New US News ranking out. We're number 10
...ten!
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandre...l-universities
Lots more ties this year than usual. Look on the bright side, you can argue we're fifth.
1. Harvard/Princeton. Pick one, you wimps.
3. Yale
4. Columbia (!?)
5. Mitcaltechstanfordchicagopenn
10. us
11. Dartmouth... I swear they have some rule that Dartmouth must always be either the same as us, or one behind
12... the rest
Fun fact about Duke: "The Duke Blue Devils sports teams have a fierce rivalry with the University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill Tar Heels and are best known for their outstanding men's basketball program."
ACC standings:
10. us
25. Wake/UVa
29. uncch
31. BC
36. GIT
38. UMiami (the "other Miami" is #90)
55. Maryland
(58. the reigning national champion, out of the Big East)
68. Clemson
71. VPI
101. FSU/NCSU
Hey, Guys! The Methodology Changes Every Year
Quote:
Originally Posted by
NovaScotian
i guess i've been disappointed with duke's sluggishness with this poll. i remember being #6 not too long ago. not that there aren't areas for improvement, but i'm surprised at the least to see penn and chicago as ahead of us.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
davekay1971
Looking at the geography, we're still the Harvard of the South. Well, now we're the Harvard/Princeton of the South.
We're also the only top 10 school located anywhere I'd want to live for four years. Except for Stanford. I could eat my way through the San Francisco area for four years. And Johnny D is improving the basketball. So maybe Stanford, despite my conservative tendencies, would be OK. (Yes, I saw Chicago, which is a wonderful city with great food, but the school year involves much of the winter months, and dear LORD it's cold up there November-March. The same basically applies to the Boston area schools). So Duke's still the only top 10 rated university that I'd want to go to...maybe excepting Stanford.
Go us!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bluedog
Well, Duke's raw rating of 92 is an improvement from the 90 from last year. We just needed one more point to get a 6-way tie for 5th place at 93 points. With rounding, the difference between 92 and 93 could be very small. Harvard and Princeton scored 100, while Yale got a 98 and Columbia was a distant third at 94. Nobody is going to break the top 3 in the near future from HYP (unless there is a large change in the criteria/methodology), but there is a big lump of schools in the 4th to 12th spots so some variability is to be expected. Chicago has skyrocketed in the rankings in the past few years - I recall it was something like 15th not too long ago. Then a UChicago administrator met with U.S. News officials to discuss the reporting of data and UChicago changed how it reported its data, still adhering to US News protocol. UPenn has been in the top 10 for quite some time, making the ascent in the 90s. Duke has been ranked in the top 10 for the past 23 years. At least, Duke beat Dartmouth, heh.
Gee, the USN&WR ratings change every year, while schools change at glacial places in terms of faculty, programs and research. How can that be??? Well, everyone needs to understand that the rankings are a way to sell magazines (actually, advertising), and the only way to do that is to have the rankings change every year. Therefore, the criteria or the specific collected has to change every year. I think the good folks at USN&WR do a bit of both.
The other factor is the rankings are one-dimensional. Anyone here want to argue that MIT and Caltech are close substitutes for Princeton and Harvard (or Duke and Stanford)? That is ludicrous -- the pressure at Caltech got so high that the school abolished grades for freshman year.
sagegrouse
Wash U Selectivity Policy??
Quote:
Originally Posted by
duke09hms
Yeah A.B. Duke is definitely the most prestigious scholarship at Duke hands down.
Duke's need-based financial aid is awesome, something like if your family makes under $70,000 everything is paid for. If it's between 70k and 100k a year, you take out a few grand in loans per year. I think total, I paid 10k for my Duke degree, and this is coming from a middle-class family in Pennsylvania.
It is really too bad how these rankings are so influential. When admitted HS students are choosing between schools, a good part of their decision is due to the rankings. And also, these rankings are all international students have to go by, so they are then extremely important. When schools drop in the rankings, administrators talk about how inaccurate and imprecise they are, but when schools rise, administrators speak of how useful a metric they are. Unfortunately, Duke's administrators have been speaking about how inaccurate they are.
Yes, these rankings are inaccurate and imprecise, but that doesn't mean they aren't important. And because no one truly checks the validity of their reported numbers, Duke would be well-served to "massage" their reported numbers and put their best foot forward. Like Columbia, Penn, UChicago, and WashU have all done in recent years to inflate their rankings and by doing so, they've been able to get better students, which is really what it's all about.
1. The head of the USNWR rankings is a Penn alum. Penn was always in the teens 10-15 years ago before he got there. Now they're in the top 5 on a regular basis. This is truly an unprecedented rocketship rise in the rankings.
2. Penn and Columbia and many of the "lower-tier" Ivies accept over half their class early decision, allowing them to reject the vast majority of the regular decision pool, decreasing their overall acceptance rate and increasing their yield, thus making them appear more "competitive" and increasing their ranking. Duke fills about 30% of its class through ED - personally I don't believe this is the way to go.
3. WashU sends info mailings to thousands of HS students and counts every returned request to join the info mailing list as a complete application, thus making them appear more "competitive" and increasing their ranking. This is a dishonest method, and Duke shouldn't do this.
4. UChicago sent a team of representatives to the USNWR offices a few years ago to find out how to improve their ranking. They were barely top 15 a few years ago, now they're top 5. I think this is something Duke definitely could do and should do.
Just saying, you're only hurting yourself if you don't try to help your ranking.
Also, does anyone else think duke might be the victim of big-city bias - we're not in the NorthEast, California, or in a major metropolitan center (Chicago)?
I have some info on Wash U. I can't find the story, but it was clear that Wash U was gaming the system to get a higher percentage of students to accept its offers of admission. It was requesting info on other schools that the applicant had visited and/or applied to, then it was using a "degree of interest" variable to DQ they guys and gals it believed were headed to Harvard or Yale anyway. Total BS and disgraceful. Maybe we should do that too?:p
sagegrouse