Best Colleges - once more

My balls. Suck them.

Criteria: 22.5 % undergrad reputation
22.5% retention
12.5% selectivity
20% faculty resources
10% financial resources
7.5% graduation rate
5% alumni giving

Not science by a long shot.

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7.5% graduation rate

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22.5% retention

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Complete BS. It assumes 100% is optimal. If I see a school with 100% (or even high 90s), that tells me the school is a diploma factory.

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5% alumni giving

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Should be given more weight IMO. It's a good measure of the value alumni feel they received for their education. If you don't even feel they're worth $25 or $50 a year in donations, that says you don't think they're worthwhile. Only thing I'd change is giving recent alumni more weight than old alumni, so you don't have this metric dominated by what the school was like decades ago.

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22.5 % undergrad reputation

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Shouldn't be a factor at all. Purely subjective, and it's an evaluation of the brand name instead of the quality of education.

Should add in faculty to student ratio and percentage of classes taught by PhDs.

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Vandy, still carrying the entire load of a conference.

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well i mean the "top 25" (whatever that means) just barely doesn't include UF or UGA, who are 2 top public schools

plus these rankings are basically established in groupthink and self-serving perception biases. if we want to continue the CFB metaphor, it is impossible for a "Boise State" to emerge. hell it's impossible for an Auburn to emerge

and things like endowments, grants, and hell, even academic professor "stars" that teach at particular universities really do not have an impact on the undergraduate population that these lists are marketed towards. however, since the perceived "top" universities had these variables when the methodology was developed, they weigh greatly in the methodology.

and yes, i am one of those kids who could have gone ivy but didn't, and yes, i have much criticism to throw at LSU

I agree that LSU is never going to be Stanford (or even Ohio State) but still, an endowment is important for the continuing competitiveness of a University. I mean, should public schools just shutter up because they're not the Ivy League? Of course not. LSU is putting itself in jeopardy of not being around in its current form in 100 years because of its frankly embarrassing endowment, especially considering how little it gets from the State.

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ripping off US taxpayers via government loans (which includes inc costs)

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Very, very true.

Where's ULL???

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22.5 % undergrad reputation



Shouldn't be a factor at all. Purely subjective, and it's an evaluation of the brand name instead of the quality of education.

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Unless it equates to jobs, employment-pay, grad school admission . . . which categories BTW should be the largest deciding criterion.

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these rankings are basically established in groupthink and self-serving perception biases.

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well said

Wrong list my friend

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These undergrad engineering programs were ranked solely on a peer assessment survey conducted in spring 2014. To appear on an undergraduate engineering survey, a school must have an undergraduate engineering program accredited by ABET. The programs below are schools whose highest engineering degree offered is a bachelor's or master's.

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LINK

#1) Harvey Mudd College
#1) Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
#3) Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering
#3) United States Military Academy
#5) United States Air Force Academy
#6) United States Naval Academy
#7) California Polytechnic State University—?San Luis Obispo
#8) Bucknell University
#8) Cooper Union
#8) Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Fightin' Engineers #1 for 15 years in a row

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Should be much lower due to them being a propaganda arm for the Turkish government.

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Say what?

I know nothing about this. What is the issue? Armenian genocide?