Forbes Top Colleges - 2015 Ranking

RLTW

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Forbes Top Colleges - 2015 Ranking
http://www.forbes.com/top-colleges/list/#tab:rank

Within the list -- Service Academies:
#11 United States Military Academy
#27 United States Naval Academy
#38 United States Air Force Academy
#101 United States Coast Guard Academy
#213 United States Merchant Marine Academy
 
This takes the cake as the stupidest Best College list I've ever seen.

GA Tech #90
Texas A&M #150, behind University of Denver and University of Miami (FL)
Baylor #197, behind LSU

$100 says that one criterion is the number of graduates on the Forbes 400 list. The magazine always has been and always will be the Vanity Fair of business news.
 
Ha Ha

I am fairly certain that even in a bad year, Notre Dame's football team can beat all the schools listed above it!
 
The Forbes rankings aren't exactly the most reliable. The U.S. News rankings are the widely accepted rankings. Forbes uses some aspects to come to their rankings that don't matter very much.
 
"Forbes reports that they called on Dr. Richard Vedder, an economist at Ohio University, and the Center for College Affordability and Productivity (staffed largely by current colleges students) to develop their rankings methodology, which considered the "quality of education" each schools provides and "how much their students achieve." In doing so, Forbes draws 25% of its information from the student evaluations on RateMyProfessors.com, and another 25% from alumni listings in Who’s Who in America. Remaining factors include:

  • average amount of student debt at graduation held by those who borrowed in the first place
  • percentage of students graduating in four years
  • faculty and student winners of biggie prizes like the Nobel or Rhodes Scholarships"
http://www.collegeconfidential.com/forbes/

The fact that student evaluations from RateMyProfessors.com and alumni listings from Who’s Who in America make up 50% of the ranking methodology is absurd.
 
There are several publication that produce ranking lists of colleges and just as many methods on how they came up with their list. Many on SAF find them arrogant, useless and meaningless. However, I hope it encourages SA hopefuls to always follow a Plan B and C simultaneously while working Plan A. The publications can help with that plan. I feel there is value in these posts to help find a path to formulate plans for college selection.


West Point is consistently in the top 10 to 15 colleges of all publications.


Again, West Point is not your typical college experience. Your summers are filled with military programs that are required; carrying 19 to 22 credits every semester, your days are scheduled, the pace and tempo can be grueling. If you fall behind, it is very difficult to catch up. For example: this year a cadet became ill and could not complete his MIAD. He was given the options of, continue ill, or separate. The option to take it next summer was not given. He went to academic boards and was separated based on his GPA was below 2.8. And so he did not continue for affirmation.

Push Hard, Press Forward
 
I think, except for SAs, they base their rankings on how many insane parents are willing to consider paying over $66,000 a year for their child's liberal arts education.

My first house, a lovely 3 bedroom ranch with finished basement and small barn, cost $56,000, back in the day.

Send your kid to school to be a welder. Now, Little Johnny has a real future.
 
I think, except for SAs, they base their rankings on how many insane parents are willing to consider paying over $66,000 a year for their child's liberal arts education.

My first house, a lovely 3 bedroom ranch with finished basement and small barn, cost $56,000, back in the day.

Send your kid to school to be a welder. Now, Little Johnny has a real future.
http://www.admissionsconsultants.com/college/ivy_league_financial_aid.asp

A lot of the top tier schools are quite generous with financial aid. At Harvard 60% of students receive financial aid and the average financial aid package covers $44,000 of the $51,000 cost of attendance.
 
I think, except for SAs, they base their rankings on how many insane parents are willing to consider paying over $66,000 a year for their child's liberal arts education.

My first house, a lovely 3 bedroom ranch with finished basement and small barn, cost $56,000, back in the day.

Send your kid to school to be a welder. Now, Little Johnny has a real future.

Sooooo True! Have a friend who's an orthopedic surgeon who had to have plumbing repair done in his backyard after some flooding...took them about two hours to fix it all and then presented him with the bill. His response? "Hell, that's twice what I get for a knee replacement!"

Choose wisely my friends.
 
Tuition, which costs schools NOTHING to discount (the seat being already in the classroom and all), is often heavily discounted for a student in which schools are "interested." Some will even offer "free tuition" or "full-ride" but there will be no monies off for fees, and most especially, for room and board. $12,000+ for eight months of sharing a room and bath, and food court chow (which is now luxury chow in such schools).

Financial Aid is a game, and one must be trained to read between those lines. Turns out, what many schools offer is very very little, to very few.
 

The fact that student evaluations from RateMyProfessors.com and alumni listings from Who’s Who in America make up 50% of the ranking methodology is absurd.

Only college ranking that matter is either one your like or one that will influence your future (i.e. recuriter, hiring manager, grad school admissions, etc).

What do you think is a fair ranking methodology?
 
A lot of the top tier schools are quite generous with financial aid. At Harvard 60% of students receive financial aid and the average financial aid package covers $44,000 of the $51,000 cost of attendance.

There is no universal definition for "financial aid." Typical financial aid includes grants, loan guaratnees, federal student loans, and work study program. So that's why schools don't say is what the out of pocket cost is. Above example, a freshman at Harvard shoudl paid $7000 for the first year. But any loans would have to by pay back with interest. I ventured guess that the avearge financail aid packge of $44,000 from Harvard contains significant amount of loans.

On a side note, many colleges consider a student't (really parents) ability to pay during the admissions process.

Interesting read about college financial aid

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/13/e...know-about-financial-aid-but-should.html?_r=0
 
The fact that student evaluations from RateMyProfessors.com and alumni listings from Who’s Who in America make up 50% of the ranking methodology is absurd.

Only college ranking that matter is either one your like or one that will influence your future (i.e. recuriter, hiring manager, grad school admissions, etc).

What do you think is a fair ranking methodology?
I don't think it's possible to create a completely fair ranking methodology, but I do think using student evaluations and alumni listings to make up half the ranking methodology is extremely unfair. At some schools students/alumni have a lot more pride in their school than others. For example, students/alumni at the University of Alabama are probably a lot more proud and passionate about their school than students at Bryant University. Students/alumni that are proud of their school are probably going to give their school good, biased evaluations/listings while students/alumni that are not very proud of their school are less likely to give their school a good, biased evaluations/listings.

Here are some of the factors that I think should make up the bulk of a fair ranking methodology:
Average student debt following graduation
Average early career income of graduates
Average mid career income of graduates
Average late career income of graduates
Average unemployment rate of graduates
Number of students/graduates earning notable awards
Selectivity level of the college
Number of notable alumni
Class size
Percentage of students graduating in 4 years or less
Percentage of students graduating in 6 years or less
Resources the school has to offer
Percentage of faculty that works full time
Student to faculty ratio
Availability of financial aid
Retention rate
Percentage of students that go on to graduate school
Percentage of students that go on to finish graduate school
Percentage of students that graduate with no debt
Availability of extracurricular activities
 
Frenzymando, in theory yes, but in reality no . D you think that we can collect reliable data, limits manipulation of the data, and somehow decided which is more important criteria ?

How do we get information from graduates (i.e. salary, unemployment, grad school, debt)? They have to provide them, so just like ratemyprofessor.com, not everyone is going to respond.

Some of things you mentioned are related and subject to mainpulation. "Class size "is determined by the number of faculty and "precentage of faculty that works full time" directly impacts the class size. At the same time, big difference between teaching and research faculty. So in theory, a school could have small "class size" with large number of faculty, but in reality class size is bigger as many full time faculty doesn't teach.

I think if you could come up with a reliable college ranking system you should definitely become a "notable grad."

Lastly, go back my other comment that "only college ranking that matter is either one your like or one that will influence your future"
 
Here is my take on this ranking issue. The top school for me may not be anywhere near the top school for you. What about a school who is turning out a lot of teachers, missionaries or ministers? Quite noble professions to me yet they will do poorly on earnings scales. Also the RatemyProfessors criteria is absurd to me. It is not a proper sample and I would guess draws more disgruntled flunkies than successful students. My bottom line? Do your own research and follow your heart....and oh yeah...try to stay out of debt
 
Any idea why Forbes seems to have conflicting information about USMA's ranking?

http://www3.forbes.com/forbeswoman/americas-top-100-colleges/43/

Your link is for the 2014 rankings.

Stealth_81
Ah! I searched for a date but none is given on those Forbes web pages. Only way to tell it is 2014 is to imply it from "7th annual" on page 1.

Adding to the confusion is the July 26, 2015 USMA posts stating "West Point was ranked the #9 College in the united states by Forbes today"

https://m.facebook.com/Leadershipbook?refsrc=https://www.facebook.com/Leadershipbook

And

https://m.facebook.com/pages/West-Point-Leadership-Profiles-of-Courage/359651217456102
 
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