How We Calculate the College Rankings

University of Guam

I think the University of Guam is better than Harvard University.

what

why harvard is always the best...may be it pays all the money of the college rankings...this is not honest there may be some politics and adverts in the decision.

categorizing

Why do you do the masters by regions when the two other categories are rank as a complete group across the US.

It does not allow one to really compare the master group in the same way one can the other groups, and is confusing.

Please rank them each as a complete group nationally.

E Campbell

Cost

10 young men a year can cut their 4-year college costs in half by attending Deep Springs College -- free -- and then transferring to a four-year college for their junior and senior year. Deep Springs students have transferred to Harvard, Cornell, Stanford, Cal and many other prestigious universities. And while at Deep Springs they get unparalleled access to faculty, tiny classes, self government and a unique educational experience.

Methodology? Your joking, right?

As I suspected, your methodology is heavily slanted toward subjective input that may or may not have any true value, i.e. " The peer assessment survey allows the top academics we consult—presidents, provosts, and deans of admissions—to account for intangibles such as faculty dedication to teaching". This represents 25% of the total score. Faculty dedication to teaching? What does that mean and why does it matter?

Re: Brand Name

I used to be the senior Network Engineer at one of the largest law firms in the world; as such I had access to the management, including hiring directors. They would only hire the top students from the top law schools (with the highest salaries in the industry). In that case, brand name mattered. My wife is an engineer (from a great school), and she can also relate stories where the university people attended mattered (didn't have to be top 10, but a highly reputable ones helps). My cousin is a doctor (from a top school as well), and she saw as well that the schools attended did play a role in getting a good residency.

I would try and stay with the top 50. Higher if possible.

But in the end, if you are brilliant, then it doesn't matter which school you attend. You will be sought after no matter what.

Hope this helps.

specific methodology criticized

To give a lot of credit (16% of the total) for a high graduation rate makes Harvard look "better" than Caltech, which is simply a HARDER school. Is easier better? NIMO.

To give significant credit (5%) for a high alumni-giving rate favors schools that put a lot of resources into soliciting alumni giving. I have degrees from three institutions. One solicits never (maybe they lost me); another solicits about four times a year; Harvard solicits about every two weeks. Maybe USNews should divide the alumni-giving rate by the number of solicitations per year!

Peer reviews 25%? Seems likely to provide "inertia" in the rankings. A school undergoing REAL improvements or REAL deterioration will not be perceived as such immediately.

Low acceptance rate and low student/faculty ratio seem like good indicators, but here again I note the Harvard vs Caltech comparison does not reflect reality. Caltech has twice the acceptance rate that Harvard does, yet most of those accepted at Harvard would have no chance in h*ll of getting into Caltech. OK, I'm being unfair: not everyone wants to be an engineer or scientist. A fairer comparison would be, how many students who applied to BOTH of these two schools got into just one of the two, and which school did they get into? And maybe even, which did they choose to attend?

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.