College

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by BigSKINBauer

^^^ those rankings are extremely unfair to public schools. Those rankings take a lot into consideration and using just the overall ranking is really not a fair assessment. I mean everyone has different priorities. . THe ranking takes class size and other things into consideration and weighs them for you.

The most important thing, i feel(again personal choices), is the prestige of the university. I can get by sitting in a 180 person lecture. To some people, that is hell. The prestige of the school is best reflected by the peer assessment rankings which account for only 25% of that score (i forget but i am pretty darn sure that is it). FOR ME, prestige(peer assessment) is much more important than just 25% of my decision.

The other catagories all benefit public universities. I mean look at the rankings, there is only one public school in the top 20. Vanderbilt better than UNC, UVA, Umich, UCLA, Wisconsin? I don't think it is much better.

I say this because I have always felt Wake forest is over ranked. It is a great school but it has a 3.5 peer assessment ranking.

UNC ranked 27- peer assessment 4.2
Wake Forest 30- Peer assessment 3.5
PSU ranked 47 Peer assessment 3.8
Florida ranked 47 peer assessment 3.7

I say this to show that prestige wise, wake forest isn't that much better than PUS or Florida. I meen the peer rankings are not perfect but they reflect the general opinion of academics at that school from its peers. I feel that is important.

All my blabbing has to say is that everything in the rankings should be looked at and not the final product. Then evaluate everything on a scale that reflects the person that is choosing.

But college recruiters could give a crap about peer assessments, BSB. They look at things like US News, Barrons, and the Princeton Review. I agree that there often is a disconnect between the quality of education you get and the reputation of the school amongst college recruiters, but if you want to do what's in your best interests, you appeal to the college recruiters.

The best jobs go to the "best" schools. And to recruiters, in this case, that means UNC Chapel Hill and Wake. That's the only area in which rankings should really matter: how easy can you get a job when you graduate, and how much $ can you make with that degree. The rest of the rankings, pun intended, are academic.