College rankings and US News & World Report

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Current university ranking systems provide an easy way for prospective students to see how one organization ranks against others. This can be done for a simple way to see which colleges will provide the best education. At least that’s what ranking system is supposed to do in recent years, although there has been some criticism regarding the methodology used to rank colleges.

What are Admission rankings

Before we talk about what is good about the current system and it is not, it is important to understand how colleges are currently ranked in the United States. It is also important to know that there are more than one ranking system available.

methodology that most of us are familiar with the ratings that are given by US News. This system has been around since 1983, and each year the ratings for colleges change. The US News ranks score Each institution with a score between 1 and 100, with 100 being the best, and they leave the schools in four tiers. The best schools are listed as tier 1

Grades are based on the collected data that take into account the following factors:

• peer – reputation of the school is based on a survey of presidents, provosts and deans of other institutions

• retention – discharge rate 6-year period, and the retention rate of the first year students

• Student Selectivity – The combination of data based on :. test scores of students, the percentage of the top percentile of students admitted, and student acceptance rate as a whole

• Teachers and Resources – Data that includes a student-faculty ratio, the average salary of teachers, and the education level of faculty

• Financial Resources – Average tuition price per-student

• Graduation Rate Performance – The difference between the expected rate discharge was and what the actual graduation rate turned out to be

• Students Giving Rate – The amount of money received from donations from alumni

The first four items on the list account for 80% of the total. Peer makes a 25% rating, and that is where the criticism of the US News ranking system comes in.

The Good and Bad

In recent years, there has been some criticism of the current system. It has been said that the weight of peer assessment, student selectivity, faculty resources and it will be easy to choose which school will come out on top. The largest schools and richest schools work out the smaller colleges every time, regardless of the actual education a student can expect to receive from the organization.

Looking at historical data, are these statements true to a certain extent. Schools like Harvard, Yale and Princeton always end up on top of the list. Some people think, to get a proper measurement of learning outcomes, ratings should give greater weight to factors related to graduate, salary after graduation and student performance in the long run.

Even with the criticism, the current university ranking system does provide a method for students to see how their chosen (or prospective) organization ranks against similar colleges in the country. It provides a simple method to see where they can expect top-rate education, and they have to get a second tier education.

In other ranking systems popping up every year it is also possible to use the US News rankings are associated with different scoring systems. It may be worthwhile to compare the place in America and in the Academic Rankings World University or data based on the G-Factor methodology (eg Webometric). Use more than one rating system will provide a better overall picture when you look at any university.

It is likely that prospective students should talk to your admissions counselor , or college advisers before making final decisions. But, with US News and admissions rankings, these students have a simple place to start when looking for the best school in the country.

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