OT 2015 Forbes Top U.S. Colleges announced (B1G)
Forbes Magazine is out with its list of top colleges in the U.S.
B1G members:
19 - Northwestern
45 - Michigan
68 - Illinois
70 - Wisconsin
82 - Maryland
107 - Indiana
108 - Minnesota
119 - Purdue
155 - thebucksarenuts
166 - Penn St.
169 - MSU
177 - Rutgers
192 - Iowa
280 - Nebraska
The full list can be seen here: http://www.forbes.com/top-colleges/list/
Apparently the ability to give a bare handed old fashioned to a steed isn't looked upon as favorably as it used to be.
Just remember when someone tells you they went to MSU, "You can create 100 top rate packaging designs, but jerk off one cow, and you'll always be known as a cow fucker."
the smartest High School graduates say "Yeah, I got into Harvard and Stanford but when Swarthmore comes calling, how do you say no?"
Granted I have never met a Swarthmore graduate, this list seems kind of crazy to me
You must not go to Starbucks very often. That guy with the horseshoe shoved into his earlobe? Swarthmore grad, '11.
The thing is... your Swarthmore applicant isn't applying to Harvard or Stanford... and vice versa...
Your Swarthmore applicant is applying to Hamilton, Colgate, Amherst, Vassar etc.
The Harvard and Stanford applicant is applying to UM, UVA, Berkeley, UPenn etc...
Again... 2 different types of schools for 2 different types of people.
The only schools that I can see overlapping with SLAs are Dartmouth and.... Brown I guess?
I know people who were accepted to both, but went to top school on the list over Yale and other Ivies. What evidence suggests that people applying to one type of school vs another are mutually exclusive?
I know a couple of Swarthmore grads, and they absolutely think this ranking is insane. I mean, it's a good school, but every one of them would have gone to a dozen+ schools on this list ahead of Swarthmore had they been accepted.
Eh - I don't read too much into this. This ranking criminally underrates large public schools: besides the service academies, the highest ranked public school is Berkeley at #37 (unless I missed one). The rest of our peer public institutions - W&M, UVA, UCLA, UNC - are all similar to our ranking.
A brief glance at their methodology explains why: a whopping 10% of the ranking comes from average rankings on RateMyProfessor, a site that is hardly a representative sample and likely underrates professors of large class size - more likely that failing student will be grumpy and complain. Another 10% comes from "academic success", defined as receiving a prestigious award (Rhodes, etc.) or receiving a PhD. True, these are great measures of success, but I think that an engineer getting a job right out of college is just as successful as a PhD student in the humanities or sciences. Those are huge chunks of the rankings that large schools - like Michigan - will do poorly in.
Is another factor. The small liberal arts colleges are usually attended by upper middle to upper class students. This demographic usually has an easier time finding a job after graduation or graduate school.
Wow, seriously? This list is basically biased against schools that have majors where students get jobs right out of college, as opposed to the trap majors where you have to throw another 5-7 years after your first 4 to get a job.
That said, I do think that large class sizes are a legitimate reason to not favor a school (as one of many factors...)
Worse (if possible) than USNWR. I read part of one at the dentist's a while back and couldn't believe what is actually considered publishable these days. Malcomb (Harley's, balloons, fabrage eggs, multigendered harem and all) would be ashamed.
IRC, last week #19 in the world, now 45th in the US???
With that said, I am, myself, biased towards research institutions.
The rankings where we are higher are more accurate (at least to me). There have been a number of rankings in the last year that have said Michigan is the best public university in the world. One that ranked public universities in the US ranked Michigan as number 1 and had put the University of Virginia, William & Mary, UNC and Berkeley as the rest of the top five in some order or other. Forbes has both UVa and W&M above us.
As someone who went to West Point and the University of Michigan, all I can say is that going to West Point was like being in a high school compared to going to Michigan. Academics at Michigan were so far superior to the academic program at West Point that there could be no relevant comparison. (At the time, it was also generally agreed that West Point's academics were well below Annapolis and the Air Force Academy.) While West Point may have improved (I was there a long time ago), it is inconceivable to me that West Point could have improved to the point that it would be considered as in the same league as Michigan, much less significantly above Michigan. Unless things have changed dramatically, academics were not emphasized at West Point to any where near the extent they are in most universities, as physical fitness and other endeavors more directly related to being in the field took up a lot of our time.
http://cwur.org/2015/
25% of the Methodology is "Student Debt". So basically, this is a list of where you can find students with wealthy parents who can pay the tuition in one lump sum!
Another 32.5% is "Post-Graduate Success". Another category identifying schools with wealthy kids who are able to find nice hedge fund jobs w/ family friends.
own (perceived) subscriber base.... Actually I'm thinking most Forbes readers are aspirational and also read the Robb Report and magazines about expensive watches.
If we are talking COLLEGE, like the 4-year bac. degree, then most of the top 50 could more be completely reogranized. Williams is a fantastic school, but how do you even begin to compare it to Michigan, UCBerkeley, Cal-tech, or Reed? And the service academies offer a completely different, self-selecting path for young people. Ranking the college experience seems foolish at the top tier.
Also, the "methodology" section explains that Forbes used RateMyProfessor.com to evaluate student satisfaction (10% of total score). Having both rated professors and been rated by students, I have to say that seems like meaningless data (it was probably sponsored).
Better yet, don't click the methodology link above since arbitrary lists are some of the worst types of clickbate. Here is a quick breakdown of the ranking methods:
- Student Evaluations from RateMyProfessor.com (10%)
- Actual Freshman-to-Sophomore Retention Rates (12.5%)
- Predicted vs. Actual Freshman-to-Sophomore Retention Rates (2.5%)
- Salary of Alumni from Payscale.com (10%)
- American Leaders List (22.5%)
- Average Federal Student Loan Debt Load (10%)
- Student Loan Default Rates (12.5%)
- Predicted vs. Actual Average Federal Student Loan Debt Load (2.5%)
- Actual Four-year Graduation Rate (5%)
- Predicted vs. Actual Four-year Graduation Rate (2.5%)
- Student Nationally Competitive Awards (7.5%)
- Alumni Receiving PhDs (2.5%)
Student debt is worth 15% more than academic success on a list of the best schools in the US?
I looked on the list but never found it - I must have been distracted...
a trip to Tempe right now.
One of the spirit squads/cheer groups there disbanded a couple of years ago cause the girls were going into porn. One even performed in her uniform! I wonder if that has died down yet and the group is back. Yes, ASU is THE party school.
Link or it didn't happen!
Thanks that was gold :)
Best part...
"Simpson had been a devout mormon growing up and has said she intended to remain a virgin until marriage, before being derailed one month into her freshman year at ASU. " --Bleacher Report
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I've worked for over 30 years in Advertising Media -- Strategic Planning, Negotiation, buying, etc. and have a lot of experience with Forbes properties. (That experience includes being entertained on the Boeing 727 named "Capitalist Tool", sailing on the yacht, visiting the museum in NYC, attending parties, etc.)
Forbes Magazine and its companion website are not the most upstanding in the industry. In fact, in the early days of digital advertising when traffic monitoring was basically one-dimensional, Forbes was paying people to click on ads. That's right, using a bank of computers in some third world country, they were fraudulently representing that Forbes readers were engaging with Forbes advertisers.
Also, as a reader, I don't ever recall an article that stuck with me.
All I'm saying.
The publications that come out with annual "best of" lists simply fiddle with their methodology a little bit every year so they get different results.
The data they are analyzing has changed microscopically, but their lists change enormously every year. Why would they do that? Have they changed their opinion on how to statistically identify the best Universities and Colleges, or do they simply realize that their list needs to be different than their list from last year in order to be noticed?
Don't reward unscientific behavior with your clicks or with your attention.
is it not? The only difference is that USNWT separates "national universities" from "liberal arts colleges." Michigan is #29 of the "national universities" while over on the liberal arts list you have the Williamses, Swarthmores and Pomonas at the top of the list. If US News combined their lists like Forbes did, UM would probably be #45 or so.
All we know is that if there was a "composite score" like in the recruiting world, the University of Michigan would be one of the world's ten best public institutions. The Mount Rushmore of U.S. public universities is probably Michigan, Cal, Virginia, and ... UCLA or UNC? No MSU or OSU in sight.
is public too, is it not ? Otherwise no disagreement with your public " Mount Rushmore". Maybe UCSD and UW ( not Washington U which is private ) too
Clearly the author of this list has a journalism degree from the University of Phoenix. Or maybe the Royal College of Cedar Point.
Either way this list is LUDICROUS!
is UC Berkely at #37 !!!! This is HEAVILY biased towards private schools, although I might expect this out of Forbes. Perhaps they are ranking PRIVILEGE rather than education. In the financial world the private liberal arts school degree may be a marker of wealthy parents and social statue rather than education per se. Maybe it's just me but I don't think too many west coasters would agree with that list at all.
Seriously? Having Harvard and Yale anywhere outside the top 5 is also a crime. I can't take this very seriously. If you get accepted to Harvard and Williams college, you are an idiot if you do not go to Harvard. Brand recognition means something. For the record, I also think you would be stupid to choose Williams college over U of M- I'm seeing that one through Maize tinted glasses, but Michigan is globally recognized as an elite university... I'm not so sure the same can be said about Williams. Michigan has more top 10 graduate programs than any other University if I remember correctly.
This list looks pretty right. Grad schools are very different. Hard for a public university to compete with a small liberal arts only school in the liberal arts, if you measure on parameters such as class size or percent of students that study abroad, and don't measure things like social life and performance in the Sears Cup.
Schools like Pomona are the real deal if you want a good liberal arts undergrad degree in a small school environment.
Ironically, I'll be visiting some of these SoCal campuses this week with my son looking at prospective schools. Spending less $ at UM would be an easy choice for most Michiganders but I'm trying to keep an open mind, especially when thinking about the last two winters...
We're #45! We're #45!
Hah. All this ranking stuff is feel-good bullshit.