Nellie Said:

US News College Rankings?

We Answered:

They do sell a hardcopy. When the rankings come out, you can buy the hardcopy in the magazine section of bookstores like Borders and Barnes & Noble. You can also order the hardcopy off the US News website.

The hardcopy costs less than the online edition.

Myrtle Said:

US News Rankings?

We Answered:

I think ranking can provide essential information for college applicants by comparing schools with their academic peers. Ranking can also help students to get to know an excellent school that may not have as big of a reputation as its academic peers. For instance, I never knew that the University of Pennsylvania and the California Institute of Technology were great schools until I looked at US News' ranking of undergraduate schools.

I agree that ranking is not everything, but it can provide additional information for college applicants.

Daniel Said:

What's more accurate: US News and World Report college rankings or Forbes' America's Best Colleges?

We Answered:

Neither one is accurate. Both use very subjective information. Also, what makes things worse is that US News and World Report had lots of Ivy League grads working on compiling the list and each year that would literally fight over whose school would be number one. They skewed the results just to make their university come out better. Forbes list in my opinion is equally flawed. Ratemyprofessor is not a reliable way to get at rankings. The best ranking system is to do your own. What do you value in a college? Fraternities? Clubs, student-prof ratio, dorm life, Prof. quality, make up your list and rate them yourself. You can get all information from internet.

Shirley Said:

When will the new college rankings from the US News and World Report be released?

We Answered:

The 2010 list was just released a week or two ago.

Jim Said:

How accurate are US News college rankings?

We Answered:

Take the rankings with a grain of salt. What they don't tell you is that hundreds of colleges opt out or refuse to be listed because they disagree with the process of the rankings. Many of these schools believe them to be very unscientific and subjective. There are many colleges that are not listed in the rankings , but in years past they may have been high on the list, because of that institution opting out.

Stanley Said:

How is it that colleges with lower standards rank higher on US News College Rankings?

We Answered:

Selectivity and quality are not the same thing. You could take in wonderful students and fail to ruin them, but does that mean that you did an outstanding job as a college? On the other hand, you could accept a number of students who didn't do tremendously well in high school and wake them up to education, changing their lives significantly. While I have nothing against bright kids, I personally feel like more of a teacher when I can measure a significant change in the learning of a student. A college is the same way - it is best if it takes any kind of student - brilliant, average, or slow - and creates a major change in that student's life. It is not very good if it graduates students with the same capabilities that they entered with - whether those students were poor or outstanding to begin with.

Roger Said:

US News& World Report college rankings what does "score" mean?

We Answered:

It's really abstract non-sense it's a somewhat meaningless number. It's a peer score. It's basically how the school compares to the top school in its list. So the top school in "Master's West" has a score of 100. If the next school on that list had a score of 97 it would mean it was a really close contest between the two schools. Don't compare numbers between lists. For instance, you can't compare the second school on the "Master's West" list to the 5th school on the "Liberal Arts College" list. The numbers don't have the same meaning.

If I were you I wouldn't pay it any mind. It doesn't really tell you all that much.