2008 US News Rankings

<p>does anyone know the top public colleges? (someone that has access to the paid subscription)</p>

<p>Yet the Catholic schools do very well in the rankings, and are very sought after...Georgetown, Notre Dame, Boston College, to name a few. In the master's schools, Villanova is a standout, and Loyola, Maryland does very well.</p>

<p>Can anyone tell me why the Naval Academy and West Point were ranked as LAC's this year and what constitutes being a LAC and not "Top Public University"?</p>

<p>In my opinion, throw all the service academies in because they are ranked very high in engineering as well. It's like double dipping because we aren't really known for our "liberal arts" nature. We are a professional school first and foremost, so I don't see why we didn't remain an "unranked specialty school". Anyone have any thoughts?</p>

<p>"the Catholic schools do very well in the rankings" </p>

<p>Not all of them. There are hundreds. The point is that average pay is an absurd part of the metric.</p>

<p>Cal-Berkeley #21
UVa #23
UCLA & UMich #25 (tie)
UNCC #28
William & Mary #33
GA Tech #35
Wisconsin, UC San Diego, Illinois #38
UC Davis, Washington #42
Texas, UC Santa Barbara, UC Irvine #44
Penn State #48
Florida #49
Maryland #54
The OSU #57
Rutgers, UGa #59</p>

<p>I think that you are probably right about the pay issue, PosterX. I also do not really understand why that is a part of the equation.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Can anyone tell me why the Naval Academy and West Point were ranked as LAC's this year and what constitutes being a LAC and not "Top Public University"?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I don't think that the service academies offer much in the way of graduate school programs. I suspect that that keeps them out of the "universty" category.</p>

<p>Hawkette: Did I say "all-seeing wisdom" anywhere? Or did I say that I was sure that the process was not perfect? I can see where you might get upset about things said when you interpret so broadly. For the record, I do not believe that USNWR has what you refer to as "all-seeing wisdom."</p>

<p>gabriellah,
I'm glad that you agree that the process is not perfect (although I thought you were pretty clear earlier that you have faith in the editors of USNWR and their decision to only include only the views of academics). Given the imperfections of the PA, are you now agreeing that it should not be included in the USNWR rankings? Or should it, as xiggi has suggested, be listed separately so that those devotees who believe in the number will still have it and can compare it among schools, but we opponents will be reassured by the inclusion for overall ranking purposes of only objective, quantifiable data? I think that this is a reasonable compromise.</p>

<p>Hawkette: "I think that the people who run USNWR, although probably not doing a perfect job in amassing relevant data, are pretty smart people." </p>

<p>This is what I said: Nothing about "all-seeing wisdom." The latter are your words, and mischaracterize my statements. Unless you are not as intelligent as I perceive you to be, you know this very well. Playing word games is a worthless exercise.
I do agree that the system is not perfect. What is? This is the basic point, here. We must stop expecting perfection from this report. Its methodology and outcomes will never please everyone. Just use it broadly, and assume that the information therein was obtained, though not perfectly, in good faith, and by intelligent people whose intentions are not malevolent. Improvements to anything, anyone, can always be made. I do not believe that the suggestions you make to change the system are improvements.
And, by the way, I stand by my words in the earlier post. Twisting my words will not change that. Only reasoned logic will.
Where in the world did you ever get the idea that I might now agree that PA should be taken out of the equation? You certainly have an unusual way of reading things. No way. As I said in earlier posts, without PA, the assessment is useless, and worthless. I want those experts opinions, as much as I do not want employers and students opinions in the national mix.</p>

<p>"Or should it, as xiggi has suggested, be listed separately so that those devotees who believe in the number will still have it and can compare it among schools, but we opponents will be reassured by the inclusion for overall ranking purposes of only objective, quantifiable data?"</p>

<p>I wouldn't mind seeing two rankings, one reputational and the other, statistical. The reputational rank should be more transparant, with the voters' ratings open to scrutiny. The statistical ranking should be relevent and uniform. And the alumni giving rate has got to go!</p>

<p>gabriellah,
Sorry if I misunderstood your words and even more so that you remain so attached to the PA scoring. I do think that xiggi's suggestion has merit and would be a good compromise and thank you, alexandre, for signing on to this and for asking for more transparency. That would help in giving the results more credibility. </p>

<p>By the way, USNWR did a survey that focused on classroom teaching and the results are posted in the very interesting thread started by doctorb. Many of the status quo powers did not make the classroom list and this list did not continue in future editions. I wonder why...</p>

<p>It seems to me that Stony Brook will probably become the flagship SUNY in another couple of years, taking Bing's spot.</p>

<p>Hawkette--since the 1995 USNWR study was based on the opinions of "presidents, provosts and deans of admission" (who were asked to select the 10 schools in their category where the faculty had an unusually strong commitment to undergraduate teaching), presumably you wouldn't think it has any validity anyway since it is essentially a Peer Assessment ranking.</p>

<p>It's one of many, many problems with the ranking, G.</p>

<p>midatlmom,
My criticisms of the PA survey have less to do with the presidents, provosts and deans of admission than with, among other things, their anonymity, the lack of transparency in their responses, the lack of consistency in how they reach their rankings, and their monopoly position as the only ones offering an opinion that has ranking consequences. However, given the subjectivity of either type of survey (classroom teaching or PA), the right answer is probably to break it out and list it separately from the objective data.</p>

<p>Everyone got their own ideas of how this survey should run, it's just too bad non of you able to publish a national known magazine.</p>

<p>Take it or leave it, grow up.</p>

<p>You left out the third option. Dissect it.</p>

<p>Or the fourth - leave it and tell people why they should leave it, too.</p>

<p>Beginning to understand you, Hawk...It is interesting how someone who does not trust the PA numbers, would trust a statistic used 12 years ago, which for some reason, was eliminated from the survey.
At any rate, did I miss something, or were the college students NOT part of that survey? Weren't the very professionals you seem to mistrust, responsible for those outcomes?
If credible professionals were to seperately rate classroom performance, I would be thrilled to know those results. As we pay dearly for our children's education, all intelligent, credible, and, therefore,valuable information is more than welcomed and much appreciated. Your suggestions, in my opinion, have not as yet fallen within these parameters. But keep working on it. Sometimes really caring, as you do, can be of help in coming up with something really worthwhile. I do appreciate the effort, if not yet the result.
And just for the record, Hawk, one becomes attached to a person, or a pet...not to a ranking.</p>