How We Calculate the College Rankings

Do not question the rankings

There is really no reason to question the methodology of the rankings. Whenever an outsider, for whatever reason, must judge a university, that outsider will, more often than not, refer to nothing other than the US News rankings, making those rankings the be all end all of a college education. It is really irrelevant how the rankings are formed; in fact, the rankings could be generated based solely on past years' rankings, or the average bank statements of students enrolled, while the students are required of nothing more than paying their tuition and receiving a degree in return. At the end of the day, it's nothing more than a status symbol. In the middle ages, there was land--in the 21st century, Harvard.

brand name..?

Guys gimme a clue on how much the name of the university helps us in getting an offer letter after master course completion...if we leave alone top league univ..lets say amongst univs

ranked more than 60..is it logical to say that name of the univ hardly matters.?

Im kinda stuck choosing the univ for my masters :s

Thanks.

Accurate?

I question the accuracy and even the editing of the U.S. News, college rankings. While reviewing colleges I noticed in several instances that colleges that had as high as a 97% acceptance rate were rated "less selective" and some colleges with 70-75% acceptance rates were rated "least selective" does this make any sense? Also I was surprised to see that many SUNY schools here in the Northeast area that are/were known "party hard schools" with mediocre at best academics about 10+ years ago are now rated Tier 1 schools? I know that it is possible that theses institutions did make major turnarounds. It does seem that there are now a massive number of so-called tier 1 schools now with their new rating parameters (the elimination of Tier 2). Another thought if you (US News) eliminated tier 2, why not eliminate tier 3 and tier 4 using your same logic and just have your top tier and your bottom tier? The rating system is certainly better than nothing and the top schools (ivy league and those close behind) are represented here. However I have less faith in many of the other school ratings, and endowments are given too much weight. I realize that larger school endowments do represent alumni satisfaction or perhaps affluence to an extent, I disagree that they are necessarily an indicator of a quality educational program. That being said I think there should be more emphasis on smaller class sizes and student to teacher ratios, which is certainly conducive to an ideal learning environment.

http://goacta.org/

You really think their methodology is superior? Someone with an 8th grade education could look at the two methodologies and figure out the Goacta method (which is comprised of scouring course offerings and requirements on universities' websites) is heavily lacking compared to US News's methods. In fact, Goacta method is so ridiculous, I'm almost compelled to believe it's objective is political, since there appears to be a bias favoring public universities. Goacta gives Harvard, Cornell, and Rice F grades.

Poor Methodology

Before accepting the USNews college ranking methodology, take a look at the very different methodology and rationale of The American Council of Trustees and Alumni and their "What Will They Learn" study: http://goacta.org/ I think you'll find some compelling reasons to choose their ranking system over the one from USNews.

go blue

go blue

Arkansas

ourkansas neva learnded nothin at collodge

Arkansas

Arkansas is the best college i ever went to so please try to put Arkansas as number 1

Arkansas

Arkansas is the best college i ever went to so please try to put Arkansas as number 1

phd in marketing management

i want to done phd in marketing management andand what isrequired in that test i want to know about which test.