FBS Schools By Latest USNews 400

It's the usnews ugrad prestige rankings that people most often cite to.  In those we are behind Stanford, Northwestern, Cal, UCLA, Duke, Notre Dame, UVA and USC.

Thanks for this.  Really interesting to see. Interesting how the PAC-12 is close to the Big 10 on the top side, but the Big 10 makes up the difference with the lower-level Pac-12 programs.

"What the hell does % of faculty that's international have to do with anything?"

Diversity.

They're only silly if you have something better to live for

Any reason why you included Missouri with the SEC and Texas A&M with the Big 12?

Having worked abroad it is always nice to hear "Michigan? That's a good school."

The ranking is also a reminder of the responsibility we have to uphold the qualities this degree represents as Michigan Women and Men.

ranked 10th in the US now, but according to the website, we are still #28.

Call me when the metrics they use actually matter (or have generlizable validity).

Wow the big 12 sucks.

And I know its funny to go LOLNotreDame but I have a hard time believing they would've been the worst school in the big ten as of about a year ago. Seriously, someone try to convince me that MSU or OSU is a better school than Notre Dame

"What the hell does % of faculty that's international have to do with anything?"

Because these are world rankings, which are heavily biased toward reputation by global employers and international academics, as well as opportunity and support for visiting international faculty and international students. 

As I said in the other thread, Michigan has always had very robust international faculty and student populations.  A lot of this also has to do with scope and breadth of learning and research partnerships globally.  Michigan is definitely a leader in these areas. 

Others, like the schools in the SEC and Big 12, tend to be more US-focused.  While they have some international programs and research opportunities, it's not as strong a focus for them. 

None of this means that any of the schools which are not ranked, or are ranked relatively low, are not good schools.  It just means they don't have as much of an international focus.  For instance, Vandy is a FANTASTIC school, but not ranked particularly high. 

I think U of Chicago should be included in Big 10, when we are talking about academic rankings.  They are part of BIG10 academic consortium

I love that Michigan is ranked so high, but these rankings seem completely flawed.

• Academic reputation is most important, but every school has a 99.something, making reputation fairly meaningless as a discriminator
• Faculty-student ratio is obviously assessed in a bizarre and inconsistent manner (e.g. Michigan's ratio is significantly better than Princeton's?)
• Ditto employer reputation (again, I'm sure employers love us, but much more than they love Princeton grads?)
• % of International students and faculty -- this does seem important to me...if you're trying to boost the standing of schools from a small country closely connected to several other small, nearby countries (i.e. the UK)

Like I said, no complaint with the results, but if you look at the methodology and the scores they came up with...doesn't make a lot of sense.

(except for newcomer Texas A&M)

Yet another reason, albeit an insignificant one, why the 2012 MNC was a joke.

Oregon not ranked. Me dumb.

This also gives a good picture of who might be good candidates for B1G expansion, based on AAU and CIC membership, etc. And the likely candidates are ... no one. Nebraska was already a major reach, and now look at where we are. From an academic prestige standpoint, the B1G should have grabbed Missouri (still a reach) and Pitt when they had the chance. I still canNOT beLIEVE they let Pitt out of their grasp. 

These USNWR rankings are always clusterfracks, but it is interesting to see how a number of those highly-regarded US schools struggle when viewed internationally (and the focus shifts beyond undergrad).

The SEC's rankings gave me the best laugh I have had for awhile.  They look really funny in the "pure" rankings because they are all in triple digits.  I'm not the least bit surprised, either.

I'm a UofM grad and really the only reason why I like the high rankings is the benefit to my resume.  I think that we get too caught up in the prestige of a degree that we take it to mean education.  The fact is a degree is a simply a degree.  Education is what an individual makes of his or her opportunities.  To say a school is prestigious means nothing about the individual graduating.  Sure, there can be a good reputation associated with a presigious school, but in the end it's what the individual does that counts.  Picking a college should not be about which one offers the highest ranking, but rather which one offers the best fit for the individual and can provide the best motivation to become a self starter.

An additional critique could be that peer review drives these rankings making it somewhat of an insider game rather than a more objective (impossible) analysis.

I apologize for my cynicism, but I don't like it when I hear bragging calling our education superior, when, in fact, it isn't our education that is superior but our reputation that is.

Go Blue.