I've been browsing the US News site, and noticed they divide their rankings for national universities into tiers. What seperates a tier 3 school from a tier 4 school, and so forth?
2007-08-29 04:13:03 · 4 answers · asked by Kellpossible 2 in Education & Reference ➔ Higher Education (University +)
In the National University category, the top 50 universities are put into the first tier and the next 50 are put into the second tier.
Tier Three and Tier Four schools are universities not ranked in the top 100. Most of the tier three schools are good universities that are not great universities. They are better than the tier four schools, which are often not very selective.
In the regional master's university category, thier three schools are the less selective schools that you should probably avoid if at all possible.
Bootom line -- Tier Three national universities are pretty good schools -- but not at the top. Tier three schools in other categories are just bad schools.
2007-08-29 04:41:29 · answer #1 · answered by Ranto 7 · 2⤊ 1⤋
Tier 3 School
2016-11-06 20:54:30 · answer #2 · answered by carrilo 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
USNWR explains it on their web page.
Top is the top 50% of schools in the category. This would be tier 1 and tier 2 if there were such a thing. As it is, the top 50% of schools in the category are called "top" regardless of the number in the category.
Tier 3 is the next 25% and tier 4 is the bottom 25%.
If there were 200 schools in the category then 1-100 would be top, 101-150 would be tier three, and 151-200 would be tier 4.
The top schools are numerically ranked, the bottom schools are not. This way, we can see who is "best" but not who is "worst". We can only see who is in the company of the worse.
Be careful comparing across categories. It is theoretically possible that a tier 3 in one category could be a top in another category. These categories are not inclusive of the others - they are seperate and distinct lists.
2007-08-30 11:44:41 · answer #3 · answered by CoachT 7 · 2⤊ 1⤋
Hmmm. Well, a 1st-tier school is considered Ivy League. They are also called top-tier. 2nd-tier schools are not Ivy League, but just below. They tend to be selective, but not as selective as Ivy League.
So my guess is that a 3rd-tier school is average across the board. Not selective, unless there's problems with the student. I'm not sure if 3rd-tier would apply to a community college.
2007-08-29 04:19:56 · answer #4 · answered by KingMike 2 · 0⤊ 3⤋