Forbes.com's take on America's Best Colleges

[www.forbes.com]

To find Cornell's ranking, just keep on clicking 'next'...

Even putting aside the silliness of making such a list in the first place, I wouldn't be too concerned about where Cornell places in a list that 1) is delivered without any accompanying explanation and 2) appears to have used shock value as one of its criteria.

There actually is a "methodology" in the accompanying article:

[www.forbes.com]

Ah, that explains the snide comments about ratemyprofessor.com.

The National Research Council rankings [of graduate departments, but essentially of faculty] are what university administrators pay attention to. These are very much out of date. New ones are expected this year.

[www.stat.tamu.edu]

[www.stat.tamu.edu]

The methodology goes out of its way to beat up the methodology of US News (pot, kettle, black?), defend Forbes' reliance on Who's Who as a valid measure of accomplishment that can't be gamed or bought into, and explain why ratemyprofessor is worthy of being part of the measurement.

The methodology ranks Ithaca College and Cornell College ahead of Cornell University.

The methodology heavily weights cost, so two service academies make the top ten, but doesn't counterweight the lost salary opportunities because of the five-year service commitment.

Silly as they are, these ratings do make schools think about how they're perceived. And sometimes spend money in the wrong direction.

Al DeFlorio
The National Research Council rankings [of graduate departments, but essentially of faculty] are what university administrators pay attention to. These are very much out of date. New ones are expected this year.

[www.stat.tamu.edu]

[www.stat.tamu.edu]

Interesting that the SUNY schools are rated in the order Stony Brook > Albany > Buffalo > Binghamton. That is essentially the reverse of what I remember being the admissions criteria (and therefore the academic reputation to the applying student) in the late 80's when I was applying.

ugarte

Al DeFlorio
The National Research Council rankings [of graduate departments, but essentially of faculty] are what university administrators pay attention to. These are very much out of date. New ones are expected this year.

[www.stat.tamu.edu]

[www.stat.tamu.edu]

Interesting that the SUNY schools are rated in the order Stony Brook > Albany > Buffalo > Binghamton. That is essentially the reverse of what I remember being the admissions criteria (and therefore the academic reputation to the applying student) in the late 80's when I was applying.

More or less parallels substance ingestion?

The comments are amusing.

It also seems counterproductive to look at student debt load. If people are willing to take on high amounts of debt to attend a school, to me that indicates that people believe the school is good enough to be worth it - and strongly enough that they are willing to put their money where their mouth is. How many students would be willing to go $100k in debt to obtain a SUNY Binghampton degree?

Robb
It also seems counterproductive to look at student debt load. If people are willing to take on high amounts of debt to attend a school, to me that indicates that people believe the school is good enough to be worth it

Forbes probably thinks that there isn't much difference in value between bachelors degrees from various institutions. Or at least that the difference in value is not accurately reflected in the price. We on eLynah may be convinced that an Ivy League education is better than that from a SUNY Binghamton but is it really worth an extra $50 thousand (or whatever the differential is). You can probably make arguments both ways and in the end the "value" is probably more a distribution than a fixed number anyway.

Of course, I firmly reject these rankings for not putting Cornell at or near the top. .

KeithK
Forbes probably thinks that there isn't much difference in value between bachelors degrees from various institutions. Or at least that the difference in value is not accurately reflected in the price.

Wonder how many Forbes family kids go to West Point...or SUNY Binghamton.

Al DeFlorio

KeithK
Forbes probably thinks that there isn't much difference in value between bachelors degrees from various institutions. Or at least that the difference in value is not accurately reflected in the price.

Wonder how many Forbes family kids go to West Point...or SUNY Binghamton.

You mean following your own advice? Heck, no. I think Duty, Honor, Country translates to, "Let somebody else get their legs blown off."

More seriously, there were studies at the turn of the decade (what some call turn of the millenium) that showed when you discounted for family income and SAT scores coming in, long-term outcomes were quite similar for elite schools and average-to-good schools. Smart kids go in to Princeton, smart kids come out of Princeton - no surprise. If you go to an elite school, you get to meet more bankers' sons and that translates to summer job opportunities you won't get at State U.

We're #15 in the US News and World Report poll.

There is a lot of sibling kissing going on in this year's rankings.

Rita
We're #15 in the US News and World Report poll.

Now that's a report I can believe!

Nothing like a good dose of self-justification to start the day.

Rita
We're #15 in the US News and World Report poll.

There is a lot of sibling kissing going on in this year's rankings.

Well, at least we're ahead of Brown. When/how did Penn (sucks) work their way up to #4?

Josh '99

Rita
We're #15 in the US News and World Report poll.

There is a lot of sibling kissing going on in this year's rankings.

Well, at least we're ahead of Brown. When/how did Penn (sucks) work their way up to #4?

Penn is only #4 if you think there's validity to the USNWR formula. Duke is also very much overrated, based on my experience in the higher ed world.

Berkeley, which ought to be top five (maybe top three) in any ranking, is sitting at #21. This is ridiculous, and strictly a result of yield and selectivity calculations, which hurts all public institutions, including part-statutory Cornell. Berkeley, UCLA, Illinois, and several other publics have a stronger faculty than Duke or Dartmouth or Brown. Stronger than Penn, too.

Al DeFlorio
Berkeley, UCLA, Illinois, and several other publics have a stronger faculty than Duke or Dartmouth or Brown. Stronger than Penn, too.

I have to imagine stronger than WUSTL or Northwestern, as well.

The US News ranking is guilty of false precision: they put together a formula that looks all scientific and therefore lends it an air of credibility to uneducated or gullible folks, but winds up being useless by weighting inputs according to a fixed set of weights that represent nothing more than the biases of the editors influenced primarily to sell magazines.

A more useful number to potential engineering undergraduates aiming for industry, for instance, would be based on an investigation among engineering employers of the reputation of each school: this would be a metric that the vast majority of applicants would actually find useful. Unfortunately, that's hard, because it would require journalists to do, you know, actual work rather than merely mailing their yearly survey to a few hundred colleges' PR offices and waiting for the response.

US News, along with the rest of the dinosaur media, has outlived its usefulness and can't die soon enough.

Kyle Rose

Al DeFlorio
Berkeley, UCLA, Illinois, and several other publics have a stronger faculty than Duke or Dartmouth or Brown. Stronger than Penn, too.

I have to imagine stronger than WUSTL or Northwestern, as well.

No question. Stronger than all but a very few (and, in Berkeley's case, possibly stronger than all) of the twenty ranked ahead of them.

Your "false precision" argument is dead on. Making it worse is the "gaming of the system" going on at many schools aiming to climb in the rankings by manipulating the statistics.

I find it somewhat amusing that I was accepted to both Penn and U. Chicago and they were distant second and third choices for me. I wouldn't change my decision over 15 years later (even if I hadn't met my future wife at Cornell, which I did!). I'm sure others have similar stories.

RatushnyFan
even though if I hadn't met my future wife at Cornell

FYP

Thanks, but isn't that changing the meaning of what I was trying to say? That said, I frequently need the grammar/diction nazis to step in and point me in the right direction.

RatushnyFan
Thanks, but isn't that changing the meaning of what I was trying to say? That said, I frequently need the grammar/diction nazis to step in and point me in the right direction.

It is a joke that Fred wrote after stepping out of a time machine that he used to visit 1952.

Yeah, it was a marriage joke. Pretty sure those are still in vogue in the 21st century

Now might I just not be funny? ... That's entirely possible.

Now I get it, boy I'm slow today. Jerseygirl distracted me.

RatushnyFan
Now I get it, boy I'm slow today. Jerseygirl distracted me.

I tend to have that effect...