2008 US News Rankings

College Search & Selection
481

<p>FYI - Rankings have not changed much over the past 18 years:</p>

<p>US News Top 25 for 1991-2008</p>

<p>Institution 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991</p>

<p>Harvard University 2 2 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 1 1 3 1 1 1 1 1 1
Princeton University 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 4 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 4 4
Yale University 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 4 1 3 1 2 3 3 3 2 3
Stanford University 4 4 5 5 5 4 5 6 6 4 5 6 4 5 6 4 3 2
California Inst. of Technology 5 4 7 8 5 4 4 4 1 9 9 9 7 7 5 5 4 5
Massachusetts Inst. of Technology 7 4 7 5 4 4 5 5 3 4 6 5 5 4 4 5 6 6
Duke University 8 8 5 5 5 4 8 8 7 6 3 4 6 6 7 7 7 7
University of Pennsylvania 5 7 4 4 5 4 5 6 7 6 7 13 11 12 16 14 13 13
Dartmouth College 11 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 11 10 7 7 7 8 8 7 8 8
Columbia University 9 9 9 9 11 10 9 10 10 10 9 11 15 9 11 10 9 10
Northwestern University 14 14 12 11 11 10 12 13 14 10 9 9 13 14 13 13 14 23
University of Chicago 9 9 15 14 13 12 9 10 13 14 14 12 11 10 9 9 10 11
Washington University 12 12 11 11 9 12 14 15 17 16 17 17 20 20 18 20 18 24
Cornell University 12 12 13 14 14 14 14 10 11 6 14 14 13 15 10 11 12 9
Rice University 17 17 17 17 16 15 12 13 14 18 17 16 16 12 14 12 15 16
Johns Hopkins University 14 16 13 14 14 15 16 15 7 14 14 15 10 22 15 15 11 15
Brown University 14 15 15 13 17 17 16 15 14 10 9 8 9 11 12 18 17 12 19
Emory University 17 18 20 20 18 18 18 18 18 16 9 19 17 16 25 21
University of Notre Dame 19 20 18 18 19 18 19 19 19 18 19 17 18 19 25
University of California-Berkeley 21 21 20 21 21 20 20 20 20 22 23 27 26 23 19 16 16 13
Vanderbilt University 19 18 18 18 19 21 21 22 20 20 19 20 22 18 20 25 19
Carnegie Mellon University 22 21 22 22 23 21 23 23 23 25 23 28 23 24 24 19 24 22
University of Virginia 23 24 23 22 21 23 21 20 22 22 21 21 19 17 21 22 21 18
Georgetown University 23 23 23 25 23 24 23 23 23 20 21 23 21 25 17 17 19
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 25 24 25 22 25 25 25 25 25 25 23 24 24 21 23 24 22 21
University of California-Los Angeles 25 25 26 25 25 26 25 26 25 25 25 28 31 28 22 23 23 17
Wake Forest University 30 27 27 28 25 26 28 28 - - 25 - - - - - -
U. of North Carolina-Chapel Hill 27 27 29 29 28 28 25 27 24 27 25 27 - - - 25 20 -
Tufts University 27 27 28 27 28 28 29 29 25 23 22 25 - - - - -
University of Rochester - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 25 -</p>

482

<p>confidentialcoll,
Thanks for taking the time to read and consider the ideas that I posted about alternatives/additions to the USNWR ranking process. The key for me is to decide whether one finds student opinion (about one's individual school) and employer opinion of value in judging the job that a faculty does for undergraduate students. One's answer to that will determine everything. I think you raise valid points about some of the flaws in including such opinion, but I would also say that similar concerns can easily be applied to the current system of academics-only judgments. None of these are without some level of difficulty in terms of creating a broad, informed response that will have some information value. </p>

<p>Still, I come down strongly on the side of more opinion from all of the stakeholders and more transparency. IMO that would be a vastly superior system that the current PA. I would still include the opinions of academics (even weighted them at twice the level of students and employers), but as a prospective student, I would love to know if the reality on campus comports with the academic reputation of the faculty. Not to mention that such an approach would have faculty having some skin in the results/output of their students. All I want is for good classroom teachers to teach undergraduates in a small, accessible manner where students can actually learn. For some reason, that is an irrelevant, unpopular and even threatening idea to some of the PA proponents.</p>

483

<p>Hawkette. Students' opinions should not be included in the assessment of their professors for the purposes of a meaningful national/international ranking. First of all, as was stated above, they have absolutely no means for comparison; secondly, college students generally take things into consideration when assessing a professor that really has no place in the rankings...Is the prof. an easy grader? hard grader? fair grader? Is the professor friendly? unfriendly? Do I think the prof. likes me? Does he like me more/less than other students? Is he/she more favorable to the young men/ young women in the class, or visa versa. And so on.These conversations amongst students DO take place. In other words, for students, the professor-student relationship can be VERY personal. Really. So, while this factor truly has no place in the national rankings, it can be very helpful to students, INTERNALLY, when they are making their course selections.
You don't really want professors feeling as though they need to pander to their students, always aware that the students are grading THEM for something that has become as important as these rankings. Believe me, the message could come down from on-high for professors to be cognizant of the fact that what they do, or perceived to do, in the classroom could be partly responsible for how the students rate them in these national/international rankings. Because of this personal relationship between student and professor, garnering this data is probably VERY impractical, and perhaps even dangerous to good, effective teaching. There is a maturity factor, that has to do with life experience moreso than with intellectual capability that mitigates the value of such young opinions. Again, while this works on the internal level, helping students make class selections, it simply does not have a place in the national/international rankings.</p>

484

<p>Alexandre--I would be very interested in seeing such an employer survey conducted (as you outlined in post 475). I would like, however, to see it as a separate survey, rather than included in the rankings. While it would be extremely interesting to certain students, I am still not convinced that it would be an appropriate factor in measuring the educational quality of a school.</p>

485

<p>hawkett, as i explained before, students have absolutely no way of comparing their professors to those at other schools, an average of a 3.5/5 rating for professors in college A has no basis to be compared to an average 4/5 rating in college B. students are not robots that use the same means of evaluation, so we simply cannot assume that students in different colleges will use similar yardsticks. on top of that students have no incentive to be honest, given that good ratings will boost rankings. faculty doing PA will probably boost their own univ's scores, but they rate multiple other colleges and a fairer comparison can be made between colleges X, Y and Z rated by a faculty member at college A. and employers guage a very narrow facet of output the significance of which varies greatly from univ to univ. So pre professional schools will benefit. a school geared towards grad school, would unfairly do worse with this bias. penn produces better wall street candidates than say yale, because of wharton, should it's output and faculty!! be held in higher regard because of this? importantly, employers have no way to evaluate the quality of faculty.</p>

486

<p>Which one would you choose... Harvard or Princeton? The answer is obvious in my opinion.</p>

487

<p>Though I don't know of any employer surveys available, for fields such as finance there are lists of schools where recruitment occurs and how many students from each - these are posted by actual employees themselves.</p>

488

<p>Gabriellah,
I don’t expect students to grade any school other than their own. </p>

<p>Re the problems that I am trying to address, how does the current ranking system using PA account for the following situations involving high reputation faculties?</p>

<p>1) they don’t teach undergraduates;
2) they teach undergraduates but only do so in large courses and the great bulk of the teaching is done in smaller groups by TAs;
3) they teach undergrads, but are lousy in the classroom and students don’t learn effectively.</p>

<p>I think you are saying that these things, which would certainly be more apparent with the inclusion of student comment, are not important and should not be included in any ranking result. Please correct me if I am misinterpreting your comments, but if I have it right, then you and I would disagree about the role of faculty vis-</p>

489

<p>why is there not a continuous, non interupted numbering in the 2008 lac list?</p>

<p>eq, there is no 53 and 60</p>

490

<p>Hawks three points on high rep faculty.<br>
1. Wrong
2. Wrong
3. Wrong</p>

<p>Please prove otherwise.
In my opinion a person brilliant enough to have a high academic rep is smart enought to figure out basic teaching skills. Afterall, the average 1000 SAT students who become the bulk of K-12 teachers can figure it out. Someone with high ability should be able to get the hang of it pretty easily. It's not rocket science. That certainly has been my personal experience. The few bad profs I had rarely made it to tenure and ended up teaching at a lower level school where, supposedly, teaching is better. Ahhh the irony.</p>

491

<p>barrons,
You are completely missing the point. </p>

<p>I'm saying that if it 1,2, or 3 is happening, this will be revealed in a student survey. I am concerned about the student and what he/she will experience when they get to campus. What are you so scared of? If professors really do teach these classes and really do a quality job in the classroom, then this will come out. And if they don't, then this will be revealed. Why is that a bad thing and why should a school get a high PA if its own students have a different opinion?</p>

492

<p>The survey already is done at many schools by NSSE and you are free to view the results for many schools. I don't think it will tell you all that much as most students have pretty favorable views of their school--otherwise they would leave. I'm sure you studied cognitive dissonance.</p>

<p>And if you don't think schools are aware of each other, here's a little snip from a discussion on our UW sports and everything else board.</p>

<p>"I had lunch with a teacher from Yale today. She said Yale regularly raids the UW because they can steal great teachers by offering them more money.</p>

493

<p>Hawkette;</p>

<p>how about a fourth option: They win Nobel, they teach Frosh, they are one of the best teachers on campus, and they also show up for discussion sections. The late Glenn Seaborg comes to mind. I'm sure there are many others who believe in undergraduate education as he did.</p>

494

<p>bluebayou,
That would be great for any student and wouldn't it be cool to see such experiences reflected in a student survey (with ranking consequences) that would validate the school's high PA score! Frankly, there are untold numbers of classroom experiences, both good and bad, that are being missed right now and that I am suggesting would be helpful in understanding the true quality of the faculty as seen through student eyes.</p>

495

<p>Hawkette:</p>

<p>Disagree since it would not make sense to compare student surveys across colleges. Take Cal Tech for example. It clearly has top-notch everything, but what if the students are miserable due to the workload.? If so, they would not rate it very highly, but, yet, everyone on the planet thinks it a tippy-top-tier school.</p>

<p>Thus, I don't think a student survey nor employer survey can be substituted for PA. A student survey could be factored into 'Student Life', or some other new ratings factor.</p>

496

<p>Believe me, Hawkette, you do not have more faith in today's kids than I have. Trust me, you are wrong in this assumption. In fact, judging from my children and my nieces and nephews (by the way, ALL college age, or beyond), and judging from my childrens' amazing and accomplished friends, I can tell you that I have great faith in young peoples' judgments. My daughter and virtually all of her friend's are either young attorneys, doctors, educators, psychologists, and Wall Streeters, waiting for their time to pursue their MBAs. The other children in my family are wonderful and responsible kids, who are currently attending some of the most respected colleges and universities in the country. So you see, I have tons of personal data to report, aside from my own work experiences. To believe that you have greater faith in young people, is utterly ridiculous.
Judging from your comments above, concerning your memories of your own college experiences: I hope you understand generational differences. I am not sure that you do. I don't know if you grasp the kinds of pressures young people face today...pressures that I am quite sure you did not feel a generation ago. So much more emphasis is placed on college prestige, across the board, from grad school to Wall Street. Choosing a college is serious business, and having children, who are just trying to figure out what the heck is going on in this crazy world of ours, pass judgment on educational professionals for the purposes of national/international ranking, is really pure folly. Yes. Their opinions ARE valuable. But not for those purposes. Their opinions can let other students who come after them know what kind of job a particular professor did in imparting information. Within the parameters of the individual colleges/universities, this is a very valuable service that students can provide one another.
Now...Onto the topic of whether a professor spends more time researching vs. teaching. My oldest child went to Vassar, and never had a TA teach her. In liberal arts colleges, the kids are far less likely to be taught by TA. She had a phenomenal education, that suited her just fine. After she completed college, she went on to an Ivy law school, and I can tell you that she did not at all like the big university vibe, which pulled her away from Princeton in her undergrad years.
My youngest son often gets taught by TAs, as well as those extraordinary researchers who really do make an appearance. Between researcher/professor, and TA, he feels that he has the best of both worlds, and gains a lot from each perspective. Generally, when a large class is taught by one of those research/professors, a TA will meet with the kids in the class in much smaller, intimate groups, several times per week. This child of mine dislikes the liberal arts college vibe, and really loves where he is at.
So...moral of the above little anecdote is that what you seem to fondly remember as a wonderful learning experience in college was very personal to you. Each student hopefully finds his or her niche that will satisfy his or her likes. Do you really think that there is a way for students to quantify this satisfaction level to a nationally meaningful degree considering the differences in personal tastes for learning?
The answer should really be no.
Your posts seem to reflect someone reminiscing from another time, when most young people did not necessarily need to go on to grad school, and went directly out to work after completing a baccalaureate degree. Today, this could not be further from accurate. Most young people who are currently in college, will have to complete a graduate degree before settling into a meaningful career. This is a key reason why your idea that employers should be part of the ranking process would have minimal, if any meaning at all.
There is a difference between actually understanding young people of college age, and theorizing about those same kids. Believe me, things have changed considerably since you and I were of college age. The only way to live this experience again, is to do so through the eyes of our kids, and even then, we are not sharing the same perspective. Our ideas must evolve with the times. Ideas are dynamic...they are ever-changing. We all need to learn to change with the times, too.</p>

497

<p>Hawkette: Re your comments to confidentialcoll concerning PA. The top employees, at least here in NYC, are VERY aware of the academic respect accorded the top schools. In fact, this is often KEY to landing a job at a top firm here. What these employers probably don't know, nor could not care less about in specificity, are data like the mid-50% ranges, or annual giving, and the like. But do not fool yourself. The respect accorded colleges and universities by academia, counts ALOT, at least in this city.</p>

498

<p>"Confidentialcoll,
One very critical flaw in your view of student input vs the current academics-only PA is that you assume that the academics have a single yardstick that they apply in the grades of other institutions. They absolutely, positively, do NOT. That is one of the many major flaws with the current PA that so many of us object to.</p>

<p>Re your concerns that schools with grad school-oriented, and not business-oriented, students would suffer in an employer survey, isn’t this exactly what is happening with the current PA system? Presently, grad schools may care about the PA of a school (although I’m not sure it is as strong as contended), but the next for-profit employer that I meet who talks about undergraduate PA will be the first."</p>

<p>hawkett,</p>

<p>ok ok, way too many logical flaws and presumptions here. i never said pa was perfect, teachers in academia don't know too much about other schools, but they generally know a fair bit about a few others. the rest can be "i don't knows" perhaps through working there or more generally through academic interaction and seeing what research is produced by univs. this makes a subjective survey flawed (yes no single yardstick) but nevertheless possible. because schools x,y and z are being compared fairly (or we hope) by a professor at school B. </p>

<p>if you work in a company you will know the reputation and success of other companies in the industry. this is not directly comparable but hopefully you see that profs are in more of a position to rate peer schools. students have no way to compare their teachers to those at other schools or rate teachers at other schools, unless they take several semesters at peer schools. so a survey wouldn't be flawed - it would be meaningless.</p>

<p>i never said grad schools care much for PA, i don't believe they do. i don't believe anyone other than univ presidents, faculty, usnews, prospective applicants and their parents care about PA, - not grad school admissions, not employers, not students within a univ (apart from for the rankings). so pa is flawed, (and i think it unfairly hurts schools like dart and brown) but adding employers into the mix would take it further away from reality. brown isn't too pre-professional, if you had research profs and employers rating faculty there they'd unfairly suffer even more, brown offers a good education i think. don't argue that student ratings would reverse this because they simply cannot be done in a fair objective manner. I think it's unfortunate that faculty cannot judge a school's educating power without letting research cloud their ratings. these aren't technical difficulties with your methodology, these are fundamental flaws with including students and employers in ratings of an undergraduate education.</p>

<p>Re gabriellaah:</p>

<p>top employers care more for the pre-professionalness of a program than for it's academic quality. as an example they care little for an ability to prove things in pure math and much for an ability to quantify and estimate trends / understand business and economics.</p>

499

<p>gabriellah,
Thank you for your long (though often condescending) reply. We just view the issue differently and I would very gladly welcome the views of students about faculty members and make that an important part of a ranking. Nothing you wrote disqualifies the students from being able to make a reasonable judgment on the teaching quality of their professors and IMO that is a vital part of the undergraduate experience. What good is academic prestige if the high profile teachers don't or can't teach?</p>

500

<p>Hawkette. I am so sorry that my post seemed condescending to you. That was not my intention. Perhaps I took offense at your statement (s) where you expressed that you perceive yourself as taking a "...higher view of student opinion...etc." Although I am sure that you did not realize that your comments appeared offensive to me, it was not the most politic thing to say. However, I certainly understand how easy it is to misinterpret words that can come across in manner other than intended. I thought I let my irritation slide with your commentary slide, but apparently, my reaction came through in my post to you. Again, so sorry. I am quite sure that you meant no harm as well.</p>