Methodology: College Choices by High School Counselors

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This is a useless measure because it is so susceptible to bias. Local and regional universities will benefit from reviews by local counselors or counselors who get favorable placement at these universities. These people know nothing. Many many counselors are not college grads. They have no clue about rating the academic quality of an institution. Most of the institutions they are rating they could never have attended. Deans, presidents tenured faculty in various departments etc - these are the people who have the expertise to judge academic programs.

ed of CA 12:14PM May 07, 2012

This system of rating is flawed; the 5 point system is ambiguous. I suggest a binary rating system. Which is essentially just "Thumbs Up" or "Thumbs Down". With a higher sample and a more defined criteria, this ranking might serve a better purpose.

David Yoon of CA 12:58AM April 17, 2012

The only problem with this list is that it is more geared towards the Ivy League Schools. All nine of them are in the top fifteen. Not only that, but there also seems to be regional bias, hence Pepperdine is within the top 40 and U of San Francisco is in the top 100, ostensibly because the Bay Area and the Valley are major population centers and neither are well recognized East of St. Louis. If US News really wants to be comprehensive, multiple rankings have to be made based on what people look for in colleges. People could really use a ranking of undergrad engineering and comp sci programs. Or maybe one for public policy. I'd pay good money for that.

Sai of FL 8:06PM March 05, 2012

Having HS counselors rank college is the most ridiculous measure I can think of - most of them were clueless idiots. How does USNWR account for regional biases, for counselors that may have gone to a particular school and thus rank it higher, for bias in favor of a school that they have had personal success with in terms of getting students into school. None of those things have any impact on the quality of the school. How is that your measures are so off for national schools compared to much more academic rankings of world universities? For example, how can UCLA and Cal rank in the top 15 in the world in multiple international ranking yet only be in the top 25 here?

Patrick O'Boyle of MA 12:25AM September 14, 2011

Robert, the profession is School Counseling and they are professional school counselors, not guidance counselors and not high school guidance counselors. Not sure what we have to do to get the media, including US NEWS, clear on this. See below:
American School Counselor Association www.schoolcounselor.org
National Office for School Counselor Advocacy
http://advocacy.collegeboard.org/college-preparation-access/national-office-school-counselor-advocacy-nosca
National Center for Transforming School Counseling
http://www.edtrust.org/dc/tsc
Center for School Counseling and Leadership
www.cescal.org
Center for School Counselor Outcome Research and Evaluation
http://www.umass.edu/schoolcounseling/
Many of us question the value of these horse-race media-created rankings. The bottom line is every student needs the best fit, a double major (one for the heart/mind and one for a career), an affordable education, and we all need to stop perpetuating the idea that Ivy or pricey independents are best. Publics are often the best value and most affordable for most families. Last, if folks want a survey of best colleges focused on Equity, see the Washington Monthly annual survey which focuses on criteria including #s of poor and working class students admitted and graduated, amount of research generated for the public by the institution, and amount of community service hours performed. As a professor of School Counselor Education, those equity-focused values are what my school counseling candidates focus on for their K-12 children and adolescents--not the horse race.

Stuart F. Chen-Hayes, Ph.D., CUNY Lehman College Counselor Education/School Counseling of NY 2:05PM September 13, 2011