The Secret Sauce of the US News Rankings

Curious to learn more about the all-important US News & World Report college rankings? As our loyal readers know, one of Malcolm Gladwell’s greatest fascinations has long been the college rankings and the pop psychologist is out with a new Revisionist History podcast episode called “Lord of the Rankings” that … 

Read More

A Confession on College Rankings

What do our nation’s elite college admissions offices care about most? Loyal readers of our college admissions blog know our answer to this query: the all-important US News & World Report rankings. For many years — for decades in fact — we made this assertion much to the chagrin of … 

Read More

Universities Absolutely Care About Rankings

And they say they don’t care about the rankings. Right, and water is dry. You know how admissions officers at America’s universities like to say that where their universities fall in the annual rankings is unimportant to them and you know how we at Ivy Coach have long insisted that … 

Read More

Peace Corps College Ranking

Can there ever be too many college rankings? Yes, yes there can be! In any case, the Peace Corps has released their latest ranking of the top Peace Corps volunteer-producing universities across America. For their ranking, as logic would have it, the Peace Corps adds up the number of graduates … 

Read More

Those Folks Who Argue College Rankings Don’t Matter

Do you know how just about everyone — from college admissions officers to high school counselors to parents — is quick to criticize the annual college rankings? Do you know how admissions officers so often tell parents and students that they don’t care about the rankings and students and parents … 

Read More

2020 US News College Rankings

US News & World Report has released its annual college ranking. For those unfamiliar with college rankings, lots of publications release annual college rankings but the kingpin of all college rankings is none other than US News & World Report. As we’ve liked to joke for decades, in parts of … 

Read More

2020 Wall Street Journal College Rankings

Do you know how many admissions officers like to say at information sessions that college rankings don’t matter to them? Well, let those words go in one of your ears and out the other because college rankings matter big time to admissions officers — in spite of what they so … 

Read More

Rankings Matter Big Time to Admissions Officers

If you ask an admissions officer if the college they represent cares about rankings, you’ll likely hear that they don’t matter one bit to these colleges. You’ll hear they’re overblown. You’ll hear that admissions officers don’t even look at the rankings when they come out. And if you happen to … 

Read More

2018 US News College Rankings

The 2018 “US News & World Report” college rankings came out today and, lo and behold, Princeton University has secured the top slot for the seventh year in a row as the top-ranked national university. That’s quite a run indeed for the Ivy League university. This year’s runner-up is Harvard … 

Read More

The US News College Ranking

The “US News” college ranking is out. And Ivy Coach is featured today on the pages of “The Daily Pennsylvanian,” the newspaper of the University of Pennsylvania. The piece, about this very ranking, is written by Julia Bell and it’s entitled “Penn was ranked #8 by US News & World Report … 

Read More