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The U.S. News is, without a doubt, the most influential college ranker out there. But, can you go even further and "tier" the top 50? Here's mine. I'm rating on overall academics and prestige.

Top Tier of the Top Tier (in no order):
Harvard
Princeton
Yale
MIT
Stanford
Caltech
Penn
Columbia

Second Tier:
Duke
Cornell
Northwestern
Chicago
Johns Hopkins
Dartmouth
Brown

Third Tier:
Rice
Emory
Notre Dame
Vanderbilt
Berkeley
UVA
Georgetown

Fourth Tier:
Carnegie Mellon
UCLA
Michigan
Wake Forest
Tufts
UNC
William and Mary

Fifth Tier:
USC
NYU
Georgia Tech
UIUC
Wisconsin
Tulane

Just post add-ins or what you think should be changed. I didn't do all of the top 50, so if you would like a particular one added in, just say so.

By Iflyjets (Iflyjets) on Friday, January 23, 2004 - 06:16 pm: Edit

Interesting. Based on your "tier" rankings, my D has applied to one school in each. I can't wait to see the "feedback" you're going to get. (hehe) Any thoughts on the LACs?

By Slayer (Slayer) on Friday, January 23, 2004 - 06:30 pm: Edit

What are LACs??
I have no idea on the tiers.... I was happy you ranked the schools i applied to in your 3rd and 4th tier (especially UNC)i'm guessing you're from the east coast based on your rankings though i'd put dartmouth above standard. that's just me though

By Thedad (Thedad) on Friday, January 23, 2004 - 06:37 pm: Edit

Yes, there are several biases in that list, against LAC's (liberal arts colleges), public universities, and non-Eastern schools.

Following is the lead post from a thread I started in the Parents Forum, a rough ranking based on degree of interest from posters on College Confidential.

===

In another thread, there has been quite a bit of discussion about changing the admissions systems to be more realistic in light of the overwhelming number of applicants. I conclude that "the problem" doesn't really doesn't effect that many schools or, in the scheme of things, that many students, just mainly the most visible students with the most vocal parents.

I went into the Individual Schools forum and browsed through the three sub-folders, noting those schools which have *20* or more posts. Following is the ranking of the schools as measured by CC posts on the individual school; the assumption is that number of posts reflects both breadth and intensity of interest in the school and hence application numbers. I note that numbers can be skewed by a few intense posters (at the low end) or than relative rank can be skewed by the intensity of discussions about, say, EA (Yale for instance) or by a large number of applicants (Cornell, UC Santa Barbara). However, I dub this CC's Quick-and-Dirty Guide to the Popular Colleges For Over-Anxious High-Achieving Students and Their Parents (CCQDGPCFOAHASTP for short). There are so many other flawed rankings systems, what's one more?

There are only 73 colleges that meet such a modest criterion as 20 posts. [Survey taken between 7:00pm and 7:30pm EST, 1/22/04. Numbers reflect combined threads in multiple sections, e.g., USC has posts both under "S" for "Southern California" and "U" for USC.]

1. Yale
Cornell
Harvard
Stanford
Princeton
MIT
Penn
Columbia
Brown
10. Rice
NYU
Northwestern
U Chicago

1000 post dividing line

U California--Berkeley
Georgetown
Dartmouth
Duke
UCLA
U Michigan
20. Johns Hopkins

500 post dividing line

Notre Dame
Wash U. St. Louis
Emory
U Virginia
Air Force Academy
George Washington
U North Carolina--Chapel Hill
Cal Tech
Carnegie Mellon
30. U Southern California (USC)
Tufts
Naval Academy
Vanderbilt

100 post dividing line

Boston College
Williams
Wellesley
Swarthmore
U California--Santa Barbara
U Illinois--Champagne-Urbana
40. Fordham
Smith
Sarah Lawrence
Tulane
Santa Clara
Vassar
Pomona

50 post dividing line

U Wisconsin--Madison
Wake Forest
U California--San Diego
50. Grinnell
50. U Texas--Austin
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
U of San Diego
Haverford
Barnard
Olin

30 post dividing line

Carleton
Bowdoin
Penn State U.
60. Wheaton (IL)
Ohio U.
U California--Santa Cruz
Skidmore
Bryn Mawr
McGill
Pace
Reed
Case Westerm
Boston U.
70. U Miami
College of William and Mary
Bates
Colgate


# # #

By Mafmaf22 (Mafmaf22) on Friday, January 23, 2004 - 07:23 pm: Edit

Benjamin, i think you forgot Washington University in ST. Louis. I don't know where you would put it, but i know for sure that it is the top 50, actually i believe in the top 10 according to US NEws

By Arcadia (Arcadia) on Saturday, January 24, 2004 - 08:06 pm: Edit

many of those posts are conversations that people are having with each other--2 people talking back and forth for 20 posts can severly skew the results

By Thedad (Thedad) on Saturday, January 24, 2004 - 08:26 pm: Edit

Yes, please note my comment in the fourth (the large) paragraph of my post...that's where some caveats are.

By Benjamin (Benjamin) on Saturday, January 24, 2004 - 08:26 pm: Edit

Ummm...I don't see at all how your list is remotely accurate. Just because a group of people talk about it more does not make it a better school. My list was not biased against LACs, mainly because I did not include them {roll}

btw, I'll add WUStL...err...third tier, I guess.

By May_1 (May_1) on Saturday, January 24, 2004 - 08:33 pm: Edit

Quotes from Thedad:

"a rough ranking based on degree of interest from posters on College Confidential."

"the assumption is that number of posts reflects both breadth and intensity of interest in the school and hence application numbers."

Benjamin, I don't see any place where Thedad asserts that his list is based on the "quality" of the schools. And, according to his assumptions (# of posts = interest in school on CC), I'd say the lists pretty accurate.

By Thedad (Thedad) on Saturday, January 24, 2004 - 09:40 pm: Edit

May, to slice the discussion even further, subject to my caveats, I think the list is a rough "perception" of quality as seen by CC posters...why intense posting about a school that you don't think is any good. Since it's "rough," it's good enough for tiering.

Leaving out LAC's from a list of *top 50 colleges based on overall academics and prestige* (per the original post) is pretty silly. {roll} right back atcha.

Ignoring or understating the value and quality of LAC's is something that's pervasive and pernicious on CC. Note some of the school missing from the list of 73: Amherst, Oberlin...damn, I forget...there were a couple of other surprising omissions.

By Benjamin (Benjamin) on Saturday, January 24, 2004 - 09:43 pm: Edit

LOL! Thedad said I was "biased against state schools and LACs"....look at his rankings....there's not a state school in the top two tiers and not one LAC in the top three!

By Iflyjets (Iflyjets) on Saturday, January 24, 2004 - 10:00 pm: Edit

Out of curiosity, Thedad, how did you account for the quick, trivial posts in the "or game" that is showing up on many ivy school posts (and that some of the kids agree is just to keep the "longest thread" records going? Not a criticism, merely an inquiry.

By Voigtrob (Voigtrob) on Saturday, January 24, 2004 - 10:02 pm: Edit

Problem with ranking based on post #s is that there's no USNews Top 25 section for LACs, which I don't understand... ergo LACs are not nearly as accessible on these forums.

By Barrons (Barrons) on Sunday, January 25, 2004 - 11:05 am: Edit

There should be a list for top state schools too.

By Slayer (Slayer) on Sunday, January 25, 2004 - 11:09 am: Edit

wouldn't wellesley be ranked as a very high "LAC"? that is if if they were included in these lists

By Chasgoose (Chasgoose) on Sunday, January 25, 2004 - 11:55 am: Edit

Benjamin, Thedad's rankings aren't based on his own opinions, they are based on the # of posts that each college gets in the Individual Schools forums. As a result the LACs and state schools are not nearly as discussed as the Ivies and other US News top 25 because College Confidential makes it hard and annoying to discuss anything else. For example, I am very interested in Williams and Amherst but I rarely visit their individual school forums because they are not nearly as updated as the other schools I am applying to and they do not have subject specific threads within their own forums so it becomes one giant thread. I would visit more often if College Confidential would allow separate discussions within the Williams and Amherst discussion boards.

By Thedad (Thedad) on Sunday, January 25, 2004 - 01:28 pm: Edit

Bingo, Chasgoose. They are not my rankings. They are *a* ranking produced by counting CC posts.

And it sorta proves my point about how over-focused on some schools that the CC community is as a whole.
You know...your suggestion about the LAC's is a good one. I may be able to drop a word in the right quarter. Okay, for LAC's, what's a good but compact list, similar to the Ivy or USN Top 25 group?

Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr, Pomona, Whitman, Carelton, Macalester, Oberlin, Grinnell, Wellesely, Smith, Barnard, Haverford, Kenyon(?)....

Some other suggestions, bearing in mind that 20 is probably the max?

By Benjamin (Benjamin) on Sunday, January 25, 2004 - 02:52 pm: Edit

Vassar, Harvey Mudd, Bowdoin, Davidson, Wesleyan, Middlebury, Colgate.....

By Chasgoose (Chasgoose) on Sunday, January 25, 2004 - 03:15 pm: Edit

Why not just do the USN Top 25 LAC list?
That would include
Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Carleton, Pomona, Wellesley, Davidson, Middlebury, Haverford, Bowdoin, Wesleyan, Claremont McKenna, Washington and Lee, Vassar, Grinnell, Smith, Bryn Mawr, Colby, Hamilton, Harvey Mudd, Trinity, Bates, Macalester, Oberlin, Mt. Holyoke. I would also include Reed and Kenyon on this list because they (especially Reed) don't play the USNews game and as a result their rankings suffer.

By Voigtrob (Voigtrob) on Sunday, January 25, 2004 - 03:46 pm: Edit

Yea, IMO Chasgoose has laid it out perfectly... and yea, Reed and Kenyon deserve to be included.

By Thedad (Thedad) on Sunday, January 25, 2004 - 07:41 pm: Edit

Thanks for the suggestions. Let me see what I can cause to be done....

By Chasgoose (Chasgoose) on Sunday, January 25, 2004 - 10:51 pm: Edit

Hey they took our advice! Thanks Thedad and College Confidential.

By Thedad (Thedad) on Sunday, January 25, 2004 - 10:54 pm: Edit

Thank you for prompting. It's one thing to complain about something, another to do something about it.
And as with accomplishing many jobs, if you know the right person to go to, it's *so* much easier to get it done. I really like this place (CC) if it's not obvious and I want to see it be as useful as possible for parents and students.

By Voigtrob (Voigtrob) on Sunday, January 25, 2004 - 11:41 pm: Edit

Wowwww my goodness our suggestion got implemented! Haha, that's awesome. Thanks a million TheDad, helps a lot.

By Iflyjets (Iflyjets) on Monday, January 26, 2004 - 12:27 am: Edit

Nice job, Thedad!

By Macsuile (Macsuile) on Monday, July 05, 2004 - 08:32 pm: Edit

Here are some stats on William & Mary:

- Second oldest U.S. university
- Oldest U.S. law school
- Birthplace of Phi Beta Kappa
- Thomas Jefferson's alma mater
- Most selective U.S. public university
- Third highest SAT scores in the South (only Duke and Rice are higher)
- Highest entering student GPAs in Virginia
- Fastest growing university endowment in Virginia
- Best physics, history and biology departments in Virginia

As you can see, William & Mary has an amazing academic tradition. Yes, the grading scale is somewhat deflationary and the course offerings are not as extensive as some other Southern schools, but William & Mary is a school high on tradition which doesn't subscribe to fads where everyone graduates cum laude and there is a supermarket of course offerings. The school is committed to the British university model which is human-scale as opposed to other university models which focus on research and increasing enrollments. W&M may not be for everyone but a degree from there has timeless substance, something you can't find from most other U.S. schools which are constantly trying to reposition or recreate themselves.