<p>appears UVA has dropped down to the 23 range, which is still great, but used to be in the 16-18 range before. any ideas on what happened and why? Also, Biz week listed Mcintire as the 2nd best undergrad biz, but other surveys dont have it in top 10. whats up with that?</p>
<p>It comes down to the criteria that US News uses. It’s changed over the years, which has caused some colleges to move up and down. In more recent years, financial resources has become a big part of a school’s ranking, which automatically hurts public schools with less money than highly endowed universities like Harvard and Yale. </p>
<p>Furthermore, US News’ undergraduate ranking was created w/ the assumption that Harvard, Yale, and Princeton are the best and thus uses criteria that enforces that. As I’ve mentioned before, if US News used criteria that are also important to so many students such as “best buy”, financial aid, student quality of life, and sports, many of the Top 10/20 schools would not be as highly ranked.</p>
<p>Does it matter?</p>
<p>I agree w/ Cavalier302. In the grand scheme of things, you shouldn’t base your choice of schools on rankings since they can never capture all the great aspects of the various colleges that make them unique and special. Plus, rankings can be very biased depending on which ranking you use.</p>
<p>no, but it is interesting it dropped and I’d like to know why. Since i am spending 120k to send my kid there, i want to know as much as I can</p>
<p>For one thing, that’s not a significant drop. Rankings aren’t perfect or authoritative. By nature, they are based on arbitrary calculations and methodologies. Clearly, they are useful, and, for the most part, they rank schools about where they should be. UVA might have been ranked as high as 17th in the mid 1990’s, but its fall to the 20’s isn’t due to any drop in educational quality. </p>
<p>If you’re interested in reading more about the calculation of USNews rankings, check out this site:</p>
<p><a href=“http://thecenter.ufl.edu/usnews.html[/url]”>http://thecenter.ufl.edu/usnews.html</a></p>
<p>We come up short when it comes to faculty salaries and spending per student. The big time privates have much, much more money to put into those areas.</p>
<p>UVa is still the second highest ranked public university in the nation. If UVa suddenly dropped into the 30-40s, then I’d think there would be reason for concern. </p>
<p>Last year UVa was tied for 20th and this year it’s tied for 23rd. How does US News differentiate between a school ranked 20th vs 23rd? I seriously doubt they could even tell you exactly why. </p>
<p>IMO, US News rankings are for water-cooler bragging rights. Sure, it has an impact on future applicants, and job opportunities, but it hardly determines what the college experience will be like.</p>
<p>I think the rankings should be done in groups. It would 99% of the bickering.</p>
<p>spicoli, they’re not supposed to predict what the college experience will be like. For uninformed applicants, though, they give an idea of how various schools compare to each other. They’re useful. USNews should have groups. I’d group UVA in the second or third group back from the top.</p>
<p>I believe that UVA’s business school is Draden not McIntire. Then again I could be wrong :/.</p>
<p>Yeah Darden is the business school, but McIntire is the undergrad business which is what those rankings were about.</p>
<p>If anything, the criteria used by USN&WR help prop UVA above schools like Michigan, which are arguably better overall.</p>
<p>Better at the graduate level, yes.</p>
<p>Agreed… Michigan’s graduate programs are far better than U.Va.'s, however, the strength of U.Va.'s undergraduate program carries its weight, and thus, for those looking for an Undergraduate institution, should understand that the Undergraduate program at the University of Virginia rivals those of top insititutions.</p>
<p>In addition, things that cannot be calculated by USN&W, such as phenomenal faculty-student interaction, freshman experience, student involvement, overwhelming undergraduate research opportunities, being in the best city to live in in america, home to a World Heritage sight, student appreciation of the university, job placement, volunteerism etc… all make it an incredible place. In the end, the University of Virginia would continue to be a prestigious University if it weren’t even included in the rankings.</p>
<p>I would not accept overly broad contention that Michigan’s graduate programs are “far better” than UVA’s. In law and business, for example, U.S. News ranks them as virtually tied (both 8th for law, MI 11th and VA 13th for business). In most other disciplines, Michigan is higher, but not universally so by any means; UVA is substantially higher in architecture, for example.</p>
<p>I was reffering to the graduate school programs… not professional schools like law, business, medicine, architecture… which U.Va. does really well in.</p>