<p><a href="http://mup.asu.edu/research2007.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://mup.asu.edu/research2007.pdf</a></p>
<p>Lots of numbers for the quants out there.</p>
<p>The Top 25:
1. Columbia
2. Harvard
3. MIT
4. Stanford
5. Univ Penn
6. Duke
7. Berkeley
8. Michigan-Ann Arbor
9. Johns Hopkins
10. Yale
11. UCLA
12. Univ Washington
13. Wisconsin-Madison
14. Univ Minnesota-Twin Cities
15. WUSTL
16. UCSF
17. Northwestern
18. Chicago
19. UCSD
20. UNC-CH
21. Princeton
22. Cornell
23. USC
24. Ohio State
25. Penn State</p>
<p>That's incorrect as they are ranked by groups and in alpha order within the groups.</p>
<p>Does this include med research? Looks like it since UCSF is up there. It'd be nice if we can see a ranking excluding the medical research, seeing how it skews the numbers big time. Some schools can have as much as 90% of the research$ on medical school and hence it's definitely not representative of academic fields that are relevant to undergrads or even most non-medical graduate students.</p>
<p>A more accurate account of the top 26 (for those who don't want to click on the link and look at page 8):</p>
<p>FIRST TIER
Columbia
Harvard
MIT
Stanford
Penn</p>
<p>SECOND TIER
Duke
Berkeley
Michigan-Ann Arbor
Johns Hopkins</p>
<p>THIRD TIER
Yale
UCLA
Univ Washington
Wisconsin-Madison</p>
<p>FOURTH TIER
Univ Minnesota-Twin Cities
WUSTL
UCSF
Northwestern</p>
<p>FIFTH TIER
Chicago
UCSD
UNC-CH
Princeton
Cornell</p>
<p>SIXTH TIER
USC
Ohio State
Penn State
Florida</p>
<p>I found the endowment data for Texas-Austin very interesting. The endowment is being reported by the institution as $6.2B, which would make it even larger than Michigan. Just thought it was interesting since the UT-System endowment is always confusing in terms of how it translates to the campus level. Since the number is reported by UT-Austin directly, it must be a sum of UT's portion of the System endowment, as well as UT's own endowment funds that are independent of the System endowment.</p>
<p>By the definitions of the report's authors, the Top 25 consists of 51 schools, including both private and public institutions. See page 7 of the introduction, in which it is explained that their TOP 25 includes schools that ranked first in at least one of the nine categories measured. A lot of schools are missing from the lists, above--unless the posters are out to rewrite the report.</p>
<p>Among other odd results of the manner in which two of the posters above abbreviated the report's data, two schools with identical scores to those included in the list (UI/UC and Texas) were lopped off. Several others that actually had a higher total for all nine measures than some of the schools the posters listed, were left out altogether. </p>
<p>Sam Lee, on page 166 is a table that takes into account the absence of a medical school. For the most part, I think your point is well taken. On the other hand, some university medical schools share faculty with engineering schools (bioengineering) and neuroscience programs (arts and sciences), and in both of those cases the medical school research budgets directly impact the availability of research opportunities for undergraduates.</p>
<p>Correction to my last post:</p>
<p>I stated:</p>
<p>
[quote]
See page 7 of the introduction, in which it is explained that their TOP 25 includes schools that ranked first in at least one of the nine categories measured
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That should say ...schools that ranked in the top 25 in at least one of the nine categories measured...</p>
<p>Why no Caltech?</p>
<p>Seiken, CalTech is in the Top 25 as defined by the authors of the report. See my note, or better yet, see the report. The entire first batch of schools named is the Top 25. CalTech is in there somewhere. (Directly beneath Vanderbilt, which has a large medical school.)</p>
<p>midmo, I think you're mixing up two different concepts here. On the one hand, the report does identify the 51 shools "that rank in the top 25 nationally on at least one of the nine measures." On the other hand, however, the report goes on to further rank those schools according to (1) the number of the nine measures in which they rank 1-25, and then among the schools that tie by that measure, (2) the number of the nine measures in which they rank 26-50, and then among the schools that are still tied, they are listed alphabetically. So, for example, the schools listed in Tier 1 in my post #5 above are all tied in the top position with all 9 measures ranked at 1-25 (and therefore 0 measures ranked at 26-50), and are therefore listed alphabetically within that top tier. As I reflected in post #5, above, additional tiers are indicated in the list by thick lines separating various clusters of schools. However, I couldn't find an explanation of how the cut-offs for those tiers were determined (I may have missed it), which leads to the question of why, e.g., Johns Hopkins--with 7 measures in the top 25 and 2 measures in the top 26-50--is in the second tier, while Yale--also with 7 measures in the top 25 and 2 measures in the top 26-50--is in the third tier. It also leads to the question you raised of why UI-UC and UT-Austin are in the seventh tier, and not the sixth, when Penn State and Florida in the sixth tier have the same numbers of measures in the top 25 and the top 26-50 as do UI-UC and UT-Austin.</p>
<p>Incidentally, the 9 "measures" are arrayed across the top of the table on pages 8 and 9 of the report, and are the national ranking of each school for:</p>
<ol>
<li>total research funding</li>
<li>federal research funding</li>
<li>endowment assets</li>
<li>annual giving</li>
<li>National Academy members</li>
<li>faculty awards</li>
<li>doctorates granted</li>
<li>post docs</li>
<li>SAT or ACT range</li>
</ol>
<p>
[quote]
Does this include med research? Looks like it since UCSF is up there. It'd be nice if we can see a ranking excluding the medical research, seeing how it skews the numbers big time.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Berkeley + UCSF total research money for 2005 would be second only to Johns Hopkins.</p>
<ol>
<li>JHU: $1,443,792,000</li>
<li>Berkeley + UCSF: $1,308,995,000</li>
</ol>
<p>45%er, I'm not "mixing up" anything. The report itself separates its listing of Top 25 from its listing of Top 26-50. The report has been "summarized" on these pages utilizing a redefinition of what Top 25 means, within the context of this particular report, and I think that is unjustified.</p>
<p>Obviously, anyone can establish his own criteria and set up his own ranking system, which hopefully will be a rational one, but I think a partial listing of this report's Top 25 schools, without mentioning that it is a partial listing, reduces the utility of the list.</p>
<p>Undergraduate SAT scores seem kind of random to include.</p>
<p>midmo, again, I think you're mixing up two different uses of the term "Top 25" in this thread and in the report itself. The report makes clear that its "Top 25" table includes all the schools that rank in the top 25 in at least ONE of the nine measures it uses (which I set forth in post #11). 51 schools rank in the top 25 in at least one of those nine measures and, accordingly, are in the report's "Top 25" table.</p>
<p>HOWEVER, the report ALSO makes clear that there is a ranking hierarchy WITHIN the table (page 7):</p>
<p>
[quote]
The tables group research institutions according to how many times they rank in the top 25 on each of these nine measures. The top category includes those universities that rank in the top 25 on all nine indicators. The bottom category includes universities with only one of the nine measures ranked in the top 25. Within these groups, institutions are then sorted by how many times they rank between 26 and 50 on the nine performance variables, with ties listed alphabetically.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Therefore, it is neither misrepresentative nor unjustified to summarize the top portion (i.e., the top 6 tiers or "categories," as the report calls them) of the ranking hierarchy that the report itself clearly has established within the "Top 25" table, as I did in post #5. However, I agree that the list in post #2 is misrepresentative of the report and the "Top 25" table, in that it indicates a specific ranking of each individual institution (i.e., Columbia at #1, Harvard at #2, MIT at #3, etc.) which is simply not found in the report or the "Top 25" table, and I attempted to clarify that in post #5.</p>
<p>Nearly half of JHU research funding is a pass through to operate a national lab as a manager as UCB manages several and soes not include that research in their numbers as it is not done by UCB people. Basically JHU is cheating the numbers to look better. It is always reported by NSF with a note to that effect.</p>
<p>The previous poster is presumably referring to the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, MD. It's certainly true that APL is an important facility for government research, primarily for the Department of Defense and NASA. APL is clearly comparable to national labs in terms of its history and scope.</p>
<p>But nonetheless, APL is not a "national lab". National labs belong to the government (usually the Department of Energy or NASA), but are operated and managed under contract by universities. For example, JPL is operated by Caltech for NASA. The Lawrence Berkeley National Lab is operated by UCB for DoE.</p>
<p>With national labs, the government can change the contract for operations and management. So in theory, the government could take JPL away from Caltech, or Lawrence Berkeley away from UCB. In fact, this actually happened at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab. </p>
<p>But APL is a different case; you won't find it in the list of US national laboratories. The reason is simple: APL is not merely operated and managed by JHU -- it belongs to JHU. So there is no "pass-through" arrangement. The government can't take operational or managerial control away from JHU, because it's JHU's lab. APL is a university lab; it just happens to have the size and scope of a national lab.</p>
<p>If you check the web addresses for these facilities, you'll find that national labs (e.g JPL, LBL, LLNL) typically have .gov addresses. But APL is at an .edu address (<a href="http://www.jhuapl.edu)%5B/url%5D">www.jhuapl.edu)</a>. That's the difference in a nutshell.</p>
<p>Yes, but virtually every $$$ of funding is from the DOD and much of the work is for their use only. If the DOD cut off funding tomorrow how much of the APL would be able to continue on? The DOD started and funded the lab at JHU because it wanted a place nearby to do special research work for them. It is a unique arrangement but still outside the typical competitive university research functon.</p>
<p>Corbett,</p>
<p>APL, for all intents and purposes, is pretty much run like a national lab. Most of the people who work in that lab don't even have PhDs. It's not like the lab has bunch of JHU professors working there and has much educational value for the JHU students. It offers some night courses that are open to working professionals. Its website has a .edu address but if you look at the site, there's nothing "JHU" about it. The educational programs listed there are open to the public and summer internships are open to all college seniors. It doesn't even have a direct link back to JHU. LOL! </p>
<p>I pretty much second everything barrons wrote and also think JHU has been cheating its numbers big time.</p>
<p>Wow! we appear to have significant jealosy ( or some other inappropriate emotion) aim at poor Hopkins. yes, APL does a lot of government funded research--but it clearly is not a national laboratory but is and always has been a division of Hopkins. It also gets grants and contracts from private business and other non-government sources. Many other universities have similar (albeit smaller) research divisions. This in no way constitutes cheating. Successful yes, cheating no.</p>