Rank - Part 3 (comparisons and equivalencies)

As might be expected, the latest US News and World Report college rankings have created controversy, in part because of a shift in methodology that shifted ranks up and down compared with the prior year.

You can read more about the controversies - somewhat similar to the earlier controversies concerning law schools and med schools at:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/admissions/traditional-age/2023/09/22/us-news-rankings-changes-spur-complaints-and-apologies.

But rather than get into the weeds, yours truly thought we might benefit from looking at comparisons and equivalencies. As you likely know, both UCLA are touting themselves as the best public university. But the public qualifier actually means both tied for 15th. 

But that means the two are not quite so good as Chicago, but are a bit better than Rice.

Moving down the list we find that UC-Davis and UC-San Diego at #28 are equivalent to each other and also to the U of Florida.

UC-Irvine and UC-Santa Barbara are equivalent to NYU at #33.

 

At #60, we find that UC-Merced is equivalent to Renssalear and Santa Clara U.

At #76, UC-Riverside is like SUNY-Buffalo.

And finally at #76, UC-Santa Cruz is like Rutgers and the U of Illinois-Chicago.

Go figure.

Source: https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/search?_sort=rank&_sortDirection=asc.

Rank - Part 2

From the NY Times: U.S. News’s adjusted methodology, a response to years of criticism, places increased emphasis on what the company labels “social mobility,” measured through graduation rates for low-income students as well as for first-generation college students... As part of this new focus, the organization also discarded five factors that had often favored wealthy colleges, including undergraduate class sizes, alumni giving rates and high school class standing.

...These are the rankings of California schools that made the top 100 this year, along with their previous rankings:

• Stanford University: 3 (last year: 3)
• California Institute of Technology: 7 (9)
• U.C. Berkeley: 15 (20)
• U.C.L.A.: 15 (20)
• U.C. Davis: 28 (38)
• U.C. San Diego: 28 (34)
• University of Southern California: 28 (25)
• U.C. Irvine: 33 (34)
• U.C. Santa Barbara: 35 (32)
• Santa Clara University: 60 (55)
• U.C. Merced: 60 (97)
• Pepperdine University: 76 (55)
• U.C. Riverside: 76 (89)
• U.C. Santa Cruz: 82 (83)
• Loyola Marymount University: 93 (77)
• University of San Diego: 98 (97)

 Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/19/us/california-universities-us-news-rankings.html.