high as #5, #7, and #9 in the country, respectively. All three have gradually declined over time, until Berkeley is the only one (barely) still in the top 25. This year, Michigan and UNC could do well to barely make the top 30 cut. </p>

<p>Has the popularity of these institutions declined as a result? Hardly. In fact, their popularity is booming. Applications at Michigan have increased by 140% in the last decade alone. </p>

<p>It’s true that there comes a point when publics are effectively less desirable options than their private counterparts; most of the northeastern publics are good examples of this. This has more to do with actual quality (i.e. measurable, qualitative factors) than perceived quality (i.e. USNWR rankings). To continue using Berkeley as an example, regardless of how US News ranks it, it’s pretty highly regarded and recently placed 2nd in the world in the AWRU ranking. Berkeley’s main target audience - Californians - are aware of this.</p>

[UCBChemEGrad]

<p>

In the early 1980s, Berkeley, Michigan, and UNC were ranked as high as #5, #7, and #9 in the country, respectively. All three have gradually declined over time, until Berkeley is the only one (barely) still in the top 25. This year, Michigan and UNC could do well to barely make the top 30 cut.

Let’s see if we can fix these sentences:</p>

<p>In the early 1980s, Berkeley, Michigan, and UNC were ranked as high as #5, #7, and #9 in the country, respectively. All three have gradually declined over time as USNWR has changed its ranking methodology, until Berkeley is the only one (barely) still in the top 25. This year, Michigan and UNC could do well to barely make the top 30 cut.</p>

<p>If USNWR used same methodology in the 1980s as it did today, Berkeley would be #6; Michigan would be #13 and UNC wouldn’t be too far behind.</p>

[warblersrule]

<p>^
Exactly my point. A change in methodology is not necessarily indicative of a change in quality. I think most people are aware of this, so the constant outcries over the injustices of the US News rankings (“how DARE they rank Wake Forest over Michigan?”) baffle me. Are people genuinely afraid all the Michigan residents will start applying to Wake Forest instead? :rolleyes:</p>

[fallenchemist]

<p>

@Brooklynborndad

Most GCs are going to make their suggestions based on what they have heard back from graduates of their HS. At my HS, there are going to only a few grads who have gone to many colleges I am interested in. It could have been a disaster for them, or a perfect fit, for personal reasons my nonidiot GC is not aware of. over a large group of non-idiot GC’s that should balance out.</p>

<p>Now if MOST GCs at USNWR top ranked HS’s are idiots, then its of course not meaningful. Are we going to go by CC gripe threads to determine that? I mean if thats a meaningful sources for GC idiocy levels, is ratemyprofessor.com really that bad?

</p>

<p>Ok, you totally missed my comment about population bias. At nearly every high school, there are more kids that stay in the state and in the region than not, by a fairly significant amount. That’s a fact. Therefore HSGC’s will know far more about these schools than others. Therefore colleges in the more populous areas and more populous states will benefit from this methodology more than schools in the less densely populated areas. There will be an exception or two, but not much. This is extremely unscientific and biased. Let’s put it this way, if I had proposed such a survey in my marketing MBA class, I would have gotten an F.</p>

<p>Will USNWR show the results of this section of the exercise? If they do, then we can see who answered, where they were from and how true what I am saying is. But they won’t, will they.</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>

Now if MOST GCs at USNWR top ranked HS’s are idiots, then its of course not meaningful.

</p>

<p>They aren’t idiots – but they will know more about local schools and their own flagship state u than they will schools elsewhere. So, therefore, the results will be skewed by where there is most population. More population in an area does not = schools in that area are higher quality.</p>

[seadog.overseas]

<p>Pizzagirl, that’s a hasty generalization.</p>

<p>Anyway, let’s stop arguing and someone steal one of those magazines.</p>

[fallenchemist]

<p>Oh seadog, that is not a generalization, that is just one of those extremely well known facts. Sure, at some of the elite private prep schools they know more. But the vast majority fall into the category PG and I say. These people are not just college counselors, they have to take care of numerous issues. They have less abililty to keep up with what is going on than the administrators in the colleges. Besides, if they do truly depend on feedback from former students, then it is also a very well established fact that the significant majority of nearly all high school graduates that even go to college stay within a few hundred miles. CC is not a representative picture in this regard.</p>

[jwc9397]

<p>Have any accurate leaks of the rankings come out yet?</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>It’s a hasty generalization that most HS GCs will know primarily about their own in-state or local region schools and less about schools on the other side of the country? Okey dokey. Tell me that your average HS GC in Vermont knows anything about Whitman College, or that your average HS GC in Montana knows anything about Bowdoin. It’s all highly regional. Yes, even at elite levels. The HS GC’s in NC are going to think of Duke as the top school. The GC’s in IL are going to think of Northwestern (and U of C won’t even be on their radar screen as much as it should be). The GC’s in MO are going to think of Wash U. That’s how it goes.</p>

[bahrain321]

<p>Just picked up a copy at Barnes & Noble

1. Harvard Universtiy
2. Princeton University
3. Yale University
4. Columbia
5. Stanford
6. UPenn
7. MIT
8. Caltech
9. Duke
10. Northwestern
11. Dartmouth
12. UChicago
13. Brown
14. WashU St Louis
15. Johns Hopkins
16. Cornell
17. Notre Dame
18. Emory
19. Rice
20. Vanderbilt
21. Berkeley
22. Georgetown
23. Carnegie Mellon
24. Virginia
25. UCLA
26. USC
27. Wake Forest</p>

<p>You dont have to believe it</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>Cool! Where’s that LAC list?</p>

[lesdiablesbleus]

<p>Pizzagirl,</p>

<p>You’re wrong because the GCs at the tippy-toppy elite high schools in the country like Groton, Exeter, Harvard Westlake, Andover, Dalton, TJ, MLK Magnet, etc. are very well informed about the pecking order of American universities today because they deal with dozens if not hundreds of applicants who wish to go to the top private schools in the country so they need to stay on top of any changes in the college educational landscape in order to remain an effective resource for their students.</p>

<p>Yeah, a GC in a high school in a random Chicago suburb like Oak Park may not be that knowledgeable…but those aren’t the type of GCs that the USNWR will be polling.</p>

[Sparkeye7]

<p>Good Job!! :p</p>

<p>28~50, please?</p>

[parent2noles]

<p>^If this is true, I assume we can then expect a pronounced NE US bias as usual?</p>

[Brooklynborndad]

<p>two ways to structure the survey</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Rank the school by “quality” from 1 to 5, 1 being best. If you do not know a school well enough to rank it, mark “NA”</p></li>
<li><p>Rank the school by quality from 1 to 5, with 1 being best, 5 being worst, and 3 being average. If you do not know the school well, rank it a “3”</p></li>
</ol>

<p>approach 2 would appear to be biased, unless you keep rephrasing test surveys till you get as many 4’s and 5’s as you get 1’s and 2’s.</p>

<p>I am pretty sure the GCs at my DDs HS in Va would be reluctant to rank schools where no TJ kids had ever attended, if the survey format allowed them to not rank certain schools.</p>

[noimagination]

<p>^^^^ [Calling</a> on High School Counselors for Input on America’s Best Colleges - Morse Code: Inside the College Rankings (usnews.com)](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/blogs/college-rankings-blog/2010/04/22/calling-on-high-school-counselors-for-input-on-americas-best-colleges.html]Calling”>http://www.usnews.com/blogs/college-rankings-blog/2010/04/22/calling-on-high-school-counselors-for-input-on-americas-best-colleges.html)

The high school counselors we are asking to participate are all from the nearly 1,800 U.S. public high schools nationwide that made the December 2009 U.S.News & World Report’s America’s Best High Schools rankings. One U.S. News survey to rate colleges in the national universities category is being sent to high school counselors at 900 of these America’s Best High Schools nationwide, and a separate survey to rate colleges in the liberal arts colleges category is being sent to high school counselors at the other 900 America’s Best High Schools. Each survey has a section for counselors to pick up to 20 colleges from within their high school’s region—North, South, Midwest or West—that do an excellent job educating undergraduates.

I actually think it’s a fairly good system provided that things are kept regional.</p>

[CornellPerson]

<p>Okay, I am seriously butthurt right now!!!</p>