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Money Magazine's college ranking is a joke. Clemson is ranked higher than several Ivy League schools for example. It's a click bait ranking based on cheap tuition. USN&WR or GTFO.

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The ranking that bases half its points on a popularity contest and how much you spend on napkins at the dining hall and whose entire premise is "Harvard is the best, therefore the more different you are from Harvard, the worse your school is"

Yeah USNWR is totally legit.

Meanwhile, give me an engineering degree from Clemson that lets me earn big bucks with little debt vs half a million in debt on a worthless lib arts degree from Dartmouth.

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Those liberal arts majors at Ivy Leagues end up in Wall Street.

Believe it or not, any Ivy League student can easily do A&Ms engineering curriculum. What you're paying for is the name and protection against devaluation which happens at state schools who bloat up their programs. I can't think of one that's doing that right now.

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Engineering. You keep using that word yet you don't know what it means.

A couple of comments. I have hired/recruited several Ivy League folks who have worked for me and also am involved in feedback on university department rankings.

1. No, most Ivy League non-engineers would likely not pass an engineering curriculum and Ivy League engineers/scientists are quite a step below the top tier of schools like Stanford, MIT, etc. IMO, they are also lower than the top tier of public universities in these fields as Ivy League school typically are not as strong there. Most Ivy Leaguers I know would freely admit this. In general, Ivy Leaguers fall into 2 buckets. One is the high achievers bucket and the 2nd is around legacy (alumni), diversity, and special skill (concert pianists, famous actresses, etc). Not every Ivy Leaguer is an outstanding academic/leader. Of the ones that are, they do indeed do well on Wall Street and make a lot of CxO positions. However, studies have shown conclusively that people who get accepted to Ivy League schools and choose not to go tend to have the same career arc.

2. USNWR is both an academic-only and (IMO) terrible ranking. 75% of the ranking is based on entrance requirements data and 25% is a survey that gets sent out the the schools who effectively rate each other (stack rank). For the population that goes on to industry, little of this matters. There have been several attempts such as Payscale, Money Magazine, Forbes, etc. that try to measure the industry success of a university. This is difficult, but it's no less accurate (and likely moreso) than something like USNWR and at least it attempts to measure the business impact of a university rather than just the academic (research) part.

northeast ag, where can I reach out?

I'm class of '04, Engineering major, 9 year Army veteran, halfway through my MBA at University of Chicago Booth.

Thanks!

These ranking discussions always devolve into the same things.

Disclaimer: My youngest graduated from Dartmouth undergrad in liberal arts, and my oldest daughter (Aggie '12) graduated in liberal arts and just got out of Yale Law School.

For too much of society the purpose of an undergraduate degree has become vocational rather than educational. Ideally an undergrad degree (especially from a top university) is about the person you want to be, as opposed to what you want to do.

Unfortunately, as the trades have been devalued and the freshman year in college is nothing more than "thirteenth grade" for most kids you get to where we are now. How typical is it for a kid to go to college, burn through twenty grand or more in a year or two (along with voluminous quantities of beer and weed) then drop out and get into a trade school and do well in life from there. Or worse yet, get that English degree from Texas State. I can only think of two undergraduate degrees with a direct vocational track, engineering and education. And many engineers, and I am one, don't really undertake engineering as a career, although I AM an engineer - i.e. I think like one and talk like one.

So.... Vocational rankings like Money Magazine don't mean much to me. Yes, I dang near went broke paying for Dartmouth. And there's no guarantee my daughter will make huge amounts of money. But it is WHO she is. The person that she will live with the rest of her life is a Dartmough grad, and experienced the superb education that Dartouth offered (and to brag, did quite well Magna Cum Laude (top 15%) Opinion Editor of the paper, study abroad, undergraduate thesis involving interviews with top level diplomats, etc, etc)

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No way in HELL I believe that.
Most of the liberal arts grads I know end up professional students or working for someone else who didn't get a liberal arts education.

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That's funny, my buddy with an EE degree only makes $12 more an hour than I do. He's been a working corporate stiff since graduating in the 80's. Meanwhile, me, with my BFA don't have a boss. If I can get this latest contract signed, I'll make about 25 bucks an hour more than him.

It's not so much the school or degree but the decisions you make afterwards.

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northeast ag, where can I reach out?

I'm class of '04, Engineering major, 9 year Army veteran, halfway through my MBA at University of Chicago Booth.

Thanks!

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Send me an email at magray759@gmail.com and I will get in touch.

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Money Magazine's college ranking is a joke. Clemson is ranked higher than several Ivy League schools for example. It's a click bait ranking based on cheap tuition. USN&WR or GTFO.

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The ranking that bases half its points on a popularity contest and how much you spend on napkins at the dining hall and whose entire premise is "Harvard is the best, therefore the more different you are from Harvard, the worse your school is"

Yeah USNWR is totally legit.

Meanwhile, give me an engineering degree from Clemson that lets me earn big bucks with little debt vs half a million in debt on a worthless lib arts degree from Dartmouth.

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Those liberal arts majors at Ivy Leagues end up in Wall Street.

Believe it or not, any Ivy League student can easily do A&Ms engineering curriculum. What you're paying for is the name and protection against devaluation which happens at state schools who bloat up their programs. I can't think of one that's doing that right now.

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Engineering. You keep using that word yet you don't know what it means.

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Considering I have my engineering degree from A&M perhaps they should've educated me better.

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A couple of comments. I have hired/recruited several Ivy League folks who have worked for me and also am involved in feedback on university department rankings.

1. No, most Ivy League non-engineers would likely not pass an engineering curriculum and Ivy League engineers/scientists are quite a step below the top tier of schools like Stanford, MIT, etc. IMO, they are also lower than the top tier of public universities in these fields as Ivy League school typically are not as strong there. Most Ivy Leaguers I know would freely admit this. In general, Ivy Leaguers fall into 2 buckets. One is the high achievers bucket and the 2nd is around legacy (alumni), diversity, and special skill (concert pianists, famous actresses, etc). Not every Ivy Leaguer is an outstanding academic/leader. Of the ones that are, they do indeed do well on Wall Street and make a lot of CxO positions. However, studies have shown conclusively that people who get accepted to Ivy League schools and choose not to go tend to have the same career arc.

2. USNWR is both an academic-only and (IMO) terrible ranking. 75% of the ranking is based on entrance requirements data and 25% is a survey that gets sent out the the schools who effectively rate each other (stack rank). For the population that goes on to industry, little of this matters. There have been several attempts such as Payscale, Money Magazine, Forbes, etc. that try to measure the industry success of a university. This is difficult, but it's no less accurate (and likely moreso) than something like USNWR and at least it attempts to measure the business impact of a university rather than just the academic (research) part.

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Thank you.

Glad to know I'm not alone.

Every year when the USN&WR ranking come out, I make the same point and then get excoriated here in the forum as a moron, loser, idiot, old man ..... but, I've been in the university program evaluation field for 35 years and think I have a clue. Unfortunately, most here just don't look at the criteria that magazine uses and even if they do, they don't think about what those criteria mean. I don't know why Aggies want to think that their university is not well thought of. It is.

Fair enough.

But the angst/jealousy of the Ivies in these threads is palpable.

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I realize there is grade inflation and the hard part is getting in.. but I don't buy those "averages" for a second. I would like to see a link verifying profs at Duke are giving out 10 As for every 1 B (nevermind one C would make that ratio 20 As to 1 C). BS.

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I pulled the original numbers from the following link: Ivy Gpa

The author claims to have pulled the data from a few sources including the National Center for Education Statistics. NCES

Also keep in mind that some Ivy League schools have very different grading systems.


This makes for a fun read: Grade Inflation

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At Duke, a high inflator, the average graduate's GPA has migrated from a C+/B- to an A-.

2nd Source for Grades

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Since you are so worried about Duke, where they are in relation to grade inflation:

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I don't care about Duke. Just I don't find your sourced data factual. I only pointed out Duke BC it is the most extreme of the data set.

I also have several siblings that went to Nd. Attending graduation s no way gthe vast majority were graduating with highest or second honors- as a 3.8+ "average" would entail.

Just a quick follow-up since I came across this number on nd. The average in 2013 was a 3.5 something (not 3.8). Yes grade inflation is an issue, but not to to the extreme claimed.

http://college.usatoday.com/2013/02/04/notre-dame-seeks-to-combat-grade-inflation/

I think there is a disconnect and misunderstanding of the difference between "Liberal Arts" and "Fine Arts".
A&M is quite strong in Liberal Arts (Education, History, Business,etc), but really hasn't much in the "Fine Arts" such as music, art, basketweaving, pottery making, etc... For Fine Arts, t.u. is a good choice...

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/best-college-values-publishes-50-best-value-bachelors-in-engineering-300326066.html

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RALEIGH, N.C., Sept. 12, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Best College Values (bestcollegevalues.com), a website that provides resources for prospective students seeking college level programs of study that provide excellent educational values, has just released a list of 50 Best Value Bachelor's in Engineering (http://www.bestcollegevalues.com/rankings/best-value-bachelors-in-engineering/), the latest in a series of rankings on the site.
The programs in this ranking were selected from a pool of nearly 200 schools which offer a reputably high quality of education according to U.S. News and World Report. All are regionally accredited while also holding specialized accreditation in engineering through the Engineering Accreditation Commission of the ABET. Ranking was determined by using a formula to compare tuition, return on investment, graduation rates, and cohort default rates--data gleaned from publicly available sources such as U.S. News & World Report and PayScale.
Placing first in the ranking is Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. The University of California Berkeley, in Berkeley, California, ranks second, while Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, ranks third.

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Believe it or not, any Ivy League student can easily do A&Ms engineering curriculum.

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No f'in way.

One of my good friends in HS went to Harvard and majored in English. I had to forcibly drag her along with me through AP Calc. Just didn't click with her. Being highly intelligent and being able to think" like an engineer are two different things.

I know this is anecdotal, but your statement said "any" so it counts.

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Money Magazine's college ranking is a joke. Clemson is ranked higher than several Ivy League schools for example. It's a click bait ranking based on cheap tuition. USN&WR or GTFO.

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It's a ranking on best value. Do you understand what that means?

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Football related cause the 12th Man foundation needs students who make money later.

705 Best Value Colleges based on Quality of Eduacation, Affordability and Outcomes:

#13, (sips #50)

Highest ranking colleges that typicallly admit at least half their applicants:

#1, 2014 Acceptance Rate: 71% (#diplomamill)

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This absolutely does not mean that we shouldn't be striving to make the university better and more competitive. That brand recognition will only last so long.