http://www.chron.com/news/education/arti...728667.php

A new ranking by some group called Niche (sorry don't even know what that is). But the ranking is impressive so I'm all in with Niche!

Top 10 is #1 Stanford, #2 MIT, #3 Harvard, #4 Yale, #5 Rice, #6 Penn, #7 Princeton, #8 Washington University (St. Louis), #9 USC (?) and #10 Vanderbilt.

I'm glad to see Rice ranked highly in this survey, which has a pretty broad methodology.

Note that in the full rankings, the boundary between schools with A+ & A grades comes at #69 (William & Mary/A+) & #70 (Whitman/A). (Congrats to U. Arkansas: #100!) But that tiny A+ schools, such as Cal Tech and Harvey Mudd, aren't ranked at all, possibly due to less-than-minimum number of student/alumni responses.

I have not looked at the methodology, but I am sure it is the best one published to date.

Edit: To be serious, I am never sure what to think of the survey components of these rankings. On one hand, people will obviously be tempted to rate their own schools highly, which means surveys won't exactly be objective. On the other hand, alumni are possibly in the best position to evaluate the value that the school provided with respect to preparation for life, preparation for a career, etc.

Five Texas schools in the top 100. Not bad for a backward hellhole of a state, as some non-3rd coast elites would have one believe.

#5 - Rice
#17 - UT
#45 - TAMU
#89 - SMU
#96 - TCU

Let's see, there someone missing from that list....the Tier 1, academic cornerstone.... #204.

The most fit college in America:

http://healthyliving.msn.com/fitness/the...-2014-1#11

(09-02-2014 09:53 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  Five Texas schools in the top 100. Not bad for a backward hellhole of a state, as some non-3rd coast elites would have one believe.

#5 - Rice
#17 - UT
#45 - TAMU
#89 - SMU
#96 - TCU

Let's see, there someone missing from that list....the Tier 1, academic cornerstone.... #204.

I am bit suspicious on this-Trinity at 185? And Wash U at 8 and the University of Spoiled Children at 9?

Yeah, I don't know what criteria they use, but no Trinity, Southwestern, or Austin College - - all three of those are clearly superior academically to TCU, SMU, St. Edward's, St. Mary's, etc.

(09-03-2014 12:21 PM)Barney Wrote:  Yeah, I don't know what criteria they use, but no Trinity, Southwestern, or Austin College - - all three of those are clearly superior academically to TCU, SMU, St. Edward's, St. Mary's, etc.

You beat me to that one.

(09-03-2014 12:40 PM)owlatheart Wrote:  

(09-03-2014 12:21 PM)Barney Wrote:  Yeah, I don't know what criteria they use, but no Trinity, Southwestern, or Austin College - - all three of those are clearly superior academically to TCU, SMU, St. Edward's, St. Mary's, etc.

You beat me to that one.

Niche graded all three of those schools: Trinity University got an A-, Southwestern University a B+, and Austin College a B. (TCU and SMU got A's, St. Edwards an A- and St. Mary's a B+.)

Perhaps these small schools had the same issues as Cal Tech & Harvey Mudd -- too-small sample size(s) in some category(ies), and thus were graded but not "ranked".

(09-02-2014 05:01 PM)Almadenmike Wrote:  Note that in the full rankings, the boundary between schools with A+ & A grades comes at #69 (William & Mary/A+) & #70 (Whitman/A). (Congrats to U. Arkansas: #100!) But that tiny A+ schools, such as Cal Tech and Harvey Mudd, aren't ranked at all, possibly due to less-than-minimum number of student/alumni responses.

The conventional wisdom on Leebron has been that one of the big goals of his presidency was to get Rice into the top ten in USNWR's annual university rankings.

Oh how I would love it if Leebron called a press conference to discuss these Niche.com rankings with a big "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner behind him a la GWB.

Austin College was good for the son of my sister's friend. He talked to me too late to get much help to get into Rice as an undergraduate. He went to Austin College and received a lot of personal attention as a math major. He is now in graduate school in math at Rice.

(09-03-2014 12:21 PM)Barney Wrote:  Yeah, I don't know what criteria they use, but no Trinity, Southwestern, or Austin College - - all three of those are clearly superior academically to TCU, SMU, St. Edward's, St. Mary's, etc.