This has probably been discussed before but I thought I would still ask if anyone has any information or comments on the U.S News and Worldreport's list of "unranked" universities (below). Babson College (MA) Bryant College (RI) Cleary College (MI) Davenport College of Business (MI)1 Davenport University – Eastern Regions (MI)1 David N. Myers College (OH) Franklin University (OH)1 Golden Gate University (CA)‡ Goldey Beacom College (DE) Indiana Institute of Technology Montreat College (NC)‡ Nichols College (MA) Northwood University (MI) Robert Morris College (IL) Southern New Hampshire University Thomas College (ME) Tiffin University (OH) Walsh Col. of Account. and Bus. Adm. (MI) Webber College (FL) University of Maryland University College (MD) Not that I credibility to these rankings but was curious to why they are not ranked. Comments, thoughts, ideas? DTK
My first wife's cousin went to Bryant. He tried but couldn't get into anything better based upon low GPA in high school and low scores on the SATs. He managed to graduate in the middle of the pack and then decided he wanted to go to law school. I don't remember what they did to me to force me to make the call, but I did and managed to get him into my law school and he managed to get through (it actually took him 4 years to finish the 3 year program) and after 6 tries managed to pass the NY bar. It is a lower tier school, but NEASC and AACSB accredited. I know nothing about their DL program.
Babson College is a top business school, and is usually ranked #1 for entrepreneurship (sp?) in business school rankings. Southern New Hampshire University was, until recently, New Hampshire College. I don't know if the name change has anything to do with being unranked. Bruce
It might help to know which rankings these schools are 'unranked' in. Speaking about the famiiar undergraduate rankings issue, they exclude predominantly graduate institutions as well as specialized single-subject schools. They also have a size cut-off. Here in California, they didn't rank UC San Francisco and the Scrippps Graduate Institute, both of which have produced Nobel Prize winners, the Claremont Graduate University, the Naval Postgraduate School, the Monterey Institute of International Studies, Hastings College of Law, California Institute of the Arts, the San Francisco Art Institute, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music... and many many more.
I can’t attest to the entire list, but Scripps is ranked. Scripps, which has no undergraduate population, is listed among graduate schools here: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/phdsci/brief/chesp3_brief.php Note that its doctoral program (the only degree program Scripps has) is highly regarded by U.S. News and World Report (along with the rest of us).
In addition to the size cut-off and specialty schools Bill mentioned, USNWR does not typically rank those schools whose undergrad student population consists almost entirely of non-traditional students.
True. But that's the graduate issue and not the undergraduate issue. Several schools on Mengers's list appear in the graduate rankings. A problem with the graduate listing is that apart from a couple of fields (law for example), US News only lists a handful of schools in each field that they like the most, and don't bother to rank the other 90+ % of the programs in that subject. That makes the listings useless for most of us. If we are plugged into our subject at all, we can already name the prestige departments. But few of us are ever going to attend them since they typically accept less than 10% of their applicants. What we need is some way to find the stronger options among the other 90% of programs. But that's probably impossible to do with crude rankings. The top ten programs are top ten, in part, because they are comprehensive, offering excellent opportunities in just about every specialty and research problem within a field. But when you move back in the pack you find less balanced departments. They may offer cutting-edge opportunities in one particular research area. But they might offer little support in other aspects of your subject. So whether or not university X is first tier or fourth tier depends a lot on the details of your dissertation problem. There are some specialized websites such as the Philosophical Gourmet Report that I find much more useful than US News. These guys only handle philosophy doctoral programs, and they follow them very closely, looking at who is teaching where, what specialties are covered well and which aren't, departmental orientation and politics, who is retiring, young up-and-comers and so on. But probably the ultimate judges are the students. They have to do their own research. They know what they want to study, they can read catalog course listings to see what kind of things departments emphasize, and they can investigate the faculty, looking at their publications, reputations and stuff. The internet is an amazing aid to that. In my personal opinion, Google searches give you a far better idea of what a graduate school or department is all about than does US News. You can find out about what their graduates are doing, the kinds of positions they hold, grants and awards the department has received, their equipment and specialized facilities, presentations they have made at professional conferences, papers and books published, research collaborations and lots more. That's also probably the most reliable way to weed out degree-mills and to distinguish credible from non-credible among state-approved schools. If a school purports to grant doctorates, it's gonna have some kind of profile in its field.
UMCP does rank. UMUC does not. It is important to note that the University of Maryland does not offer online courses. Univ of Maryland Univ College does. Two totally different schools.
While I've heard of many of them, and in their own areas are normally considered good, the onw I can speak to specifically is Golden Gate, which is a small to medium for profit instituion located in down town San Francisco (wiht some outlying campuses). Fairly well thought of in the Bay Area, but not on the par of Standford or UC Berekely. Used to be predominately a business school with a law program, good but not great. Also a touch on the pricey side, but does have a DBA program.
SOME are specialized... UC San Francisco is perhaps misleadingly named. Like the private Rockefeller University (until recently, I believe) UCSF is virtually exclusively a graduate school of medicine--where both institutions rank quite highly, thank you very much. But the existence of the private Catholic University of San Francisco with its more generalist university orientation only further confuese the public! Surely the politics of naming in a state university system are behind this... Likewise, isn't Scripps the renamed oceanographic institute? Snf therefore still specualized place not normally fitting the uses of university rankning schemes? --Orson
Indeed UCSF is a front rank member of the UC system. Many people see it "spiritually" as the med school for UC (Berkeley) across the bridge. In fact it is a separate school, but a damn reputable one in its own right. It does offer some undergrad degrees just so you know, but not many.
