US News and World Report university rankings

Submitted by GoWings2008 on

US News and World Report released its updated National University rankings with Michigan making #29 on the list.  Northwestern kicks off the B1G at #13 and the next school after UM being Illinois at a tie for 42, Wisconsin at 47 and Ohio State at a tie for 54.  Link:  http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities  Additionally, another list for top Engineering schools was released with UM coming in with a tie at #7, the top B1G school being Illinois at 6.

Bob The Wonder Dog

September 9th, 2014 at 11:28 AM ^

Engineering - 8

Law - 10

Medical (research) -12

Medical (primary care) - 8

Education - 8

Business - 11

 

Not all that bad, really. It's probably safe to say that Michigan puts a lot of emphasis on its graduate programs.

nowayman

September 9th, 2014 at 12:57 PM ^

It was in the top 3 once.  I believe it was the first year the US news rankings were released.

The metrics were changed the year after that and since then Michigan has been 6-10 year after year.  

I couldn't find a list to back me up on the internet that wasn't a forum post, though.  

93Grad

September 9th, 2014 at 11:42 AM ^

I don't know why, but I've never respected that school much.  I always considered Wisconsin, Purdue, PSU and even Indiana to be superior.  But what do I know?

mjv

September 10th, 2014 at 11:11 AM ^

The general concensus among recruiters lumps the 11 Big Ten schools (ignoring Nebraska and the last two):

1.  Northwestern / Michigan

2.  Illinois / Wisconsin

3.  PSU / OSU

4.  The rest

The gap between Tier 2 and Tier 1 is very small, if it exists at all.  It is a much bigger, menaingful gap to Tier 3.

I've hired undergrads for primarily finance and engineering positions.

Relative to the rest of the B1G, Purdue is poor if the engineering school is excluded.  A blanket can be thrown over Indiana, Purdue, MSU, Minnesota, and Iowa, as they are very comparable with each other.  Each has a strong program or two.

 

bronxblue

September 9th, 2014 at 11:44 AM ^

Ultimately, who gives a rat's ass about what a 4th-tier magazine has to say about the University of Michigan?  I went there, received a great education, and had a blast to boot.  The fact that a deeply-flawed metric says it is some UNSWR-points "worse" than other schools is silly and irrelevant.  

phork

September 9th, 2014 at 12:12 PM ^

I wonder what the Board of Trustees at ND thinks about this tidbit:

 

The University of Notre Dame is a private, independent, Catholic institution in South Bend, Ind. Notre Dame’s athletic teams, known as the Fighting Irish, play in the NCAA Division I and are particularly competitive on the football field.

wayneandgarth

September 9th, 2014 at 12:14 PM ^

Michigan has fluctuated between 28 and 29 for years.  Ross (undergraduate) is at #4 after being #2 last year.  Haas (Berekley), Sloan (MIT) and Ross all are usually bunched together closely after Wharton (Penn). 

For Ross, Management, Finance and Marketing are all #1 sub-specialties for undergrad business schools. 

MLDWoody

September 9th, 2014 at 12:48 PM ^

Michigan's acceptance rate has actually fallen in the last few years because of the common app. By making it easier for more students to apply, but the total open spots staying the same, they can admit less people. This has also raised certain metrics like incoming ACT scores.

In State students had an acceptance rate in the 40, OOS in the 20s and International at like 10, last I checked. Bringing in more OOS students would actually help Michigan 1) Make money, 2) Further improve those incoming class metrics  3) and continue to lower the acceptance rate. Of course, Michigan literally gives no aid to OOS students (not that they have to) so that will be tough.

Some schools purposely attempt to get as many kids to apply to the school so they can artificially inflated (deflate?) their acceptance rate. They'll send fliers to students that have no business applying there. Also, I thought you applied to the Cali public university system as a whole, so if you are shooting for a lower teir uni, you can still get shot down by a better one. This then lowers their acceptance rate.

I wouldn't take the overall US News Rankings that seriously. The system is stacked against Public Universities and stacked against schools that don't play the game. Look at the employers that recruit there. This may not be the best example, because Michigan Engineering is still top notch, but I was talking to a recruiter from Lockheed Martin. He said they don't evevn attend Career Fairs anymore and only go to about 8 schools, Michigan being one of them. Stanford's president has also been on record saying it is ridiculous how low Michigan is ranked. 

To the people who's opinion on this type of thing actually matter, they know Michigan is better than 29th. Don't take some publication that purposely moves its ranking's around to create contreversy and sell subscriptions as set in stone 

96goblue00

September 9th, 2014 at 5:44 PM ^

it was ranked right around 22/23. Berkeley and Northwestern were ranked ahead of Mich (Berkley was around 20 and Northwestern around 16/17), UVA was right there with us, and UCLA was around 30-32, along with UNC.

In the past 8 years or so, UCLA shot up, Mich fell a bit (along with UNC), while UVA/Berkeley/Northwestern remained around the same ranking. Even though Michigan slipped a bit, it is still considered an elite university domestically as well as internationally, is regarded as one of the top research institutions in the world, 90% of its departments/grad programs are ranked in the top 20, with many in the top 10, and Michigan gets ranked consistently in the top 25 in the other major global academic rankings (i.e. ARWU, which really were in their infancy and were not given much consideration, when I was in school), so a small slide on US News is really nothing.

ARWU (Academic Ranking of World Universities) ranking #22 in the world

QS World University Rankings #22 in the world

The Times Higher Ed World University Rankings #18 in the world

......so 'bleep' US News

DrewGOBLUE

September 9th, 2014 at 3:36 PM ^

I'm curious how the major conferences would compare based on the average of member schools...but not curious enough to actually figure it out.



It does look like about half the SEC schools on this list fall after Nebraska, the lowest ranked B1G school. Thought that was sort of funny.

Moonlight Graham

September 9th, 2014 at 3:54 PM ^

really should add 2-4 more teams so they can have a conference championship game and get on more level footing with the other four conferences. So based purely on the US News rankings I looked at what Group of Five schools would be "good candidates" based purely on that measure. I figure those rankings, along with recent general football success, would identify "as well as any other method" what programs should be on the doorstep to the Power 5 should more expansion be necessary. 

So ... by that metric (USNews + football), there aren't any that jump out as logical candidates. Rice would be a good reputation-builder academics-wise. Tulane, SMU, BYU and Tulsa do ok and are ranked surprisingly higher than even some Big 10 schools. (Heck, just a quick nugget that Miami, OH and UMass are ranked higher than Nebraska.)

The more logical Big 12 candidates that have been bandied about in the press — Cincinnati and UCF — are not ranked all that impressively but UC outranks sort-of-counterpart Louisville and is right there with an interesting cluster of "State" schools: Washington State, Kansas State, LSU, Arizona State, Mississippi State, Oklahoma State and Oregon State are all within the same vicinity of each other in the bottom third of the list. By that measure, another school that could "earn votes" for joining the Big 12 would be Colorado State which is ranked higher than any of those just mentioned. 

It also seems like UConn ranks well enough and has enough going on in MBB and WBB to earn that 16th slot in the ACC, for what it's worth. And in conclusion I think the Big 12 should get itself to actually having 12 teams by adding (drumroll) Cincinnati and take your pick of CSU, UCF and BYU. (I don't think UT wants any more Texas-based schools making the jump to the Power 5 to spread recruiting even more thin.) Whatever two of those four remain would then go into the Big 14. 

Like I said, I was bored, and the imbalance of the Big 12 not playing a championship game drives me nuts. 

Princetonwolverine

September 9th, 2014 at 4:14 PM ^

I went to Princeton High School. That should count for something.

PU alums return every year in huge numbers for a weekend of drunken "reunions" in May. The school hits them up big time for $$$$.

DrewGOBLUE

September 9th, 2014 at 7:33 PM ^

Maybe not quite every three months, but they are always tweaking whatever criterion/metric that's used. I actually just saw a headline about how Penn State fell 11 spots and is now #48...which is absurd since nothing about the school could have possibly changed enough in a year to account for a near 25% drop.



It's seriously ridiculous that so much attention is given to US News and World Reports and their college rankings. Hell, almost any link you can click on their site takes you to another page trying to sell subscriptions; not exactly something that bolsters credibility, IMO.

cigol

September 9th, 2014 at 8:27 PM ^

General rule to live by: be veeeery skeptical of anything / anyone who thinks that Cornell and Color-of-Shit University are better than Michigan.