U. S. News Rankings of Best Speech Programs

[clmogel]

How much weight should I put on US News rankings? Im thinking of applying to schools no greater than a 185 ranking.

Anyone currently attending schools below 185 Rank? Could you tell me your experience?

[MangoSmoothie]

I would put almost no emphasis on US News rankings unless you plan on pursuing a PhD right after your master's. High or low it doesn't really matter outside of academia. You are not going to get significantly better or worse job prospects based on the ranking of your school.

Check out the methodology.

All the health rankings are based solely on the results of peer assessment surveys sent to deans, other administrators and/or faculty at accredited degree programs or schools in each discipline.

Respondents rated the academic quality of programs on a scale of 1 (marginal) to 5 (outstanding). They were instructed to select "don't know" if they did not have enough knowledge to rate a program. Only fully accredited programs in good standing during the survey period are ranked. Those schools with the highest average scores appear in the rankings.

http://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/articles/health-schools-methodology

It's just other professors opinions of other programs. And truly, what do they know? What makes a program outstanding? Having research opportunities? Having stars in the field on staff? What makes a school marginal? No research opps? Poor placement opportunities? And how can other professors speak to that truly?

It's all based on reputation and certain types of schools just aren't capable of building a reputation like others. I'd go out on a limb to saying schools with lower rankings in general just don't have research going on because research is what gets a program's name out there. They say professors can select don't know if they can't speak to academic quality but how can they really speak to it anyway?

Mind also that rankings have nothing to do with competitiveness. Every school is competitive just in different ways. All schools receive far more applicants than they have spots for and have the luxury of picking students. I got waitlisted at top 20 and accpeted to top 50 programs but rejected from programs on the high end the 100s. Programs can be competitive with GPA/GRE, SOPs, observable commitment to a school, or whatever.

As long as a program is accredited and will provide you the opportunities you want, ranking is negligible if you are not pursuing a PhD after.

Edited April 10, 2015 by MangoSmoothie

[clmogel]

I would put almost no emphasis on US News rankings unless you plan on pursuing a PhD right after your master's. High or low it doesn't really matter outside of academia. You are not going to get significantly better or worse job prospects based on the ranking of your school.

Check out the methodology.

All the health rankings are based solely on the results of peer assessment surveys sent to deans, other administrators and/or faculty at accredited degree programs or schools in each discipline.

Respondents rated the academic quality of programs on a scale of 1 (marginal) to 5 (outstanding). They were instructed to select "don't know" if they did not have enough knowledge to rate a program. Only fully accredited programs in good standing during the survey period are ranked. Those schools with the highest average scores appear in the rankings.

http://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/articles/health-schools-methodology

It's just other professors opinions of other programs. And truly, what do they know? What makes a program outstanding? Having research opportunities? Having stars in the field on staff? What makes a school marginal? No research opps? Poor placement opportunities? And how can other professors speak to that truly?

It's all based on reputation and certain types of schools just aren't capable of building a reputation like others. I'd go out on a limb to saying schools with lower rankings in general just don't have research going on because research is what gets a program's name out there. They say professors can select don't know if they can't speak to academic quality but how can they really speak to it anyway?

Mind also that rankings have nothing to do with competitiveness. Every school is competitive just in different ways. All schools receive far more applicants than they have spots for and have the luxury of picking students. I got waitlisted at top 20 and accpeted to top 50 programs but rejected from programs on the high end the 100s. Programs can be competitive with GPA/GRE, SOPs, observable commitment to a school, or whatever.

As long as a program is accredited and will provide you the opportunities you want, ranking is negligible if you are not pursuing a PhD after.

Wow, this was extemely helpful! Thats so interesting you get rejected from the high end 100s and accepted in top 50. Could you tell me what your GRE and GPA is? What experience you have?

[Slp1268]

I got accepted at a top 30 school and rejected by a school ranked in the 200's!

[Saila09]

Got accepted to 2 "top 5" programs and got wait listed by a much lower ranked, smaller, private school. Fit matters. My previous experiences probably didn't "fit" with this program. It's best to visit the programs and decide for yourself. Of course travel can be cost prohibitive, so the next best thing is to talk to the people there. 

 

As stated above, take those rankings with a grain of salt. However, they do mean "something" - some of it quantifiable (e.g., acceptance rate, dollars for funding, other resources) and some of it not (e.g., prestige, connections). It depends on your goals. If you just want "a" degree and "a" job - then rankings probably mean nothing. On the other hand, if you are looking for specific research and/or clinical experiences - a higher ranked school may be better suited to your needs. Again - higher ranked does not automatically mean "better"... It just depends on your goals and what you want out of a program.

[jpiccolo]

It's hard to know what rankings to rely on. Besides the U.S. news I know there is some academic analytics company that ranked schools a couple years ago. At the open house for the U of U they said they were ranked 6 out of 300. But US news says Utah is 32. I'm sure the measurements were different so keep that in mind. I got wait listed at two schools in the 100s but I definitely agree the fit was probably wrong. They were just extra schools because I worried about getting in after last years rejections.

[twinguy7]

I was told by an ASHA board member who does accreditation visits that the U.S. Rankings are also ranked by how many Peer Reviewed Journal Publications each school has.  The same member told me the U.S. ranking mean nothing more than that.  He goes around accrediting schools and every school has to meet the same standards.  Hope that helps.

[Saila09]

I was told by an ASHA board member who does accreditation visits that the U.S. Rankings are also ranked by how many Peer Reviewed Journal Publications each school has.  The same member told me the U.S. ranking mean nothing more than that.  He goes around accrediting schools and every school has to meet the same standards.  Hope that helps.

 

Those standards are the minimums. There are programs who exceed those standards, while some barely meet them.

[clmogel]

Those standards are the minimums. There are programs who exceed those standards, while some barely meet them.

 

I was told by an ASHA board member who does accreditation visits that the U.S. Rankings are also ranked by how many Peer Reviewed Journal Publications each school has.  The same member told me the U.S. ranking mean nothing more than that.  He goes around accrediting schools and every school has to meet the same standards.  Hope that helps.

Wow, had no idea. Thanks!

[Lyra1960]

Those standards are the minimums. There are programs who exceed those standards, while some barely meet them.

 

Agreed, not all programs are the same, but they do meet (haha or claim to meet during site visits) basic requirements. One example would be the number of clinical hours provided. ASHA requires 400 (25 obs and 375 clinical) hours. I know one very low ranked program (relative is a prof there) which can sometimes struggle to give students enough clinical hours (but they always manage to do so in the end) while many programs go well over (500-600 hours). This is NOT at all to say that every lower ranked program has trouble giving its students clinic time. Just one example of the point above. Another example of how programs differ could be how how supervises you on off site locations. Some schools have their own people supervise and some have the people at the site you are going do the supervision. I'm not arguing that there is direct correlation to such factors and ranking, but sometimes things like these can indirectly trickle down an impact opinion which is really all that the rankings seem to boil down to. I think its safe to say the rankings can mean something but not necessarily something good, bad, or even accurate.

 

At the end of the day, any program that will lead to your C's should get you a job, so if that is ALL that you care about then they absolutely do not matter. However, when choosing a program they might be able to help you better approach how to ask questions relating to how much you will like the program/ how well you will fit in. For example, if a program is highly ranked then you know there is a higher probability it is more researched based and can ask about this aspect. If you like research this is great, but if you don't, you might be both more happy and successful at another program that is lower ranked.So, I think the rankings can be helpful not in telling you what program is better or worse, but by simple giving you a starting point from which you can delve deeper into a program to see if it is a good fit for your personally/learning style/personal goals within the SLP field.

 

The one exception to this is indeed if you are thinking about pursuing a PhD. High rankings do tend to mean more research is being done and encouraged in students. Also, the academic world is vain and ranking (whether or not they should) matter. 

 

I think its worth noting too that at the graduate level, the overall school rankings / prestige mean pretty much nothing and are definitely weighed less in the field's eyes than program rankings. For example, if you are planning to pursue your PhD and you get into Columbia University and the University of Iowa, definitely go to Iowa unless there is some very very powerful outside factor drawing you away. 

 

And purely statistically, some very low programs can be much harder to get into due to numbers. For example, I applied to a higher ranked school which got around 250 apps and a local school with a much lower ranking had over 500 and both were looking for roughly the same class size. Of course you cannot calculate your odds based on number of apps and admits alone; you need factor in the strength of your own application. The overall types of applications received by the programs makes program competitiveness hard to compare among each other. However, no program is a safe bet these day, and I'm sure programs from number 1 to the bottom all admit some truly exceptional students.

 

Hope that helps and I haven't ruffled too many feathers. 

[clmogel]

Agreed, not all programs are the same, but they do meet (haha or claim to meet during site visits) basic requirements. One example would be the number of clinical hours provided. ASHA requires 400 (25 obs and 375 clinical) hours. I know one very low ranked program (relative is a prof there) which can sometimes struggle to give students enough clinical hours (but they always manage to do so in the end) while many programs go well over (500-600 hours). This is NOT at all to say that every lower ranked program has trouble giving its students clinic time. Just one example of the point above. Another example of how programs differ could be how how supervises you on off site locations. Some schools have their own people supervise and some have the people at the site you are going do the supervision. I'm not arguing that there is direct correlation to such factors and ranking, but sometimes things like these can indirectly trickle down an impact opinion which is really all that the rankings seem to boil down to. I think its safe to say the rankings can mean something but not necessarily something good, bad, or even accurate.

 

At the end of the day, any program that will lead to your C's should get you a job, so if that is ALL that you care about then they absolutely do not matter. However, when choosing a program they might be able to help you better approach how to ask questions relating to how much you will like the program/ how well you will fit in. For example, if a program is highly ranked then you know there is a higher probability it is more researched based and can ask about this aspect. If you like research this is great, but if you don't, you might be both more happy and successful at another program that is lower ranked.So, I think the rankings can be helpful not in telling you what program is better or worse, but by simple giving you a starting point from which you can delve deeper into a program to see if it is a good fit for your personally/learning style/personal goals within the SLP field.

 

The one exception to this is indeed if you are thinking about pursuing a PhD. High rankings do tend to mean more research is being done and encouraged in students. Also, the academic world is vain and ranking (whether or not they should) matter. 

 

I think its worth noting too that at the graduate level, the overall school rankings / prestige mean pretty much nothing and are definitely weighed less in the field's eyes than program rankings. For example, if you are planning to pursue your PhD and you get into Columbia University and the University of Iowa, definitely go to Iowa unless there is some very very powerful outside factor drawing you away. 

 

And purely statistically, some very low programs can be much harder to get into due to numbers. For example, I applied to a higher ranked school which got around 250 apps and a local school with a much lower ranking had over 500 and both were looking for roughly the same class size. Of course you cannot calculate your odds based on number of apps and admits alone; you need factor in the strength of your own application. The overall types of applications received by the programs makes program competitiveness hard to compare among each other. However, no program is a safe bet these day, and I'm sure programs from number 1 to the bottom all admit some truly exceptional students.

 

Hope that helps and I haven't ruffled too many feathers. 

Definitely, helpful! Thanks and thanks to everyone else.