The new ones are out.
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges
53k per year for the place I went to. What a complete waste of money.
That there are five schools all ranked at #5 is a total joke. Nice showing by Columbia though – is this the highest that the school has ever been ranked (at #4)?
wtf columbia???
US News recently increased the weight they assign to graduation rates. This basically explains why all the #5 schools are ranked below Columbia this year. It’s a little bit unfair, as this penalizes schools with technical emphasis (MIT/Caltech/Stanford), or schools where students tend to stop out to pursue professional interests.
In my opinion, acceptance rates are the best indicator of university desirability. If we believe in semi-efficient markets elsewhere, why would we not believe in the same thing for university admissions? Obviously, there should be some adjustment for class size, though.
Also, NYU #33 haha.
By that logic the Indian Military Academy or AIIMS Medical college is the world’s most desirable college. 100 spots buddy. 72 for AIIMS.
Point is…acceptance rates are not nearly that relevant. You have to count the University’s other parts, apart from what 18 yr olds HS kids want…things like research productivity…quality of graduate schools…(indirectly matters for undergraduates too).
I agree with ohai
I never put much stock in overall university rankings. I pay much more attention to the rankings in a certain major or program and strength of the school’s recruiting in that program. It never made sense to me pitting a school known for liberal arts vs a pure bschool vs an engineering school.
Anyone who paid a ton of money for NYU and didn’t go one of their top ranked programs (bschool and arts I believe?) is a total idiot.
India is a different market! Indian kids just don’t have access to the financial resources or culture that will get them into US universities. Admissions policy for international students is also different. I bet if you compared admissions rates for Indian universities only, you’d see some ranking that would line up with general desirability. Similarly, you can only compare US universities with US universities. This standardizes across admissions policy, geographic and cultural barriers, etc.
Graduate research quality has questionable value to undergraduates. Princeton has pathetic graduate research in many fields compared to say… University of Michigan. But which would you rather attend for undergraduate school?
Desirability of universities to prospective undergraduates can be measured semi-objectively through measures like what US News uses. However, ultimately, prospective students care about non-measurable things:
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School name/prestige
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Future career opportunities
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Vibrant college culture
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Academic reputation in specific fields
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Location
Some of this stuff cannot be quantified objectively. However, they are implied by a “market measure”, i.e, acceptance rates.
Princeton has much better graduate programs in every field than Michigan…you’re confusing lack of professional schools for “bad graduate programs”.
On that note, it makes no sense to apply to Brown. There are better ranked schools with lower acceptance rates…
But, the lack of a graduate program implies zero research, meaning worse than a bad program. I don’t disagree that graduate programs can be useful to undergraduates - I took many graduate classes myself while at Nerd University. However, they are not as crucial to undergraduate quality as other factors. Otherwise, no one would go to liberal arts colleges like Amherst, Swarthmore, etc.
Are you serious? Princeton has awesome graduate programs. It’s top 10 in science graduate programs as well as liberal arts as well as social sciences. And uh, not that many people want to go to liberal arts colleges, outside of the very top ones like Amherst or Williams. Carleton for example is a “top 10 LAC”…no one seriously would compare it to a top 10 university.
Famous graduate programs (which are often correlated with faculty quality) inevitably strengthen the reputation of the university.
Also has Duke dropped? I always thought it was a lot higher…
seriously, can you really go wrong going to any of the ivey leagues?
i doubt princton is really that different than harvard…
damm i wish i went harvard…i would’ve been so cool…
I went to a non-Ivy with a very very low acceptance rate. It has a low acceptance rate because the candidate pool is both kids who applied to Ivies and needed a backup school, and people who were in the Michigan, Emory, Tulane range, but wanted to reach for the stars.
Point being, I would’ve rather gone to Penn despite the acceptance statistics.
My undergrad apparently takes a lot of people, but then doesn’t graduate them. Only the strong survive.
the real news here is that Blake has more than a high school degree
Maybe not. He only said he went to college, not that he actually graduated.
Clearly you missed the thread where Blake explained that his masters degree can solve the Arab Israeli conflict.
LOL
lol I missed that one too
Seriously guys, if you want to try being funny than post stuff that is true. That is comedy. Making things up isn’t funny.
As an example, Tikka’s post about doing coke and all the chicks he gets is funny. Why? First off he is Indian and Indians don’t get women. Second, bragging about doing drugs is not cool. Drugs are for losers. Third, Indians have the smallest dinks in the world. That’s a fact so we can laugh about that.
That’s good material.