Michigan ranked #21 in new USNews Rankings, highest all-time

Didn't think ND would be ahead of us. And ND isn't public.

the same rankings the med school and law school voluntarily left along with all of the other top schools in the country?  Then why do we still care about the overall list if it has proven to be inherently flawed?

As many agree, there’s a great deal of subjectivity in any ranking system - and, college rankings are no different.

So, a quick look might indicate the eight Ivies are ranked highly - then let’s look around the country - Stanford, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, MIT, and Cal Tech are also very strong schools - some more focused in specific academic areas.  So, that’s 13 schools thus far.   

Then - the UAA conference -University Athletic Association - Wash U at St Louis, NYU, Carnegie Mellon, the University of Chicago, and Emory.  Those five bring the total to 18.

Williams and Swarthmore are two liberal arts colleges that have a deserved and strong academic reputation - so, the list 20.

Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, and Virginia - four of the strongest public universities in the country.  That’s 24.

I know ND makes a lot of lists.   I’ve spent time on their campus and know many alumni - their culture and allure / attraction to other fellow alumni is very strong - but, I don’t see the depth of their academic ranking.  Are they a good / very good school with a broad student population?   Yes.   However, I don’t see academic departments where they’ve earned the depth of reputation the schools included in this list have.  That’s JMHO.  In fact, I cannot see how ND is ranked above Michigan.  I’m a Michigan Engineer - the College of Engineering is ranked 5th - ND’s is 46th.  In Business - Michigan’s Ross is 4th - with Accounting being 5th - ND’s Accounting is 10th.  Some explanation would be nice.

I realize I didn’t include all 8 of the UAA schools - nor is Johns Hopkins included in the schools I named.

The rankings are crap, but happy to have Michigan up there.

I kind of think of them as similar to the NCAAF Coaches Poll. Not a single coach in the NCAA has the time or interest to look closely at 30 odd other programs (except maybe Harbaugh cause he's nuts), so they're just guesstimating at best.

Now use that same concept to rank hundreds of other colleges where you don't actually see performance. That's just insanity.

Again, though, happy to see Michigan being viewed highly.

QS Rankings are a better metric than USN&WR.

Well, when I was at UM, it was ranked #6, or was it #8?  4! Yes, that's right.

#21 in USNews rankings, #1 in our hearts. 

I would have ranked them #1.

If I remember correctly when these rankings first came out in the early 80's UM was ranked in the top 10. Not sure what they weighted more like research or other criteria.

Within a few years it seemed like exclusivity and accepted rates came more into play. After that the smaller prestigious colleges took over the top ten.

I can tell people that when I was attending college that it was a top ten institution. 😀

If you get a UM degree from any of its grad schools, Ross BBA, Law school, Med school, and many undergrad programs yada yada you'll probably have a job of your choosing and can even work for Brutus.

And if you do it in state it is a relatively good value with a HUGE worldwide alumni group.

These rankings are generally PR exercises comparing apples and oranges. Comparing Caltech and MIT to art or LSA only schools, okay....

I don't know how you rank any school in head-to-head comparisons. Too many moving parts and the end goal for college goers varies greatly. Some see undergrad as a bridge to grad school. Some see it as a means to an end and use salary as the measuring stick of success. Others are looking for intellectual fulfillment (history and english majors, come on down). Some majors, like architecture, are meant to give you specific skills you will use in the workplace. Others, like my major, communications, are pretty nebulous and don't directly translate to skills on the job (and what job would that be?). If they were doing the comparison based on a single metric, like salaries five years out of school, that would make sense. 

It's not the highest all time, btw, the first and second had at UM around 6 or 7.