Forbes Ranks Schools For International Students

Forbes: “Though America still hosts over a million foreign learners, first-time international undergraduates in the U.S. sank 6.6% in 2017 according to the IIE, a nonprofit that tracks international exchange in education. Even the schools that prioritize international students have been hit by the trend. At Forbes’ 50 Top Schools for International Students of 2019 (full list below), the percentage of undergraduates who were international surged from 7.6% in 2009 to 11.3% in 2016. In 2017, it nudged to 11.5%, a mere 0.2% increase.”

“To put together our best schools for international student ranking, we used experts’ insights and our philosophy of ‘outputs over inputs.’ We weight school quality at 60%, based on our Top Colleges rankings’ methodology. Drawing from the federal government’s IPEDS database, we weigh international student six-year graduation rate at 15% of our ranking. We reward schools with full-need aid or need-blind admission policies for international students, data we draw from schools’ websites, with 5% of our ranking each.”

“Schools with high enrollment figures in international students’ most popular majors like engineering, business and math are rewarded up to 5% (per the IIE and the government’s College Scorecard database). The size of schools’ international student body (measured as a percentage of undergrads and calculated by IPEDS) accounts for 5% of our score. The remaining 5% of the score is based on the number of foreign-born workers in the college’s combined statistical area, from the U.S. Census.”

Here is the full list of the 2019 Top Schools for International Students:

Princeton University
Yale University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Harvard University
Columbia University
California Institute of Technology
Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art
Amherst College
Stanford University
Babson College
University of Pennsylvania
Claremont McKenna College
Georgetown University
Brown University
New York University
Pomona College
Cornell University
Johns Hopkins University
Lafayette College
University of Chicago
Dartmouth College
University of California-Los Angeles
University of Notre Dame
Harvey Mudd College
Barnard College
Northwestern University
Carnegie Mellon University
Rice University
Swarthmore College
Tufts University
Williams College
Vassar College
University of Southern California
Vanderbilt University
Bowdoin College
Haverford College
Pitzer College
Washington University in St Louis
Bates College
Wesleyan University
Wellesley College
University of California-Berkeley
Boston College
Middlebury College
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Carleton College
University of Maryland-College Park
Grinnell College
Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus
Colgate University

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Who’s The Most Selective Of Them All?

Chron: “College ranking site Niche just released its ranking of America’s most selective colleges. The study looks primarily — about 60 percent — at each school’s acceptance rate, as determined by the U.S. Department of Education. The other factors are SAT/ACT scores in the 75th and 25 percentile. Niche compiles this data based on the department of education as well as self-reported data from Niche readers. On the list are some familiar Ivy League campuses, as well as some lesser-known schools. Claremont, California reigns supreme as the town with the highest concentration of most selective universities.”

Not surprising, the top five are: Harvard, Stanford, Caltech, Yale and Princeton. You can review the complete list here.

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UMass: ‘ZooMass’ No More?

The Boston Globe: “In boosting its academic profile, UMass is following the path previously taken by several local private colleges, notably Boston College, Tufts University, Boston University, and, most recently, Northeastern University … Still, there are different implications when the state’s flagship public university becomes less accessible. For starters, there are lots of parents who are dumbfounded — and furious — when their kids get rejection letters from UMass. After all, they grew up when the place was known as ‘ZooMass,’ a safety school more associated with call-the-cops ragers than academic rigor.”

“The acceptance rate for UMass Amherst hasn’t changed much — it’s 60 percent, down just a couple of points from when he arrived. But the pool has grown stronger. UMass is now attracting many more students who have the credentials to get into selective private colleges but go public because their families make too much money to qualify for significant financial aid, yet not enough to cover private tuition without signing on for lots of loans. UMass isn’t cheap — about $30,000 per year for in-state tuition, fees, and room and board — but that is less than half of the going rate at most privates.”

Meanwhile: “UMass Amherst bought a campus in Newton after Mount Ida, a small college drowning in debt, suddenly shuttered last spring … having a presence in the humming east will allow UMass students to spend a semester or two in the Mount Ida dorms, pursuing the internships they need to graduate with work experience.” The Mount Ida campus may also serve as “a tool to recruit rising-star faculty who have the potential to leave their mark in the life sciences and technology fields — and can bring in large grants — but who are too attracted to the vibrant scene radiating from MIT in Cambridge to consider moving to Western Massachusetts.”

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Which ‘College Towns’ Are Best?

Mlive: “The personal finance website Wallethub has once again named the home of the University of Michigan the best small college town in America in a survey released on Tuesday. This is at least the fifth-straight year Ann Arbor has claimed the top spot in the sub-category. Additionally, Ann Arbor was named the No. 3 college town overall, trailing only Austin, Texas, the home of the University of Texas and Orlando, the home of the University of Central Florida.”

“Wallethub analysts compared more than 400 U.S. cities of varying sizes based on 30 key indicators of academic, social and economic opportunities for students including cost of living, quality of higher education, nightlife and crime rate. Ann Arbor’s rank is thanks in large part to its ranking in the social environment category where it is No. 23. The category examines several factors including amount of young people, gender balance, nightlife, cafes, breweries, food trucks, shopping centers, sports, festivals and attractions.”

Read the entire report here.

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The Top 10 ‘Most Underrated’ Colleges

Boston.com: “CollegeVine, a Cambridge-based college guidance company, recently examined the ‘most underrated’ colleges in the United States, by comparing their cost of attendance and generosity of financial aid with ‘qualitative data’ on students’ career outcomes. Unlike traditional college rankings, CollegeVine co-founder Vinay Bhaskara said they primarily focused on financial outcomes, like students’ starting salary and return on investment one and five years after graduating, as well as ‘qualitative outcomes like job placements’.”

“The No. 1 school on the list is San Jose State University … The second most underrated college was the University of Houston, followed by SUNY Binghamton, City College of New York, George Mason University, WPI, Fordham University, and University of Texas at Austin — with Babson and Wellesley rounding out the list.”

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Stanford Study Says Rankings Don’t Matter

Inside Higher Ed: “A new study from researchers at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education examines all of the evidence about rankings and comes to this conclusion: the best way to find a college that is a ‘good fit’ is to ignore the rankings. Notably, the finding isn’t based on abstract ideas about the value of education not being something that can be measured. Rather, the analysis is based on research about factors many students (and parents) say they take into consideration when they evaluate potential colleges: student learning, well-being, job satisfaction and future income. If you care about those factors, the rankings will not steer you well, the paper says.”

“Key factors in U.S. News and other rankings reward graduation rates and reputation. U.S. News has, over the years, placed more emphasis not just on raw graduation rates but ‘expected’ graduation rates to reward institutions with higher than expected rates for students from at-risk populations. But the Stanford study finds that graduation rates still reflect the student body being served more than the quality of the institution. And the study says there is no evidence linking reputation to anything but … reputation. So reputation is ‘a self-fulfilling metric’.”

“The report adds that ‘rather than choosing a school based primarily on a flawed scoring system, students should ask whether they will be engaged at the college in ways that will allow them to form strong relationships with professors and mentors, apply their learning via internships and long-term projects, and find a sense of community’.”

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Late & Great: Mel Elfin

The New York Times: “Mel Elfin, a longtime Washington bureau chief for Newsweek who moved to the rival U.S. News & World Report in 1986 and helped build its college rankings feature into a major educational franchise, died on Saturday in Washington … The rankings had begun in a rudimentary way in 1983, but under Mr. Elfin’s stewardship their criteria were broadened, graduate schools were ranked and U.S. News’s Best Colleges guidebook was published, expanding on the information in the magazine (which is now published only online).”

“Mr. Elfin … faced pushback about the quality and meaning of the rankings. Some critics believed that the rankings formula created a false air of scientific certainty, caused colleges and universities to adjust their policies — or fudge their figures — to raise their rankings, and turned the choice of a college from an essentially educational issue to a high-stakes economic and social transaction. And some school officials howled when their institutions dropped in rank.”

“But Mr. Elfin defended the rankings as an effective way for students and parents to comparison-shop for higher education.” He commented: “When you buy a VCR for 200 bucks, you can buy Consumer Reports to find out what’s out there … When you spend 100 grand on four years of college, you should have some independent method of comparing different colleges. That’s what our readers want, and they’ve voted at the newsstand in favor of what we’re doing.” Mel Elfin was 89.

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US News Announces 2018 Rankings

US News: “Princeton University is No. 1 for Best National Universities for the seventh year in a row. For the 15th consecutive year, Williams College takes the top spot for Best National Liberal Arts Colleges.”

“California schools and military academies perform strongly in this year’s top public universities rankings. For the first time, the University of California—Los Angeles moves up to No. 1 for Top Public Schools among National Universities, tying with the University of California—Berkeley. The United States Military Academy ranks No. 1 for Top Public Schools among National Liberal Arts Colleges.”

You can access the full report here.

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UK Universities Top Global Rankings

The Wall Street Journal: “Oxford and Cambridge, the intellectual one-two punch of the U.K., took the first and second spots in the 2018 Times Higher Education World University Rankings. Their showing marked the first year schools outside the U.S. seized the two top positions in the 14-year history of the list. The U.S., led by California Institute of Technology and Stanford University, took seven of the top 11 spots.”

“Peking University and Tsinghua University topped Chinese schools, ranking 27th and 30th, respectively. That placed them ahead of the Georgia Institute of Technology (No. 33), Brown University (No. 51) and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (No. 56) … The World University Ranking awards about a third of its score to the research generated by a university’s scholars, in part by culling 62 million citations and 12.4 million research publications. Research funding also plays a role.”

“The ascendance of Oxford and Cambridge comes after years of increases in research revenue—but much of that money, as well as the researchers who use it, come from the European Union. Britain’s decision to withdraw from the EU has thrown that revenue source into question … The rise of Chinese universities also comes as the Chinese Communist Party has invested heavily in research universities.”

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Ranking the Return on Your College Investment

The New York Times: “Earnings data are finding their way into a proliferating number of mainstream college rankings, shifting the competitive landscape of American higher education in often surprising ways. This fall, The Wall Street Journal and Times Higher Education … introduced their first college rankings. Forty percent of their result is measures of ‘outcomes’ — earnings, graduation rate and loan repayment rate.”

“Last year The Economist released its first college rankings, and it relies even more heavily on earnings data … The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce has issued another set of rankings, adjusting the College Scorecard salary rankings first for choice of major … and yet another ranking that assesses students’ expected earnings, given their characteristics when they entered college, to the actual outcome … Both Forbes and Money magazines, in their rankings, incorporate PayScale data on earnings.”

“It should go without saying that the value of an education should never be reduced to purely monetary terms.” Phil Baty of Times Higher Education comments: “The success of a college graduate should not be measured purely in terms of the salaries they earn. There’s more to life than a high salary. This is why we’ve also put an emphasis on how much the student is intellectually engaged, stimulated and stretched by their college education.”

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