How to Use the Rankings Wisely
Reader Comments
Horrible
Rankings should not encourage or discourage a person from attending a particular school. Information such as acceptance percentages, freshmen retention percentages, ACT/ SAT I scores, I am a class of 2009 graduate and have been through the college selection process. A school should be selected because it is academically suitable and socially a good fit. There are many other third party websites that contain more, and better, information.
There is not even an example of how the ranking system works. The website does no suitably explain how they numerically rank each school. There should be an objective ranking system. For information on how well alumni liked their school, look at the alumni giving rates of the schools in which one is interested. The higher the giving rate, the more alumni liked the school. (not to mention the more successful they were after they graduated.)
Pure Crap
These are some the worst rankings I have ever seen. There is no overall ranking whatsoever. Would much rather spend my money on useful rankings such as WSJ, Businesweek or the Financial Times.
Excellent Source
I have 1 daughter who graduated in 2007. I have another who will graduate in 2010. I bought this in 2008 - I WISH I'd known about it sooner...if I'd seen the freshman retention rate on the college my older daughter picked, perhaps I could have guided toward a better choice.
Most everything I've wanted to know could be found here. And if I needed more information, the college website was easy to access. Nothing is a substitute for visiting the campus but there are criteria that I can determine here to encourage or discourage my 2nd daughter in her choice!
waste of money
waste of my 15 bucks. no overall ranking system regardless of category. no overall ranking even of the categories i choose. finally , no overall search engine to find a school. next year i will be trying a different college ranking system for my next child. this was a whole lot to do about nothing. please dont donate any of my 15 dollars to the obama campaign.
tuition
is the tuition listed per year or semester?
ranking
I wish you would give several specific college/university examples! I was trying to learn how to interpret the rankings. For example, University of Kentucky was tier I and believe it was ranked 117 and this may have been for its graduate program. Rankings need to be better clarified by undergraduate, graduate programs and further breakdown in each program by degrees. Often a college can excel in one degree program and meet minimum requirements in another program.
No, I did not learn how to interpret the rankings.
where does west point military academy stand in the latest rankings
where does army and navy fit in the latest college rankings
Tier 2 disappears?
What happened to Tier II?
It looks like those "nat'l" universities are now all "Tier 1"—sort of like "my child is a superstar at ______ Elementary."
Or is that a mistake? In the past, all 51 and below were Tier 2, and now we go to Tier 3. Please give details in the introduction to the section.
The poster who wants discipline area rankings is so right. Knowing which are the best in their fields would be really helpful.
Rankings
You need to look at specific programs within a school (e.g., the Honors Program). Also, what college is costing these days -you have many students who were accepted into you top ranked schools that were not offered scholarships and did not qualify for any unsubsidized loans to schools that cost $50K a year. These students, whose parents cannot afford $50K per years, are now going to lower ranked schools, with scholarships in the Honors Programs.
