Will Cornell move up, down, or stay the same in the soon-to-be released 2011 rankings? For those of you unfamiliar with the rankings methodology, here’s how it works:

Peer Assessment (25%)

Retention (20%)
Six year graduation rate (80%)
Freshman retention rate (20%)

Faculty Resources (20%)
Proportion of classes with fewer than 20 students (30%)
Proportion of classes with 50 or more students (10%)
Faculty salary (35%)
Professor degrees (15%)
Student-faculty ratio (5%)
Proportion of full time faculty (5%)

Student selectivity (15%)
SAT/ACT stats of incoming class (50%)
Freshman in top 10% of graduating class (40%)
Acceptance rate (10%)

Financial Resources- per student spending (10%)

Graduation Rate Performance- metric for “added value” (5%)

Alumni giving rate (5%)

Here are our official predictions, offered by Editor-in-Chief Dennis Shiraev ’12, Executive Editor Oliver Renick ’12, Cornell College Republicans Chair Peter Bouris ’12, and National News Editor Hannah MacLean ’13. The writer with the most accurate prediction will, in theory, win the admiration of our readers.

Dennis:

Cornell will move into a three or four-way tie for 12th with some combination of Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, and Wash U. While a lot of the statistics are unavailable for criteria like peer assessment and retention rates, we can make some predictions about Cornell’s relative strength in the student selectivity and faculty resources categories. Because of the freshman writing seminar requirement, I think we’ll hold steady for the proportion of classes with fewer than 20 students relative to other schools. The Class of 2014 has improved stats (710 verbal and 740 math, vs. 700 verbal 720 math for the 2012s), but like the acceptance rate, it’s not clear how much Cornell has improved relative to its competitors. Cornell’s acceptance rate dropped to 18.4 from 20.4, but JHU (20.4 from 26.7), Duke (14.8 from 18), Dartmouth (11.5 from 12.5), Chicago (18 from 26)and Northwestern (23 from 27) also went down while only Wash U remained steady at 20%. So hopefully we’ll make up group with our improved stats and other intangibles like the peer assessments.

Oliver:

U.S. News will be itching to follow in the footsteps of last year’s Forbe’s rankings in a publicity stunt that will aim to bring the magazine back into circulation.  It will mark the magazine’s transition from a reliable scholastic source to humor tabloid, and will be organized by a few simple criteria.  1) No consecutive 2 positions can be filled without at least 1 liberal arts college listed.  2) Any case of disambiguation will be settled by giving the lesser known college a higher ranking, i.e, Cornell College 102 spaces above Cornell University, and the Fuerzas Militares de Colombia Bogota training center 75 spaces above Columbia University.  3) Any school which rejected the publisher’s son will not appear on the list.  Cornell will fall around 14th, the same area as usual, at the bottom of the green vine and below a few powerhouses.  But who really cares?  The rankings used to be a good way to get a grasp on college standings, but their booming popularity, unnecessary re-workings and ‘twists’ will eventually make them obsolete.  Just as long as we stay ahead of those stoner Brunonians.

Peter:

If I am not mistaken, Cornell has gone down one spot over the last few years every year.  I expect this to continue.  Cornell will drop from 15 to 16.  Yes, admissions rates are down and SAT scores are up, but other top schools have improved their figures too.  This is mainly because people with a modicum of talent have discontinued wasting their time applying to lesser schools (I could not find an article to support this, but I know for a fact that it is a trend), realizing that they are a waste of money and provide degrees that will be worthless in our future world where only top elites have financial security.  Therefore, any schools with name recognition were going to have better numbers.  Even still, better numbers do not change that Cornell lacks the number of distinguished faculty that other well-known schools have, and still admits WAY too many in-state students.  While the latter point is self-deprecating (I’m from New York), it does often feel as though we attend New York State University as opposed to a hallowed “Ivy.”

Either way, I doubt that US News uses the stated criteria.  I suspect that it is all subjective non-sense.  When considering this, along Cornell’s incrementally declining prestige, I believe it is fair to say that the Big Red will drop again.

Hannah:

I do think the US News ratings are somewhat more objective (or at least more rational) than those of Forbes. While, as Dennis pointed out, selectivity increased ever so slightly, I wonder if something like the suicides of last year might negatively affect some aspect of this numbers game (maybe peer assessment?). The student-faculty ratio and class sizes will probably remain relatively stable. Cornell had to make a bunch of cuts this year, and there’s a decent chance that their financial resources might have decreased.  But even if this is true, Cornell still has a gigantic endowment compared to other schools, and there’s a good chance that other schools are feeling the same pains in their wallets. Cornell may move up or down a few notches and it wouldn’t cause any eye brow-raising. I think it will climb ahead of Wash U, given the difference in admissions statistics, but I think Chicago, Duke, and Dartmouth will remain ahead. I think we will either end up in a tie with Johns Hopkins and/or Northwestern and move up to 14 or perhaps 13, depending on whether or not the suicides of this past year affect peer assessment (and if it is affected by such a tragedy, then it’s possible we could slide to 16, but I find that unlikely).

By the way, If it brings you any comfort, Cornell is already way up there on a different US News and World Report list…. made by high school counselors.