<p>Oh puleeeze stop calling these scores "perfect". It takes away from those of my generation who really did have perfect scores before re-centering. Just call them "800s". Sheesh. Don't their parents wish their kids were perfect! We'll never know, will we? ;)</p>
<p>
...there were approx 12000 perfect 800s in math and 11300 in Reading and so on. But when it comes to the perfect 2400 there are less than 1600...
</p>
<p>Anyway, here are the figures on scores of 2400 for class of 2007: </p>
<p>nannyogg,
U Chicago is an intellectual powerhouse and I have a very high regard for the school and the students. Academics have long adored this school and it is seen in business circles as contributing some of the best ideas and people to the financial/economics/investment management world. I think that the school was likely underrated by collegehelp’s methodology. </p>
<p>ND is also a powerhouse, but IMO is viewed much differently than U Chicago. Academics have long shown a hostility to colleges with a religious tie (look at PA scores for Georgetown, BC, Pepperdine, Fordham, Brandeis, Yeshiva, BYU) and especially Catholic ones. It’s no surprise that ND’s PA score is low. The school’s sports reputation also masks the serious academic work that goes on at ND and the quality of the students that attend as they are often categorized (and underappreciated) as well-rounded kids who like football and sports. However, in the business world and particularly in the Midwest, ND has a terrific reputation for bright, creative students that are the equal of the non-HYP Ivies (without the ego). </p>
<p>I don’t think that either school is “clubby” but ND students have great, great devotion to their school (like Dartmouth) and the ND name travels very, very well to all corners of the country and internationally. However, among academics, the U Chicago name carries greater cachet and it is very unlikely that these opinions will change anytime soon. Thus, for the rankings and publications that rely strongly on academic/research reputation, hell is likely to freeze over before the academics would rank ND as a superior to U Chicago. </p>
<p>As for famous alumni, both schools have plenty to brag about. </p>
<p>I can certainly provide a litany of quantitative comparisons if you like, but I don’t think that there is a lot of overlap of students considering both of these schools. Both are terrific and deserve equally high marks, but probably will appeal to different types of students and people generally.</p>
<p>Good God...there are actually twenty odd pages of serious discussion about an utterly meaningless rankings list with no logical criteria? </p>
<p>Does anyone seriously consider Notre Dame the third best university in the US for ANYTHING? Ditto for Dartmouth at seventh. They're decent schools, but neither has a math, science, engineering, or economics program to speak of, and even for pre-med and pre-law students, it's far from the top fifteen. </p>
<p>I could go on, but again, this discussion is absolutely silly. </p>
<p>It would be a lot more interesting if someone were to actually post a reasonable criteria for judging schools, one which it's obvious the USNWR will never use, since the rankings would be far more static, and the results would actually make sense.</p>
<p>"Can someone(or Hawkette) please do a comparison of Chicago versus Notre Dame? Can we maybe look at department rankings, awards, opportunities for undergrads to do grad level research and actually be helped by grad students? Famous or oft quoted profs? Scholarly alumni?(I know Condi Rice hails from ND but doesn't a boatload of major scientists, politicos, writers and economists come from Chicago?) Which school do journalists turn to most for sound bites, which is seen as more academic, who ranks higher internationally?"</p>
<p>I am curious to see how ND compares with Chicago too.</p>
<p>Hawkette, you spoke in generalities and did not answer the questions posted above.</p>
<p>I would love to see the answers to the above questions. There are a lot of questions in the above paragraph so if you just want to compare departments at each school, and the opportunites the undergrads have to work with grad students and take grad courses that would be great.</p>
<p>you have to be kidding, Notre Dame is in a different league than Chicago. One is known clearly for its sports (or should I say, previous claim to fame) while the other is known throughout the world as a world-class institution. The regression analysis done so far has some strange results to say the least. Just from an intuitive sense, it seems that schools like Cornell, Chicago, and JHU would be most hurt by the omission of PA in the rankings since they have higher PA scores than their selectivity would indicate. In the case of Cornell and JHU, both schools do not even have sat averages above a 1400. Taking away the advantage they enjoy by high PA scores should mean that they would fall. However, both regressions kept Cornell very high up for some strange reason even though it doesn't have the highest graduation rates, faculty resources, or alumni giving rates....</p>
<p>
[quote]
someone were to actually post a reasonable criteria for judging schools...
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The originator of this thread essentially narrows it down to SAT scores. Is that "reasonable" enough?</p>
<p>
It would be a lot more interesting if someone were to actually post a reasonable criteria for judging schools, one which it's obvious the USNWR will never use, since the rankings would be far more static, and the results would actually make sense.
If your goal is to determine "the best" schools, to rank them, or simplify it to "make sense" it'll never happen. If your goal is to determine the best school for your child, you need ALL the stats and the common sense to use them in the context of who your kid is and what their interests are. There is no simple answer as long as everyone's goals are different. Some want the instant prestige, the halo effect, and the cachet that come from affiliation with "the best" schools. Some want a good fit for their kid. If you're doing your job in what could be a family's second largest expenditure of their lives, you're taking all the stats and opinions you can get your hands on and making the best decision you possibly can. It's not really relevant to consider which schools are "hot" or climbing the ratings ladder except as it applies to widening a parent or prospect's limited knowledge about anything other than "top" schools. There are a lot of fine schools out there and the highest ranked ones may be the absolute worst fit for most kids looking forward to a successful college career. Take all the information you can get, visit (if you can) schools you identify as good matches, and use all available stats to help determine if you're wasting your application money and time on huge "reaches". Don't just pick a school because some calculation put it in the "top 25". </p>
<p>It seems to me most involved in this thread are seasoned veterans of CC, if not the college application process, and the discourse has been fairly intelligent (compared to some threads I've seen!). Do you honestly believe there can be a silver bullet, single variable, or set of criteria to determine the "best" schools? What's your definition of "best"?</p>
<p>nannyogg,
As your CC post record is so short, I would like to take a minute and give you some understanding of the framework (that I have used in previous threads) for how I would suggest that a college ranking should survey. This might give you some insight into how I approach the questions that you and others ask. I will also add that this is an idealistic conception (to me at least) as not all of the data is currently available.</p>
<p>100% </p>
<p>20% STUDENT BODY MEASUREMENTS for Incoming and Outgoing Students (20%):
5% Standardized Test Scores
3% Top 10% Ranks
2% Admittance Rate
7% Job Placement Statistics
3% Graduate School Statistics</p>
<p>20% FACULTY ASSESSMENT
8% Reputation among academics
4% Reputation among students
3% Reputation among alumni
5% Reputation among employers</p>
<p>15% COST OF ATTENDANCE</p>
<p>15% FACULTY RESOURCES
4% % of classes with under 20 students
4% % of classes with over 50 students
3% Student/faculty ratio
1% % of classes taught by Tas
1% % of faculty with highest degree
1% Faculty salary
1% % of faculty that are full-time</p>
<p>12.5% FINANCIAL RESOURCES
8.5% Money per student dedicated to research, student services, and related educational expenditures.
4% Endowment per capita (while it's not likely, ideally splitting out spending on undergraduate vs. graduate students)</p>
<p>10% GRADUATTION/RETENTION MEASUREMENTS
2% Freshman Retention
3% 4-Year Graduation Rate
3% 6-Year Graduation Rate
2% Differential Measurement</p>
<p>5% FACILITIES</p>
<p>2.5% ALUMNI GIVING</p>
<p>
[quote]
xiggi my good friend. Perhaps you need to search a little lomger than is required for a "five second" sound bite.. Professor Smoot was teaching FRESHMEN physics when he received the wake-up call from the Nobel Committee...</p>
<p>From the Daily Californian on the day the announcement was made:</p>
<p>Quote:
Smoot has been a member of the physics department faculty at UC Berkeley since 1994 and is currently teaching the Physics 7B class.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>BB, my good friend --and, yes, I consider you a good friend-- I believe you missed the finer point of my posts on this issue. While my search took 5 seconds to locate a couple of potential sources, I did take a little longer to read and post what served as an ... example. For instance, I also posted an excerpt of the CURRENT catalog search for classes taught by Dr. Smoot. I could also have posted the story how Smoot worried about his mid-term exam after receiving the heavy-accented call from Sweden. However, the point remains that the Nobel prize winner does NOT currently teach undergraduates. Can we call it the price one pays for fame? Or is it an answer to the "institution's" pressure to parlay the fame into a money raising machine at the expense of teaching duties? And that, my good friend, was the finer point! </p>
<p>However, let me apologize for trying to emulate Carville before being ready for primetime. As he does so often, I spoke too fast and assumed people would link the dots left open for interpretation. This said, I do plan to keep my head unshaven, and, of course, not sell my soul to the dark side.</p>
<p>PS Now, we can move to today's news--and yesterday's discussion about Chicago versus ND. Roger Myerson, a Harvard graduate and the current Glen A. Lloyd Distinguished Service Professor and Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, just won the Nobel for Economics. :)</p>
<p>I do concur generally with Hawkette's brief analysis and comparison of Notre Dame and UChicago. BOTH schools are highly regarded by conservatives as well because they are NOT bastions of left wing politics. But they attract very different students.</p>
<p>Isnt this a great country? SO many colleges and universities to choose from and all of them are special.</p>
<p>Like Hawkette I dont want to tear down or denigrate ANY school...be it a top 25 school, or a fourth tier school. I just want to spread the wealth of knowledge so to speak and bring awareness of schools to kids.</p>
<p>Friedokra, I am going to have to disagree with you.</p>
<p>Hawkette called certain schools overrated. That's not the nicest term I have heard. :)</p>
<p>As for her analysis, it is pretty superficial.</p>
<p>I am waiting to read the comparisons of the actual educations of Chicago and Notre Dame. </p>
<p>Strength of departments, grad school opportunites as undergrads, etc. For example as a math student, what can I expect at Chicago compared to Notre Dame? Or Economics? What departments are Notre Dame's specialties?</p>
<p>Yes, let's see the beef. Notre Dame is a pretty highly regarded college, especially (but not exclusively) among Catholics, but I need some convincing to agree that it is comparable to Chicago.</p>
<p>nannyogg,
I believe that I said that collegehelp's regression analysis produced results that showed certain schools as underrated and others as overrated. I also commented that several of those that his analysis identified as underrated are among schools that I have also argued are underrated. Finally, I have not made negative comments about U Chicago or the others and in fact, in post # 284, I described U Chicago as "an intellectual powerhouse." Your charges of any attempt on my part to drag U Chicago and others down are completely false.</p>
<p>Hawkette--once again, you can't bring yourself to abide by your stated value of not knocking down any other school. As you so charmingly posted-</p>
<p>"However, in the business world and particularly in the Midwest, ND has a terrific reputation for bright, creative students that are the equal of the non-HYP Ivies (without the ego)."</p>
<p>That "without the ego" quote is very typical of your snide comments about the Ivies.</p>
<p>While I agree with dstark that Hawkette's analysis of ND vs. Chicago is fairly superficial, I'm not sure that any of these so-called objective analyses add much to the discussion. Clearly, Chicago has many more renowned programs. For example, if you look at the Gourman rankings of undergraduate departments, in English, Chicago is #4, ND is # 23, in psychology, Chicago is #9, ND is unranked, in history, Chicago is #8, ND is #22, in economics Chicago is #2, ND is unranked, in chemistry, Chicago is #8, NC is #23, in political science, Chicago is #5, NC is #19 etc. In addition, Chicago currently has 6 Nobel Prize winners on the faculty, as well as 42 members of the National Academy of Science and numerous other award-winning faculty. If you want to be in a city atmosphere, without big-time sports and with world-renowned departments in economics, english, poly sci etc., Chicago would be a good choice. </p>
<p>However, for the right student, ND would be an excellent choice due to its high quality academic programs, big time sports programs, location and religious underpinnings. As Hawkette rightly noted, these two fine schools are extremely different and unlikely to appeal to the same students.</p>
<p>Hi, Hawkette, I'm definitely not any user other than tokenadult, and I am requesting you to "show your work."</p>
<p>
<p>4.1 U Chicago 4.3 UC Berkeley 4.3 Johns Hopkins 4.4 Caltech
</p>
<p>Notre Dame and UCLA don't have any "extraordinary" majors.</p>
<p>UChicago = economics
UC Berkeley = engineering, business
Johns Hopkins = biomedical
Caltech = engineering</p>
<p>And while I think these are two very different schools, I really like Nannyogg's last post, because I too believe that Hawkette spends hours and hours pouring out data that attempts to support her favorite schools and ignores or misuses information that doesn't.</p>
<p>I have not read but two pages of this thread. One of the best measures of a school's academics is the opinions of seasoned recruiters. I have only heard highly positive comments regarding Chicago and Notre Dame. For the record, some of the most glowing comments by recruiters are praises of BYU.</p>
<p>"Notre Dame and UCLA don't have any "extraordinary" majors.</p>
<p>UChicago = economics
UC Berkeley = engineering, business
Johns Hopkins = biomedical
Caltech = engineering"</p>
<p>Actually, Chicago and UCB are "extraordinary" in most social sciences, physics sciences and Humanities. JHU is also exceptional in Biology. Caltech is exceptional in all the sciences.</p>