Posted on 09/10/2013 11:22:55 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
U.S. News & World Report released its college rankings at midnight and, as usual, there was no suspense in which university was crowned No. 1.
During this annual autumn rite, Harvard University sometimes grabs the No. 1 spot and in other years Princeton does. Last year both shared the title. For the 2014 rankings, Princeton came out on top.
In reaction to the criticism that mars this annual collegiate beauty pageant, U.S. News once again tinkered with its college rankings methodology. The rankings goliath gave less weight to class rank, which fewer high schools are reporting. On the other hand, U.S. News put more weight on ACT and SAT scores, which are correlated by family income.
Despite these cosmetic changes, here are five reasons why you should ignore this year's college rankings:
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Why don’t we just declare ALL colleges “Number One?” After all, isn’t that the fairest thing to do? /sarc
Funny that SAT/ACT scores correlate to family income as if that doesn’t pretty much validate the genetic component to intelligence.
Shocking: Smart people(generally) have smart kids who go to ‘good’ schools and get good jobs that pay well. Rinse. Repeat.
Now this for me, is so true...
#4 U.S. News runs a beauty pageant.
A major factor in the rankings is what everybody else thinks about each other.
Three administrators at each of the institutions in the national university category, for instance, must assess what they think about all their peers on a one-to-five grading scale. What do administrators at UCLA and Notre Dame, however, know about what’s going on at the University of Texas, Oregon State or the University of South Florida?
The deck is already stacked in favor of those that have the oldest “reputation”.
In light of the current student loan/debt crisis, this factor is often overlooked:
The rankings, don’t reward schools that graduate students who find solid employment. In fact, U.S. News doesn’t even ask about employment success.
Which one has a better track record getting their graduates jobs? I would predict Harvard! Harvard really should be number one IMHO.
If you want job placement success immediately after graduation, may I present to you, that outstanding conservative college that does NOT take a cent from the Federal governmennt— Grove City College.
Grove City College achieved a 96% placement rate for students from its Class of 2012. This, in a year that is still very bad for recent college grads.
See here: http://businessjournaldaily.com/education/grove-city-college-places-96-2012-grads-2013-2-12
Hillsdale didn’t make the cut of the top 50 on this list, wonder why?
For me, this is the most devastating critique:
“U.S. News fixates on how selective a school is. It focuses on the academic caliber of a school’s freshmen, not on what happens once students arrive at their schools. That’s like judging a hospital by how sick the patients are when they arrive. Are schools doing an excellent job of educating their charges or do they fail? U.S. News sure doesn’t know and doesn’t attempt to find out.”
Stupid article. Good for schools that provide merit scholarships. That means they are rewarding hard work and the likelihood of success at college.
Students have NEVER (as a whole....there may be an odd exception) looked at a college to see what job prospects they provide. They do look at party life, athletics, subjects taught, and other things.
This article is confused and scattered in its analysis. it presumes that all people should go to college and that college somehow by itself makes your life better. Both are incorrect. What you study matters more than where. Not all people should be college educated though it is nice if everyone is well read.
So overall I rate this a big bleeeech
Cool. I never would know about this school had it not been for FR. My Nephew wants to go to Notre Dame...were huge Catholic Family. He is 16 so has a little time. I will suggest Grove City to him (as long as it is not a Religious school as his parents will NEVER allow him to go to a non Catholic College except for a public university that does not have non catholic classes. Old fashioned family I suppose. lol.
Got it.
RE: as long as it is not a Religious school as his parents will NEVER allow him to go to a non Catholic College except for a public university
I got bad news for you... Grove city College is loosely associated with the Presbyterian Church. The college is non-denominational and does not require students to sign a statement of faith, though they are required to attend sixteen chapel services per semester.
See here for an introduction:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grove_City_College
ps
You could have saved me some time by posting the conclusion to the article.
What do you want to bet that graduates of the top (say top 15-20) schools have landed decent jobs?
It’s the middle of the road and (worse) diploma mill grads who have to worry about employment prospects and/or those who choose truly worthless majors (which reflects in itself a certain intelligence deficit).
What the article writer fails to mention is that the “top” private schools (or most of them) do, in fact, cover with grants (not loans) all financial need of admitted students.
The biggest improvement that the assessment could make is to provide an estimate of "Net dollars above expected future income per dollar spent at this college." This would be easy to determine based on the expected incomes of particular SAT scores (which correlate highly with intelligence, which correlate highly with income.) I'm willing to bet real money that you'd find many of the big name schools would actually have negative results in this area. If you also broke that down by major, you'd find very large negative and positive net results per educational dollar at the same school for different fields of study. No surprise there either, but it might bring home the stark reality of how "useful" a philosophy or Wimmins Studies degree is.
I'm pleasantly surprised to see colleges paying increasingly for quality students. There was virtually no merit-based money available when I started my undergraduate career in 1973.
“If you want job placement success immediately after graduation, may I present to you, that outstanding conservative college that does NOT take a cent from the Federal governmennt— Grove City College.”
Hillsdale College as well. http://www.hillsdale.edu/
“Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, United States, is a co-educational liberal arts college known for being the first American college to prohibit in its charter all discrimination based on race, religion, or sex;[2] for its refusal to accept government funding; and for its monthly publication, Imprimis, with a circulation of over 2.6 million.[3] National Review has described Hillsdale as a “citadel of American conservatism.”...”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsdale_Dales#Athletics
RE: the “top” private schools (or most of them) do, in fact, cover with grants (not loans) all financial need of admitted students.
NYU’s tuition plus board is now close to $60,000/year.
A family earning a little over $100,000 a year will probably get $30,000 in grants.
They’ll still need another $30,000 to afford the school.
RE: You could have saved me some time by posting the conclusion to the article.
Here is the last praragraph of the article:
Bottom Line: With all its flaws and its harmful impact on college behavior, why is anyone still paying attention to these college rankings?
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