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Coming January 15: U.S. News Best Online Education Programs Rankings
Tweet Share on Facebook December 13, 2012 CommentFor the first time, U.S. News will publish numerical rankings on the overall quality of distance education programs.
This means that the second annual edition of Best Online Education Programs—set for release exclusively on usnews.com on January 15—will have a No. 1 bachelor's degree program, a No. 1 master's in engineering degree program, and likewise for master's degrees in business, education, nursing, and computer information technology.
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Which Highly Ranked Universities Operate Most Efficiently?
Tweet Share on Facebook December 6, 2012 CommentIn these times of tight or reduced state budgets, it's important for some colleges to efficiently spend their limited resources in order to produce the highest possible educational quality. U.S. News has developed an exclusive new list showing which schools are able to produce the highest educational quality, as determined by their place in our Best Colleges rankings, but spend relatively less money to achieve that quality.
U.S. News measures financial resources by taking into account how much a school spends per student on instruction, research, student services, and related educational expenditures. Financial resources has a 10 percent weight in the Best Colleges ranking methodology.
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Which Ranked Universities Are Doing Better Than Their Academic Reputations?
Tweet Share on Facebook November 29, 2012 CommentU.S. News is publishing a first-ever analysis of colleges in our National Universities ranking category that are overperforming or underperforming their undergraduate academic reputations in terms of their overall Best Colleges 2013 rankings. This concept measures the degree to which a university's overall position in the rankings exceeds or falls short of its undergraduate academic reputation rank.
How should these results be interpreted?
If a school is doing better in the overall rankings than in its undergraduate academic reputation, it means the school is performing relatively well in the other key academic indicators used in the rankings: admissions selectivity, financial and faculty resources, alumni giving, and graduation and retention rates. It also means that a school's undergraduate reputation among its academic peers is lagging behind the progress the school has achieved in the underlying academic indicators.
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'Higher Education Today' Interview Focuses on College Rankings
Tweet Share on Facebook November 21, 2012 CommentI recently appeared on Higher Education Today, a production of the University of the District of Columbia, in a show entitled "U.S. News College Rankings."
The TV program was hosted by Steven Roy Goodman, a Washington, D.C.-based educational consultant, author, and admissions strategist. Also appearing on the show with me was Anne Weeks, upper school head of The Salisbury School, a private independent school located in Salisbury, Md.
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FAQs on George Washington University’s Data Misreporting
Tweet Share on Facebook November 16, 2012 CommentWe have received several questions about the U.S. News decision to move George Washington University to the "Unranked" category in the 2013 Best Colleges rankings. Here are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions.
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Update to George Washington University's 2013 Best Colleges Ranking
Tweet Share on Facebook November 14, 2012 CommentOn November 8, George Washington University in Washington, D.C., advised U.S. News that it had erroneously reported its high school class standing information for more than a decade. This misreporting resulted in George Washington submitting to U.S. News a value for the percent of the fall 2011 entering class in the top tenth of their high school class that was inflated by 20 percentage points.
This incorrect data was used in the calculation of GW's overall rank in the 2013 edition of the Best Colleges rankings, published in September, thereby making its rank in the National Universities category higher than it otherwise would have been. The proportion of enrolled freshmen at National Universities who graduated in the top 10 percent of their high school classes counted for 6 percent of the Best Colleges rankings methodology.
Because of the discrepancy in the rankings, U.S. News has changed George Washington University from being a ranked school to an "Unranked" school in the Best Colleges section of usnews.com. Unranked means that U.S. News did not calculate a numerical ranking for this school.
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Graduate School Rankings Data Collection Begins
Tweet Share on Facebook November 8, 2012 CommentU.S. News recently started the data collection for the 2014 edition of the Best Graduate Schools rankings, which will be published in late winter or early spring 2013. The online statistical survey data collection for business, law, engineering, medicine, and education programs began on Oct. 22, 2012. The deadline to complete the statistical surveys is Nov. 30, 2012.
In addition, the new grad school peer assessment reputation surveys are currently being distributed. The peer surveys are in the field for roughly eight weeks; a second mailing will be sent to those who don't respond the first time. U.S. News works with Ipsos Public Affairs, a Chicago-based market research firm, to administer the reputation survey mailings.
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Examining Predicted vs. Actual College Graduation Rates
Tweet Share on Facebook November 1, 2012 CommentIn recent blog posts, U.S. News published exclusive analyses of how successful colleges are at graduating low-income students and high-income students; in addition, we are now able to look at which schools are exceeding or falling short of expectations in terms of graduating their students. This important outcomes indicator measures the "value added" by colleges in the process of educating their students.
U.S. News became a leader in this area of measuring graduation rate performance when we first published these performance scores and used them as part of the Best Colleges rankings for the National Universities and National Liberal Arts Colleges ranking categories, starting with the 1997 rankings and as part of our ranking methodology annually since then.
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Which Colleges Are Successfully Graduating High-Income Students?
Tweet Share on Facebook October 25, 2012 CommentU.S. News is often asked to collect, analyze, and publish more information about how well colleges and universities are serving their students from different income levels. We recently conducted a first-ever analysis of how successful colleges are at graduating low-income students, based on data exclusively collected by U.S. News. Now, for the first time, we are also able to answer the question of how schools are doing at graduating their students who come from families with the highest incomes relative to the rest of their student body.
The Higher Education Opportunity Act, passed in 2009, requires that schools disclose the graduation rates of students who received a Pell grant (federal aid given to students from low-income families), students who received a subsidized Stafford loan but not a Pell grant, and students who received neither. These three separate graduation rates indicate if a college is successful in serving students from different income levels.
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How 'Exam Schools' Fared in the Best High Schools Rankings
Tweet Share on Facebook October 18, 2012 CommentIn the new book, Exam Schools: Inside America's Most Selective Public High Schools, the authors examine institutions with selective admissions processes. Many of these public schools did very well in the 2012 U.S. News Best High Schools rankings, accounting for 7 of the top 10 schools in the national rankings; 11 of the top 25; and 24 of the top 50.
In an article entitled "Exam Schools from the Inside" in Education Next, authors Chester E. Finn, Jr. and Jessica A. Hockett discussed how exam schools have evolved in the United States:
