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The currently most cited US college ranking is done by U.S News, which is heavily favored toward small private institutions from the east coast. I always find i

The currently most cited US college ranking is done by U.S News, which is heavily favored toward small private institutions from the east coast. I always find it irritating that a world renowned research power house such as UC Berkeley can't even make it into the top 20 ranking, where as schools such as Emory and Vanderbilt are ranked higher. It ALMOST feels like an east coast old money circle-jerk. I guess with the exceptions of a few schools such as MIT and Stanford, areas such as Law/Medicine/Business/Finance/Liberal Arts are historically valued a lot more than science and engineering in this country. That simply has to change if we want to lure more young people into going into those fields (which is what the future of this country needs). It's still unbelievable how many high school kids (remember, most people don't live in SV) think accountants are these powerful people in suits making six figures straight out of school and engineers are nerdy people who work in a basement and gets no money/respect.

armored_mammal 14y ago
Come on... it IS an east coast old money circle-jerk. And everyone knows it.
- mattgreenrocks 14y ago
  Why does the stench of power always smell the same? It's all so predictable.
  - sp332 14y ago
    We all want to succeed. We all also want our friends and business partners to succeed. It's just that people who have lots of money and power are better at accomplishing that than the rest of us. We all help our friends out; only the scale is different.
    - christofd 14y ago
      That explains a lot actually. Powerful and simple explanation for the world we live in. However, pretty much the opposite of the so-called "trickle-down" mechanism... more like "trickle-up".
27182818284 14y ago
Rankings are broken. I looked into it as part of a startup idea and even memorized the U.S. News 2012 rankings. The 2012 rankings were super easy to memorize because the schools are almost exactly where you'd expect them ranked based simply on pop-culture guesses. This even happened when lawyers were asked to rank the best law schools. Consider this fun excerpt from the New Yorker where they ranked a law school that didn't exist: Those lawyers put Penn State in the middle of the pack, even though every fact they thought they knew about Penn State’s law school was an illusion, because in their minds Penn State is a middle-of-the-pack brand. (Penn State does have a law school today, by the way.) —http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/14/110214fa_fact_gladwell#ixzz2Jg8cXM69 http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/14/110214fa_fact_...
- sageikosa 14y ago
  At least 20 years ago, Penn State was in the top 4 for geography. It has definitely never been in the middle of the pack when it comes to Earth Sciences.
davmre 14y ago
Have you ever been to UC Berkeley? As a current grad student here: it's a fantastic research university and a beautiful campus, but the undergraduate experience is terrible. Classes are giant and there's very little faculty/student interaction, because the focus of the faculty is, for better or for worse, not on undergraduate education. Yes, there are some incredible undergrads and some great opportunities for the 0.1% of them who really stand out, and of course the grad programs are great -- if you look at the US News grad program rankings, Berkeley is top 5 in almost every discipline -- but overall the undergrad program is ranked just about where it belongs.
- Cookingboy 14y ago
  I went to UT Austin, which is a very similar school. All the negatives you mentioned are certainly valid, but U.S News's ranking isn't just an undergrad ranking, it's an overall university ranking. And even for undergrad, career prospect for a CS undergrad from a UC school is probably SLIGHTLY better than a liberal arts grad from Vanderbilt.
  - Jacquass12321 14y ago
    They have split ratings, schools that only provide an undergrad are in a separate category.
  - masonhensley 14y ago
    Are you under the impression that Vanderbilt is a liberal arts school without a school of engineering? That's not the case. I dont think it even has liberal arts major, heck they don't even have an undergrad business degree because they want you to actually pick something to major in. Disclosure- I'm a Vandy Engineering School grad
- MordinSolus 14y ago
  > Classes are giant Current CS undergrad at Berkeley. This is the main problem I have with Berkeley. You can interact with the faculty plenty (at least in my experience), especially when you get to your upper division classes. I don't really do that much anyway and care more about how well professor's lecture than anything else. The problem is that it's becoming increasingly difficult to get into the upper division classes you're interested in. There are just too many people and not enough space. My smallest class is 30 people, but it's a graduate level course, while my other two upper division CS classes have 400 people and 315 with 75 on the waitlist. I thought my classes would get smaller as the semesters went on, but that has not been the case.
loser777 14y ago
I'm currently a student at a large (largest in the UC system) public research university, and I don't see any problem with excluding schools like UC Berkeley from the top 20. While we, like Berkeley, are a "research powerhouse," spend a little time as an undergraduate on campus and you will quickly realize how little the phrase "research powerhouse" really means to you. Professors are hired for research, not teaching, which means many are apathetic towards students while others clearly shouldn't be involved in the teaching process at all. There are some outstanding professors in terms of teaching, but the important caveat here is that at a large public research school teaching--which heavily affects the undergraduate experience is not a priority. Some argue that being at a large research school offers, as the name implies, a large number research opportunities for undergraduates. That idea is a bit overly optimistic. When you have > 100 students in almost every upper division class, it is exceedingly difficult to build a relationship with professors where you may find a chance to gain some research experience. At least with my experience in the EE department, the number of professors who take undergraduate research students is countable on one hand and most of them refuse to accept anyone who is not a 3rd/4th year. I managed to claw my way into a few labs (not EE or CS related) merely because they needed someone who could write code. The US College ranking done at U.S. news is meant to consider undergraduate teaching, and in this aspect large public schools fall far behind. If you want to see the value of research taken into account, look no further than the graduate school rankings. I don't mean to imply that the rankings are accurate, just that there is a valid reason for excluding large public schools from the top of the college rankings.
- the_watcher 14y ago
  I also went to UCLA and second all of this. My undergraduate experience didn't feel at all like I was at a research university.
  - jroesch 14y ago
    I am an undergraduate at UCSB and I have had a much different experience. For both my friends and I getting involved with research has been relatively easy, it just requires making the effort of interacting with the faculty outside of class, and pursuing research actively instead of waiting for it to fall into your lap. I think people forget that the faculty are often excited by having a very motivated undergraduate approach them, and show interest in the work they are doing. One of my friends started in his lab, as a second quarter Freshman, and most of my friends, including myself started second year(Note: I think this is really dependent on the kind of research, things like Data Mining have less barrier to entry then something that requires much more background like Abstract Interpretation).
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
rayiner 14y ago
The USNWR college ranking is for colleges, not graduate schools. The law, medicine, business, etc, schools have their own rankings. Berkeley does very well in those graduate school rankings (indeed, Berkeley and Stanford probably get the most top-3 USNWR placements of any school). At the undergraduate level, however, the rankings measure something different. Essentially, they measure: 1) the test scores and grades of the incoming freshman class; 2) the reputation of the undergraduate program; 3) how much money (directly or indirectly) the school spends on undergraduates. As a big state school, Berkeley can't measure up in these categories. Incidentally, I'm not sure the USNWR rankings are totally senseless in what they measure. For undergrad, I went to a big state research university with very highly ranked graduate engineering programs. For law school, I went to a private university whose undergraduate program was ranked in the top 20. While the two situations weren't directly comparable, I have to say that there is something to what USNWR measures. The experience of being a student at the big state MRU was terrible. Enormous freshman weed out classes, professors and TA's that didn't speak English, outdated facilities, etc. The experience at the private university was wonderful. Very supportive administrators, great facilities, approachable professors, etc. My law department was about the same size as my undergraduate major school, yet I got more personal attention from professors in my first semester of law school than my entire time in engineering school. That said, attempts to game the rankings creates terrible incentives for universities. Pretty much the whole ranking boils down to how much money you can spend. You can buy high SAT's by spending more on scholarships, you can buy smaller class sizes by spending more on professors, etc. That works fine for well-established private schools with enormous endowments, but not so much for state MRU's. Berkeley's $3 billion endowment supports 35,000 students. Duke's $7-8 billion endowment (depending on how you count) supports 15,000 students.
- geebee 14y ago
  I agree with you that the USNWR rankings are not senseless. The fact that Berkeley has the most graduate departments in the top 5 of any University but an undergrad ranking outside the top 20 actually tells you a lot about the undergrad experience at the university. It is a research powerhouse where a top undergrad will meet exceptional professors, but you also risk getting lost in a sea of indifference. That said, we should also keep in mind what the USNWR rankings don't measure. Washington Monthly did a raking that had UCSD on top, and almost all large public research institutions did very well http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/feature/introduction_a_different_kind_1.php http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/feature/intro... The clever angle they took was to ask the question "what have you done for us lately?" USNWR is good for an undergrad asking "what can you do for me?" Washington Monthly figured that since all universities receive massive amounts of government funding, tax exempt endowments, and subsidy for tuition through federal loan guarantees, we should ask what they are contributing back. They placed an emphasis on social mobility (percentage of low income students), research (placing an emphasis on science and engineering), and social service. It does get to the heart of the matter - the things that harm Berkeley in the USNWR ratings (large numbers of undergrads and a relatively low tuition in spite of decreasing support from the state) also enable Berkeley to enroll more low income students than the entire ivy league combined. Berkeley gets dinged for all the negative aspects of enrolling so many low income students relative to Harvard, but gets no credit. Should it? It's all a matter of perspective - the problem is that because many other major publications don't consider rankings to be useful, USNWR is an almost unanswered voice pushing a ranking system that rewards small, wealthy, private undergraduate programs with relatively few low income students, and they're broadcasting it through a bullhorn into a quiet room.

armored_mammal 14y ago

Come on... it IS an east coast old money circle-jerk. And everyone knows it.

mattgreenrocks 14y ago
Why does the stench of power always smell the same? It's all so predictable.
- sp332 14y ago
  We all want to succeed. We all also want our friends and business partners to succeed. It's just that people who have lots of money and power are better at accomplishing that than the rest of us. We all help our friends out; only the scale is different.
  - christofd 14y ago
    That explains a lot actually. Powerful and simple explanation for the world we live in. However, pretty much the opposite of the so-called "trickle-down" mechanism... more like "trickle-up".

27182818284 14y ago

Rankings are broken. I looked into it as part of a startup idea and even memorized the U.S. News 2012 rankings. The 2012 rankings were super easy to memorize because the schools are almost exactly where you'd expect them ranked based simply on pop-culture guesses. This even happened when lawyers were asked to rank the best law schools. Consider this fun excerpt from the New Yorker where they ranked a law school that didn't exist: Those lawyers put Penn State in the middle of the pack, even though every fact they thought they knew about Penn State’s law school was an illusion, because in their minds Penn State is a middle-of-the-pack brand. (Penn State does have a law school today, by the way.) —http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/14/110214fa_fact_gladwell#ixzz2Jg8cXM69 http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/14/110214fa_fact_...

sageikosa 14y ago
At least 20 years ago, Penn State was in the top 4 for geography. It has definitely never been in the middle of the pack when it comes to Earth Sciences.

davmre 14y ago

Have you ever been to UC Berkeley? As a current grad student here: it's a fantastic research university and a beautiful campus, but the undergraduate experience is terrible. Classes are giant and there's very little faculty/student interaction, because the focus of the faculty is, for better or for worse, not on undergraduate education. Yes, there are some incredible undergrads and some great opportunities for the 0.1% of them who really stand out, and of course the grad programs are great -- if you look at the US News grad program rankings, Berkeley is top 5 in almost every discipline -- but overall the undergrad program is ranked just about where it belongs.

Cookingboy 14y ago
I went to UT Austin, which is a very similar school. All the negatives you mentioned are certainly valid, but U.S News's ranking isn't just an undergrad ranking, it's an overall university ranking. And even for undergrad, career prospect for a CS undergrad from a UC school is probably SLIGHTLY better than a liberal arts grad from Vanderbilt.
- Jacquass12321 14y ago
  They have split ratings, schools that only provide an undergrad are in a separate category.
- masonhensley 14y ago
  Are you under the impression that Vanderbilt is a liberal arts school without a school of engineering? That's not the case. I dont think it even has liberal arts major, heck they don't even have an undergrad business degree because they want you to actually pick something to major in. Disclosure- I'm a Vandy Engineering School grad
MordinSolus 14y ago
> Classes are giant Current CS undergrad at Berkeley. This is the main problem I have with Berkeley. You can interact with the faculty plenty (at least in my experience), especially when you get to your upper division classes. I don't really do that much anyway and care more about how well professor's lecture than anything else. The problem is that it's becoming increasingly difficult to get into the upper division classes you're interested in. There are just too many people and not enough space. My smallest class is 30 people, but it's a graduate level course, while my other two upper division CS classes have 400 people and 315 with 75 on the waitlist. I thought my classes would get smaller as the semesters went on, but that has not been the case.

loser777 14y ago

I'm currently a student at a large (largest in the UC system) public research university, and I don't see any problem with excluding schools like UC Berkeley from the top 20. While we, like Berkeley, are a "research powerhouse," spend a little time as an undergraduate on campus and you will quickly realize how little the phrase "research powerhouse" really means to you. Professors are hired for research, not teaching, which means many are apathetic towards students while others clearly shouldn't be involved in the teaching process at all. There are some outstanding professors in terms of teaching, but the important caveat here is that at a large public research school teaching--which heavily affects the undergraduate experience is not a priority. Some argue that being at a large research school offers, as the name implies, a large number research opportunities for undergraduates. That idea is a bit overly optimistic. When you have > 100 students in almost every upper division class, it is exceedingly difficult to build a relationship with professors where you may find a chance to gain some research experience. At least with my experience in the EE department, the number of professors who take undergraduate research students is countable on one hand and most of them refuse to accept anyone who is not a 3rd/4th year. I managed to claw my way into a few labs (not EE or CS related) merely because they needed someone who could write code. The US College ranking done at U.S. news is meant to consider undergraduate teaching, and in this aspect large public schools fall far behind. If you want to see the value of research taken into account, look no further than the graduate school rankings. I don't mean to imply that the rankings are accurate, just that there is a valid reason for excluding large public schools from the top of the college rankings.

the_watcher 14y ago
I also went to UCLA and second all of this. My undergraduate experience didn't feel at all like I was at a research university.
- jroesch 14y ago
  I am an undergraduate at UCSB and I have had a much different experience. For both my friends and I getting involved with research has been relatively easy, it just requires making the effort of interacting with the faculty outside of class, and pursuing research actively instead of waiting for it to fall into your lap. I think people forget that the faculty are often excited by having a very motivated undergraduate approach them, and show interest in the work they are doing. One of my friends started in his lab, as a second quarter Freshman, and most of my friends, including myself started second year(Note: I think this is really dependent on the kind of research, things like Data Mining have less barrier to entry then something that requires much more background like Abstract Interpretation).

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

rayiner 14y ago

The USNWR college ranking is for colleges, not graduate schools. The law, medicine, business, etc, schools have their own rankings. Berkeley does very well in those graduate school rankings (indeed, Berkeley and Stanford probably get the most top-3 USNWR placements of any school). At the undergraduate level, however, the rankings measure something different. Essentially, they measure: 1) the test scores and grades of the incoming freshman class; 2) the reputation of the undergraduate program; 3) how much money (directly or indirectly) the school spends on undergraduates. As a big state school, Berkeley can't measure up in these categories. Incidentally, I'm not sure the USNWR rankings are totally senseless in what they measure. For undergrad, I went to a big state research university with very highly ranked graduate engineering programs. For law school, I went to a private university whose undergraduate program was ranked in the top 20. While the two situations weren't directly comparable, I have to say that there is something to what USNWR measures. The experience of being a student at the big state MRU was terrible. Enormous freshman weed out classes, professors and TA's that didn't speak English, outdated facilities, etc. The experience at the private university was wonderful. Very supportive administrators, great facilities, approachable professors, etc. My law department was about the same size as my undergraduate major school, yet I got more personal attention from professors in my first semester of law school than my entire time in engineering school. That said, attempts to game the rankings creates terrible incentives for universities. Pretty much the whole ranking boils down to how much money you can spend. You can buy high SAT's by spending more on scholarships, you can buy smaller class sizes by spending more on professors, etc. That works fine for well-established private schools with enormous endowments, but not so much for state MRU's. Berkeley's $3 billion endowment supports 35,000 students. Duke's $7-8 billion endowment (depending on how you count) supports 15,000 students.

geebee 14y ago
I agree with you that the USNWR rankings are not senseless. The fact that Berkeley has the most graduate departments in the top 5 of any University but an undergrad ranking outside the top 20 actually tells you a lot about the undergrad experience at the university. It is a research powerhouse where a top undergrad will meet exceptional professors, but you also risk getting lost in a sea of indifference. That said, we should also keep in mind what the USNWR rankings don't measure. Washington Monthly did a raking that had UCSD on top, and almost all large public research institutions did very well http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/feature/introduction_a_different_kind_1.php http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/feature/intro... The clever angle they took was to ask the question "what have you done for us lately?" USNWR is good for an undergrad asking "what can you do for me?" Washington Monthly figured that since all universities receive massive amounts of government funding, tax exempt endowments, and subsidy for tuition through federal loan guarantees, we should ask what they are contributing back. They placed an emphasis on social mobility (percentage of low income students), research (placing an emphasis on science and engineering), and social service. It does get to the heart of the matter - the things that harm Berkeley in the USNWR ratings (large numbers of undergrads and a relatively low tuition in spite of decreasing support from the state) also enable Berkeley to enroll more low income students than the entire ivy league combined. Berkeley gets dinged for all the negative aspects of enrolling so many low income students relative to Harvard, but gets no credit. Should it? It's all a matter of perspective - the problem is that because many other major publications don't consider rankings to be useful, USNWR is an almost unanswered voice pushing a ranking system that rewards small, wealthy, private undergraduate programs with relatively few low income students, and they're broadcasting it through a bullhorn into a quiet room.