Washington Monthly has been ranking US universities based on its own methodology (which favours indicators related to social mobility, service and research -- as measured by the number of PhDs), which produces results that are dramatically different from those of the US News. For example, the top twenty in the WM list is studded with state schools while the USN list has none. And four University of California campuses (LA, Berkeley, San Diego and Davis) figure in the top ten!
FWIW, here's the rank list (pdf) You can read the accompanying article and their methodology for further details.
Abi, I believe that the US News rankings that they compare with are undergrad rankings: some of the factors used by US News are freshman retention, SAT scores, student/faculty ratio etc. I don't think they take graduate studies into account at all. US News has a separate ranking scheme for graduate studies, but they are subject-specific rankings. I am tempted to say that Berkeley is very highly ranked in those lists, compared to the 21 in College rankings.
ReplyDeleteUC Davis in the top 10?!
ReplyDeleteI also didn't know Texas A&M was that great :-) I thought Michigan, UT Austin or Urbana were better schools.