LJ

October 1st, 2015 at 3:41 PM ^

I think those undergrad programs are all comperable.  The place where these rankings are way skewed as far as undergrad, though, is Notre Dame and Vanderbilt, which are at least on par with Michigan undergrad.  BC, I have no idea about.

drzoidburg

October 1st, 2015 at 6:26 PM ^

meh US News is a joke because it's skewed so heavily in favor of small privates. The highest public school this year is at 20th, and I mean, Rice an LAC with 4k undergrads at #18? It's the kind of thing that should matter only to uninformed high school kids and guidance counselors

WolvWild

October 1st, 2015 at 1:28 PM ^

Big Ten Rankings

 

21. Michigan

25. Northwestern

36. Illinois

50. Wisconsin

65. Minnesota

75. PSU

90. OSU

99. MSU

113. Purdue

117. Maryland

123. Rutgers

201-250. Iowa, Indiana

301-350. Nebraska

BlueInClearwater

October 1st, 2015 at 2:43 PM ^

of Dartmouth, which surprised the hell out of me. Ivy League and all I had thought Dartmouth was a great academic school. Also heard numerous members of the media bragging about how "Brad Ausmus went to Dartmouth! He's gonna manage the Tigers using the forefront of analytics and brainpower!" only to see him manage as old-school as Leyland, especially the bullpen. I doubt he would have as much of a reputation for his intelligence had he went to MSU and lo and behold, it's ranked higher than Dartmouth.

UNCWolverine

October 1st, 2015 at 1:35 PM ^

When I first moved to LA I kept meeting all these people that went to Cal Polytechnic and I couldn't understand how all these party animals went to "Cal Tech". I knew it was a top school so something didn't jive. I eventually realized Cal Polytechnic in SLO was definitely different than Cal Tech.

Congrats on your education, great school.

BornInAA

October 1st, 2015 at 1:31 PM ^

Seriously humans are obsessed with ranking everything.

Everyday rankings like this are released on everything, colleges, best/worst places to live, best/worst places to work, best/worst careers, best films, songs, etc.

On the various sports websites there are probably 50 football rankings and "power" rankings every week.

Moonlight Graham

October 1st, 2015 at 1:48 PM ^

Cal-Davis, Cal-San Diego and Cal-Santa Barbara are alway clumped closely together. They must all have very similar measurables as Cal system schools, but is it intentional? Or are the ranking "services" just being lazy, or both?  

MGoCombs

October 1st, 2015 at 3:01 PM ^

It is interesting, and I think it affects their reputations in some ways. It could be simply because I know the most about it (though I am not an alum), but UC San Diego is by many measures one of the best universities in the world. They spend more than $1B per year on R&D, more than any other UC system school and rank 5th nationally. In terms of obligations for federal research, they rank 4th. (behind Michigan in both rankings). They're up there with the Johns Hopkins, Harvards, Michigans, Dukes, etc. of the world as centers of scientific innovation.

However, I think it suffers mightily from name recognition. Even to other Americans, it's easy to mix up the UC system schools, with maybe Berkeley and LA being exceptions because of athletics (and also being great schools). To international observers, it's incredibly confusing on the whole.

UGLi

October 1st, 2015 at 1:50 PM ^

We were 14th last year, 15 in 2013, 12 in 2012, 13 in 2011.
There's been a general downward trend in all of these rankings, any ideas why?

MGoVictory

October 1st, 2015 at 2:06 PM ^

According to mlive, Michigan was ranked 17th last year. The reason for the drop is primarily because THE changed the rankings methodology, but it also doubled the number of universities included in the rankings.

Edit: wikipedia also indicates Michigan was ranked 17 last year.

All rankings for Michigan:
2015-16: 21
2014-15: 17
2013-14: 18
2012-13: 20
2011-12: 18
2010-11: 15

Leaders And Best

October 1st, 2015 at 2:24 PM ^

Dartmouth and Notre Dame will suffer in any ranking that considers research. This ranking uses research for 30% of its score. Notre Dame was actually ranked higher than I expected it would be.

Most of the schools in the top 50 all have an elite medical school or science & engineering program.

I was surprised at how low Virginia was ranked (#147).