<p>[ARWU</a> 2009](<a href=“http://www.arwu.org/ARWU2009.jsp]ARWU”>http://www.arwu.org/ARWU2009.jsp)</p>
<p>And the Forbes magazine rankings…its crazy. I know Brown is very prestigious and amazing. So why this? It bothers me that Brown doesn’t seem to have the consistency as other top universities that rank high in various rankings, not just the US News.</p>
<p>Know who’s not on those rankings? Dartmouth. For the same reason Brown’s very low: We’re not a large school with a big graduate program producing a ton of articles and patents. These international rankings rank primarily on quantity, not quality of undergraduate education. While it might matter that your college produces a lot of research, it doesn’t when the comparison is Berkeley vs. Brown, without taking into account Berkeley’s size and graduate population. If you had research on a per professor basis, Brown would move up. If you had research dollars spent on undergraduates, or % of undergraduates in research positions, Brown would be near the top. But we’re a university-college, meaning teaching and an undergraduate education is important, too.</p>
<p>Its a rankings of Universities, not undergraduate. What matters for undergraduates is undergraduate rank, not overall University rank. Brown undergrad is one of the top schools in the country.</p>
<p>Of all the philosophies on education, none could be diametrical opposites like Chinese and Brown’s. If you really care what Brown ranks on Shanghai Jio Tong(sounds very stupid just saying it) then you will not understand the meaning of an education. No rankings matter… least of all these. The only that matters a bit is how well known is the school (for jobs and all, I guess… it’s not a perfect system) for that, Brown’s an Ivy. That means something. It’s not HYP though. Rankings only matter for silly high-schoolers who are looking for some authority to lift their self esteem… which is just lame.</p>
<p>Guitarclassical is exactly right. The Shanghai Jiao Tong ranking system is a bunch of crap. I study Chinese and have many Chinese friends, but I believe the Chinese attitude towards university education could not be more different than the American one. For starters, many in China make decisions solely based on these ranking and on USWNR. I’ve had Chinese friends who have gone down the list until they reach 15 schools and then applying, telling each school its their first choice. Similarly, my Chinese teacher after writing my letter of recommendation asked me “Why isn’t a student like you applying to Harvard instead of Brown?”. Though this perception of Brown as a “lower-tier ivy” is slowly changing due to Brown’s falling admit rate, these rankings are superficial and full of crap.</p>
<p>Rankings have a place; applying them blindly does not.</p>
<p>As mentioned, the methodology for these rankings are based on nobel prizes, fields metals, and papers produced. I get the impression that such a rating would only be loosely tied to quality of undergraduate education.</p>
<p>As far as Forbes, the question is…what are they rating? Reading over their methodology, I actually think it makes sense, but it’s not giving quality of education. This is what really caught my eye:
</p>
<p>These ratings seem to be more related to value than education. West Point, with no monetary cost, essentially got that 20% for free. Brown Financial Aid is alright, but all things being equal, schools with lower costs will incur less debt.</p>
<p>As far as each of their methodologies go, Brown is perfectly placed. It’s just when these get called “Best colleges” lists that we have to stand back and say “what does ‘best’ mean?”</p>
<p>If the rating were “I got into Harvard Law” or got into a top med school or top job then Brown is easily top 8. I care about this, i.e. UNDERGRAD reputation.</p>
<p>admitone- I agree that Brown students are a strong group but there are many
many universities with strong students. It would certainly be interesting to know
some more details about what happens to these students after their undergraduate studies.
It would be interesting to know how many students have gone to
Harvard Law in the last 5 years
Yale Law in the last 5 years
etc. </p>
<p>The same for Medical schools.</p>
<p>I would be interested to know where
Physics majors, Chemists and mathematicians have gone on to graduate school.
This would perhaps give us some insight into the interests of Brown students.</p>
<p>Does anyone have this type of information?</p>
<p><a href=“Office of Institutional Research | Brown University”>Office of Institutional Research | Brown University;
<p>
I recently calculated rankings/lists of that using a simple formula (# of law students / arts & sciences enrollment x 10,000). Here’s the lists down to around Brown, using the most recent five years of data available from each law school.</p>
<p>Harvard Law
<p>Yale Law
<p>Harvard
2006/2007
1) Harvard 362.1
2) Yale 215.6
3) Stanford 129.5
4) Amherst 108.9
5) Columbia 108.4
6) Cornell 107.6
7) Princeton 107.0
8) Penn 89.3
9) Williams 83.7
10) Dartmouth 83.4
**11) Brown 82.1**
12) Duke 78.8 </p>
<p>2005/2006
1) Harvard 348.6
2) Yale 240.3
3) Stanford 149.2
4) Princeton 128.8
5) Duke 105.8
6) Columbia 103.7
7) Cornell 95.6
8) Amherst 91.7
**9) Brown 87.2**
10) Penn 83.1
11) Dartmouth 73.9
12) Williams 64.0</p>
<p>2004/2005
1) Harvard 357.6
2) Yale 207.9
3) Stanford 147.5
4) Princeton 142.7
5) Columbia 117.8
6) Duke 113.5
7) Cornell 105.2
**8) Brown 88.9**
9) Amherst 86.0
10) Dartmouth 81.0
11) Williams 78.7
12) Penn 75.2</p>
<p>2003/2004
1) Harvard 321.6
2) Yale 190.8
3) Duke 138.5
4) Princeton 134.7
5) Columbia 124.9
6) Stanford 116.4
7) Cornell 110.0
**8) Brown 85.5**
9) Amherst 74.5
10) Williams 73.8
11) Penn 72.1
12) Dartmouth 57.2</p>
<p>2002/2003
1) Harvard 284.0
2) Yale 192.7
3) Duke 134.6
4) Columbia 134.3
5) Princeton 122.8
6) Cornell 112.3
7) Stanford 101.6
8) Amherst 97.5
9) Dartmouth 88.2
**10) Brown 85.5**
11) Williams 73.8
12) Penn 69.0
Yale
2009/2010
1) Yale 156.4
2) Harvard 93.2
3) Columbia 61.3
4) Stanford 59.0
5) Williams 44.3
6) Swarthmore 40.8
7) Amherst 34.4
**8) Brown 34.2**
9) Princeton 33.7
10) Dartmouth 33.4 </p>
<p>2008/2009
1) Yale 156.4
2) Harvard 99.2
3) Columbia 70.7
4) Williams 54.1
5) Stanford 54.1
6) Amherst 51.6
7) Swarthmore 47.6
8) Princeton 47.6
9) Dartmouth 35.7
**10) Brown 29.1**</p>
<p>2007/2008
1) Yale 148.8
2) Harvard 118.7
3) Princeton 61.4
4) Stanford 60.1
5) Williams 59.1
6) Amherst 51.6
7) Columbia 49.5
8) Dartmouth 38.1
9) Swarthmore 34.0
**10) Brown 22.2**</p>
<p>2006/2007
1) Yale 164.1
2) Harvard 133.7
3) Stanford 68.9
4) Princeton 67.4
5) Williams 59.1
6) Amherst 51.6
7) Columbia 42.4
8) Swarthmore 40.8
9) Dartmouth 31.0
**10) Brown 29.1**</p>
<p>2005/2006
1) Yale 162.2
2) Harvard 141.2
3) Williams 68.9
4) Stanford 65.6
5) Princeton 57.5
6) Amherst 51.6
7) Swarthmore 34.0
8) Columbia 33.0
9) Dartmouth 23.8
10) Duke 23.1
11) Wesleyan 21.8
**12) Brown 20.5**
</p>
<p>Re the law school admissions stuff: It’s important to remember about selection bias.</p>
<p>This might also be of interest to people: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/760585-mean-lsat-scores-top-universities.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/760585-mean-lsat-scores-top-universities.html</a></p>
<p>Thanks warblersrule. Can you tell me where you found the data so that I can find similar data for other law schools. Thanks again</p>
<p>Thanks also mgcsinc. Also interesting and gives another glimpse of students. Interesting to see how well the MIT students did. Very high score given that they are spending so much time on math and science and have had less time to spend working on skills likely to help them score high on LSAT test. Of course there might not be that many MIT students taking the test.</p>
<p>Actually, math and science students do better on the LSAT than a lot of others: [Average</a> LSAT Scores for 29 Majors with over 400 Students Taking the Exam](<a href=“http://www.uic.edu/cba/cba-depts/economics/undergrad/table.htm]Average”>Business | University of Illinois Chicago) . I think they make better law students.</p>
<p>ARWU ranks universities according to research output, particularly in Engineering and the Sciences. Brown is not exactly a powerhouse in this regard. </p>
<p>The Forbes ranking, like all other rankings they produce, is a joke. </p>
<p>Any ranking of universities that does not have Brown in or around the top 15 is flawed.</p>
<p>^Those are some strong opinions you got there for a Super Moderator. But I’ll believe you. ;)</p>
<p>I deal in facts, not opinions John! hehe!</p>
<p>The Wall Street Journal ranked top feeder colleges to elite professional schools; the top five were: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and Williams (Brown was #12, 2 slots below Swarthmore). Hope this helps.</p>
<p>Alexandre- How about a ranking of engineering programs?
How about a ranking of the chemistry graduate program?
Is political science a top program?</p>
<p>There are probably many rankings that would rank Brown or any other school
below the top 15.</p>
<p>Brown is a fine undergraduate program and has a strong graduate school.
However there are many many more than 15 fine undergraduate programs!
Many could argue that they should be in the top 15 for one reason or another.</p>
<p>Warblersrule I think you might be using the wrong numbers for Columbia. Most often when Yale/ Harvard put out figures they add in SEAS, GS, and sometimes even Barnard. The number of Columbia undergrads should be over 6-7000.</p>
<p>Twocollege, I was referring to the overall quality of Brown as an undergraduate institution. Obviously, people with their hearts set on being hardcore Engineering or majoring in Business, Brown should not even be considered.</p>