New 2012 US News Rankings

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Has anyone seen that the US News finally updated the old 2008 rankings?

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsa...ology-rankings


There were some big surprises on here for me at least. I'm glad to see that the Wisconsin - Madison & Stevens Point consortium made it pretty high up.

I don't think this will really change my decision for my Au.D. program next fall, but it sure is interesting to check out.


Any thoughts?

Finally!

Damn, UNT is ranked so low , but I still think it's a good program here. I guess it makes sense though, since personal experience and individual preference are probably not taken into account when ranking these schools. It's probably all about money and objective values.

I think there's some sort of reason why Wisconsin didn't make it in the rankings last time but they were pretty highly ranked in the round of rankings before 2008. I've heard good things about the program (or programs since there is now one at Stevens Point).

The "top" three remain the same and it's been that way for the past several rounds of rankings. However, I was surprised at how many other programs made the jump up there, there's a total logjam at "3". Whatever these programs did, they've improved enough to merit a rise up the rankings. I was surprised at how many programs fell and how far they fell.I wasn't expecting that at all.

The methodology states that the rankings are peer evaluated so I guess the heads of audiology evaluate other programs on a scale of 1 to 5. But what exactly do they evaluate? I can speculate.


That being said, people should take the rankings with a grain of salt and form their own conclusions about a program. Each program is so different, someone may be better off at the 19th ranked program instead of the 5th ranked program depending on their needs and interests (just an example).

Not that I put any stock in these rankings, but if I'm a student at Salus, I'm attempting to use this list as leverage to lower tuition costs.

I've also heard that they are peer based rankings, but I believe it has more to do with how visible the faculty and staff make themselves. If no faculty/staff from a certain univ. attend AudiologyNOW or the like to get the names out there, it makes it difficult for anyone to know how to rank that school. That's probably why the top three stay the top there, as does much of the top 10.

I also imagine that publications and grant dollars play into it as well. If a certain program starts to publish more, then the 'peers' say: "oh hey, I think i remember seeing something published from Univ of Whtvr this year. They must be busy, I'll give them a higher ranking'.

As we know, the danger in that is that the AuD isn't a research degree, so this really does not reflect how good the program is on training and preparing audiologists for a career as a clinician.

It's an interesting list, but like Spring said, take it with a grain of salt. For instance, I know Salus has a good program for preparing clinicians and they're VERY poorly ranked. Westard Lord, UNT wasn't ranked a few years ago, so at least it's on the list this year.

Yeah, UNT is on the way up. It seems to coincide with the departure of the class of '11. Any thoughts on that Drumhead?

Originally Posted by Dustbug10

Yeah, UNT is on the way up. It seems to coincide with the departure of the class of '11. Any thoughts on that Drumhead?

Funny guy!