America's Best Colleges...Forbes Magazine

[83Clone]

I would start to be concerned if US News ranked a school that low, but Forbes-----no I'm not concerned.

Sounds like "buy a ranking"

[CLONE2THEBONE]

I couldn't care less what they rank us. In reality, I did very little to graduate with a 3.2 GPA, but then again, I was an English major and wasn't looking to set the world on fire.

I do think that most people view our Engineering Dept to be far more impressive than it is. We do have one, though. So that's something.

As far as businesses recruiting a certain school, many times that has as a lot to do with the salary the applicants are likely to accept.

How many Engineering schools are there, anyway?

[Angie]

Originally Posted by CLONE2THEBONE

I couldn't care less what they rank us. In reality, I did very little to graduate with a 3.2 GPA, but then again, I was an English major and wasn't looking to set the world on fire.

I do think that most people view our Engineering Dept to be far more impressive than it is. We do have one, though. So that's something.

As far as businesses recruiting a certain school, many times that has as a lot to do with the salary the applicants are likely to accept.

How many Engineering schools are there, anyway?

This lists about 150... ISU comes in at 41.

Search - Engineering - Best Graduate Schools - Education - US News and World Report

[dustinal]

A couple of things to keep in mind, folks:

1) This is a list of the top 569 schools among some 4,000 in the country. We're still in top 15% or so, so you could take that as a consolation.

2) This is the same Forbes magazine that said Kirk Ferentz was the most overpaid coach in college football just a few days ago. Nobody here seemed to have a problem with that. Now suddenly, Forbes is a crappy source of information.

3) It's a stupid list on a website.

[ajk4st8]

Originally Posted by EggMcClone

Yeah, someone sent that to me earlier in the week and I couldn't believe it. I have no idea what they used for their criteria but something in there is really, really screwing ISU. Here are the Iowa colleges in order:
71 Cornell
90 Clarke
107 Grinnell
182 Coe
188 Luther
211 Northwestern
241 Simpson
331 UofI
374 Dordt
430 Wartburg
472 UNI
486 Drake
554 Central
563 ISU
Umm, ok.

Flip that list upside down... Switch Wartburg and Central .... and there ya go.

[Psyclone]

Originally Posted by CyAggie

Based on US News, and others, we are not as great as we think we are.

I number of years ago I analyzed what went into the US News rankings and came away feeling that these rankings were bogus. If you are ranking a school, I would think you would want to either measure the difference between the graduates that come out from the students that come in. Or you could measure how successful the graduates are.

The US News rankings were largely based on inputs. Schools that admitted only elite students fared better. Lots of other "inputs" made up the rest, but nothing about how well the school educates the students. One factor was a measure of "reputation". I think that was the only factor that wasn't an input.

The US News rankings were so bogus that when Stanford won, they criticized the ranking system and didn't acknowledge it as being credible.

[ISUboi12]

IMO... Any comprehensive college ranking is bogus. The scoring is just too subjective. The program I am in is ranked the second in the nation by US News, but it is understood that the ranking comes primarily from the amount of money that goes into research. I am not necessarily going to be better prepared than a graduate from any other program in the nation.

The quality of the education one receives is only restricted by the student. Period.

[borc4cy]

You know what flip that around and we are int he top 10

[dinger]

i would almost say that the rankings are reversed. i think we look better by being at the bottom because we are one of the smarter universities. our alum realize that who's who is a waste of time and money. its simply buying fake "credibility." i laughed out loud when i got the who's who application, ripped it up and never looked back. what a completely riduculous publication.

[RocktheDome]

For the most part, I think all of these rankings are utterly ridiculous.

To try and justify that a certain school is better than another is silly and just plain stupid. In Iowa, for example, the three state schools are essentially the same. They cost about the same and they all give around the same quality of instruction. Differences only come when you pick a major. Iowa is better in medicine and law, Iowa State has engineering and agriculture, UNI has teaching and music. There are students that don't want a big school and perform better in a smaller setting, where places like Wartburg, Grinnell, and Coe are available.

If I recall, Yale stopped giving information to these publications to try and deter these lists from being created. Hopefully that continues, because people shouldn't decide where they go to school based on a stupid ranking, they should go because that school was the right fit for them.

[CyAggie]

If you go only by rankings, you are making a decision that is the equivalent of using an opinion poll.

Most rankings are questionable on a minute detail basis, especially if you are trying to determine which school should be ranked 8th or 9th, or close rankings.

However, reputable ones, are good indicators of schools and majors in aggregate. There is a difference between a top 20 school and top 40, just like there is a difference between a top 50 versus bottom 50. There are always exceptions and mistakes, but these do serve a purpose in helping evaluate and potentially select schools.

For example, not having looked at it very hard, personally, I felt ISU's college of engineering was one of the best nationally (and it is). However, when you start to really look closer, it is very good, in the top 40, but not as good as what many Iowans internal view seems to be of where we would rank for engineering.

I had not looked at it that close prior having one going to study civil engineering. The rankings provide an indicator, but visits backed it up. For example the facilities at A&M for engineering are outstanding. The same apples to UT. There is a reason they have a top 10-15 ranking in this area.
It is like comparing Jack Trice to Kyle Field.

It is very akin to the Iowa secondary eduction system. We have great scores on ACT always ranking in the top two-three. Again, this is good. However, when you take a close look at how we do college preparatory, advanced placement, and other advanced academic areas, in my opinion (based on all the data out there), we are just average.

Overall, we are the best of the average. Again, this is good. It just means that we do not look at what areas could be be doing better in.

[MidwestZest]

Originally Posted by cycloneML

Actually, we had them beat...we were up by 11 with 5 minutes left and blew it. Check it in the final publication...

ugh. 11 point lead lost in less than 2 minutes. JUST KICK IT OUT THE BACK OF THE ENDZONE!!!!!!!!

[jbhtexas]

Originally Posted by EggMcClone

71 Cornell
90 Clarke
107 Grinnell
182 Coe
188 Luther
211 Northwestern
241 Simpson
331 UofI
374 Dordt
430 Wartburg
472 UNI
486 Drake
554 Central
563 ISU

Let's see...if I weight my ranking by time attended:

(374*4 + 563*7)/11 = 494.

Didn't help much...oh well...

[Bubbahotep]

Maybe the only person they talked to from Iowa State was Troy Davis