US News 2007 College Rankings:

For those of you who have not yet seen it yet, the Top Ten in US News this year are:

1. Princeton University(NJ)

2. Harvard University(MA)

3. Yale University(CT)

4. California Institute of Technology

4. Stanford University(CA)

4. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology

7. University of Pennsylvania

8. Duke University(NC)

9. Dartmouth College(NH)

9. Columbia University(NY)

9. University of Chicago

How much should you use the above data? Very little. The rankings themselves are fairly meaningless. What do they measure? What is the difference between #1 and #2 or #1 and #9. Do the criteria of the rankers match your criteria? Without the answers to these questions, you shouldn't use the rankings at all.

While the overall rankings may be fairly useless, the statistical data included with the rankings can be helpful. First of all, they give you an indication of whether you qualify for particular programs. Some of the specialty rankings may help you if they measure factors of importance to you. They also allow you to compare programs on a limited set of criteria.

But no one can rank the schools for you. No one.
For a few other views of rankings and choosing schools, please take a look at these articles.

• "Rank Colleges, but Rank Them Right" from the New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/16/business/media/16leonhardt.html?_r=1&oref=slogin


• "Ranking Season is Upon Us" in Notes from Peabody, a UVA

http://uvaadmission.blogspot.com/2006/08/ranking-season-is-upon-us.html

Dave, thank you for the information.

5 mnoths ago, i was crazy about the rankings, coz i had to find out 4 grad schools to deliver my GRE scores. with regrets, i didnt pick up any school in top10. but now, i dont care about that too much, i realize i'm looking for the shoes that suit me most, not ones that look only swanky but not fit my feet at all.

sounds like any self-consoling or self-cheating?

OK...so you went to a top ten university in the nation, and got a degree in whatever field you studied. Will your potential employer be impressed? Maybe... Will he or she think you can do the job just because you went to a top ten university? Not on your life! So why do people want to go to top ten universities? Your guess is as good as mine.

The first impression might be connected to your diploma. People judge others with few pieces of paper(they might cost you hundred thousand) sometimes. But what comes next is more like your attitude or ability or..... so you still have to cherish the piece of paper if you have spent lots of money for it...^_^

I can tell you this from my experience that people with degrees from the top Universities are recruited by companies even though they do not know about the students true abilities or even if they can do the job. What the businesses see in that student is that he worked hard and got a degree that fits into their business profile from a school that is known to produce a great number of students with the possibility of being what they want.

I personally have friends that have graduated from the top schools in the country and were recruited by employers and hired with all the perks that you can imagine just because they went to a specific school. They were given these positions without even really talking to anyone or having interviews. One of my friends went to Harvard Law School and graduated with his law degree and was recruited by one of the best law firms in New York, when my friend was offered that position he told me that he had many other offers and wanted to take a look at all of them before making that decision. Finally he decided on the job in New York and moved there and they set him up in a nice apartment and he started working for them doing research until he could take the bar exam. I remember my friend calling me when I was still at Florida State and telling me that he failed the bar exam and that the company was not happy and that his research was not up to what they expected of him, although they thought if he worked hard he would met their standards. He again took the bar exam 6 months later and failed again and was promptly fired from the company because they did not think he could meet the standards that they company had. The reason I am telling you this is because my friend did graduate in the top 5% of his class at Harvard but he had the common sense of a 15 year old….. If the company had taken the time to really talk to my friend they would have found that he was still like a kid inside he started at the University when he was just 15 years old and graduated when he was just 20. Yes he was smart and had all the knowledge but in the real world he could not cope with the daily life that was now required of him therefore he did not study or work as hard as he did at the University. Now my friend is an attorney but not for a large powerful law firm but working for himself in a one man law firm, No he does not make lots of money or have the prestige that he thought he would with his degree from Harvard……

I can tell you many stories of people that went to top schools and never made it with their degrees and I can tell you of people that went to small colleges and Universities that you never heard of that achieved their goals even though they may not have went to the big colleges.

So I can tell you that an employer will be impressed by your degree and that yes many companies will give you the job over other potential employees just because you have a degree from a top school. A degree is a powerful piece of paper and more powerful if it is from a top school. But having that degree dose not mean you can do the job or that you are even qualified to do the job.

So a degree is only as good as the person that received it and the knowledge they received while going to school.