<p>If someone posting in this thread has some understanding of what Notre Dame is, please explain to me why Notre Dame should be rated any higher than it already is in peer assessment by the U.S. News methodology. What colleges that now outrank it by that methodology should actually be lower ranked than Notre Dame, in your opinion, and what is the basis for your opinion?</p>
<p>nannyogg,
More false characterizations…sigh….(insert smilie shaking its head wist_fully)</p>
<ol>
<li><p>You made a guess about ND and described it as a "regional midwestern school." I provided facts showing the truth.</p></li>
<li><p>You claim that I am "ignoring collegeboard.com stats." The fact is that I brought them into the conversation and pointed out the discrepancy with USNWR's numbers.</p></li>
<li><p>You say that I "seem utterly unaware of Chicago's rep and influence." Uh, I have made multiple strongly-positive comments about the school including calling it (# 284)"an intellectual powerhouse…that 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></li>
</ol>
<p>I am grateful for all of the attention that has been brought here to ND because it has provided a great opportunity for all of us to see that Notre Dame is a terrific college that has nothing to apologize for in objective comparisons with some of America's most highly regarded institutions. I hope that this dialogue has helped some readers to better appreciate the school's qualities and student strength.</p>
<p>Hi, Hawkette, now that I know you're checking in regularly could you please answer my questions in as much detail as you can? Take your time, but please refer to some verifiable facts and explain which colleges will lose rank vis a vis Notre Dame if Notre Dame is properly (in your opinion) ranked.</p>
<p>tokenadult,
It is the multi-million dollar question-which colleges will lose rank? It also presents rankings as a zero-sum game. And maybe they are as practiced by USWNR with their numerical rank ordering. But the question of who wins and who loses is the elephant in the room that I am trying to avoid for my view is that there should be more winners and fewer losers in the rankings game. My answer is that the pie has gotten bigger. </p>
<p>I have posted elsewhere that I consider Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT and Duke (yes, I know I am in a tiny minority with this view) as the premier colleges in America. After that I truly believe that the student quality and the quality of the education for the next 15-20 colleges is virtually interchangeable. There are so many more great students now coming out of high school and yet the number of places for students at the top colleges remains mostly static. The result is a broader distribution of talent across a wider universe of colleges. </p>
<p>But I have noticed enormous resistance to acknowledging the meaning of these changes in student demographics and great denial by those affiliated with the historical status quo that lower-profile colleges (like ND) could now possibly be peers to places like the non-HYP Ivies or U Chicago. I believe that Notre Dame is one of those 15-20 colleges in that group that says it belongs in the USNWR Top 10 or Top 15. But saying that ND is better does not make a school like U Chicago worse-they can both be terrific schools. In the end, aspiring college students are the beneficiaries of this greater choice of highest quality colleges.</p>
<p>Hawkette, if you were USNWR, what would your Top 30 national universities list look like?</p>
<p>Hawkette - a methodological point: I consider retention and graduation rates to be very significant for second-tier and lower schools. I do not consider them to be significant factors in distinguishing between top-50 schools. The caliber of students the "first page" schools get means that failure to return or graduate is likely to be due to factors unrelated to things the college can control. In a sense, that's why I think PA is particularly appropriate for first tier schools - the remaining criteria are simply too closely bunched to provide for meaningful comparisons.</p>
<p>UCB, just take the richest white kid schools with high SAT scores and you have your list.</p>
<p>You have 6 top schools. Then you have 20 schools of comparable quality. If you rank them some school is going to be #8 and some school is going to be #27.
School #27 is never going to be happy and school #8 is going to be all smiles.</p>
<p>If I am school #20, how do I raise my rankings if most of the schools above me are comparable?</p>
<p>I learned nothing about Notre Dame compared to Chicago in post #333.</p>
<p>Hawkette, I'm not going too, am I?</p>
<p>kluge,
I think you make another very astute observation and distinction. I have objected elsewhere about the weighting assigned by USNWR to the Graduation & Retention category. The differences in Freshman Retention among the Top 50 are miniscule and yet they can have significant ranking impacts. For example, in another thread, I once posted that U Chicago's ranking of # 9 (tied with Dartmouth and Columbia) was a joke because the tie was caused by a difference in their respective Freshman Retention Rates (weighted at 4% of the total ranking) of 96%, 97% and 98%. U Chicago's slighly lower level kept them from being ranked alone at # 9. But for the lower ranked colleges, issues of graduation rates and retention have more meaning and the differences are more meaningful. So, the argument for reducing the weight of G&R and its sub-parts is not a total slam dunk. </p>
<p>I don't, however, believe that the failiings of the G&R methodology are related to the PA ratings. PA has its own set of problems which we have all discussed numerous times. I still think an fair and appropriate compromise is to list the PA information separately.</p>
<p>UCBChemEGrad and dstark,
I'll make a deal with you guys (who really are having far too much fun tweaking my nose :) ). I'll post my list of Top 30 national universities (heck, make it the Top 50) IF you agree to do the same. Whaddaya say?</p>
<p>Hawkette, how about we both don't post our top 30 lists because, we don't really know how the schools should rank, and it will just **** some people off for no reason, but our own egos. :)</p>
<p>I'm game! My list will likely follow PA scores.</p>
<p>has any one for the top 10 rankings for 2004? thanks</p>
<p>Hawkette, my top 30:</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Yale </li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Berkeley</li>
<li>Caltech</li>
<li>U Penn</li>
<li>U Chicago</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>U Michigan - Ann Arbor</li>
<li>Johns Hopkins</li>
<li>Northwestern</li>
<li>Rice</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>Washington University in St. Louis</li>
<li>U Virginia</li>
<li>UCLA</li>
<li>Carnegie Mellon</li>
<li>U North Carolina - Chapel Hill</li>
<li>U Wisconsin - Madison</li>
<li>USC</li>
<li>Emory</li>
<li>Vanderbilt</li>
<li>Georgetown</li>
<li>Notre Dame</li>
<li>U Texas - Austin</li>
</ol>
<h1>13 is my lucky number (I was born on the 13th)! LOL!</h1>
<p>UCBChemEGrad,
Thanks for your list. I had actually already done one of these a few days ago when I was thinking and posting about how I believe employers might evaluate a Tufts vs a Harvard. </p>
<p>There are a lot of excellent colleges that can offer a superb undergraduate education and which have significant appeal/value to students, employers, graduate schools, etc. I believe that there are differences among the top colleges in their student quality and their relative appeal, but the degree of that difference is lost in a strict numerical ranking and IMO is not accurately captured in either the absolute or relative PA scoring. Nonetheless, I adopted the PA scoring methodology on the 5.0 scale and began my own list. I will also say that I don’t consider a difference of 0.1 to be meaningful and maybe even a 0.2 difference. I believe that solid arguments can be made for many colleges for higher rankings than they are currently receiving. </p>
<pre><code>(the colleges in each rank are not in any particular order)
</code></pre>
<p>Personal Assessment Score, Undergraduate College
5.0 Harvard
5.0 Yale
5.0 Princeton
5.0 Stanford
5.0 MIT</p>
<p>4.9 Duke
4.9 Caltech</p>
<p>4.8 U Chicago
4.8 Columbia
4.8 Dartmouth
4.8 Rice
4.8 Wash U
4.8 U Penn</p>
<p>4.7 Northwestern
4.7 Emory
4.7 Georgetown
4.7 Vanderbilt
4.7 Brown
4.7 Johns Hopkins
4.7 Cornell</p>
<p>4.6 UC Berkeley
4.6 U Virginia
4.6 Tufts
4.6 Carnegie Mellon
4.6 W&M
4.6 Notre Dame
4.6 Wake Forest
4.6 USC</p>
<p>4.5 Georgia Tech
4.5 U North Carolina
4.5 U Michigan
4.5 UCLA
4.5 U Wisconsin
4.5 Boston Coll
4.5 NYU</p>
<p>^ Hawkette, your list is good. I think for a smaller class, undergraduate-friendly environment, you have it sorted out.</p>
<p>I disagree with USC being placed in a category above UCLA and the rest of your 4.5 schools.</p>
<p>UCB, you could have ranked Berkeley over Harvard. Berkeley smokes Harvard in the computer sciences, many other disciplines and of course, chemical engineering. :)</p>
<p>What kind of homer are you? :)</p>
<p>^ A realistic homer. I agree that Berkeley sciences and engineering smoke Harvard...but, Harvard has a pedigree that's tough to beat for a lot of disciplines.</p>
<p>UCBChemEGrad,
Thanks for your compliments. Your great familiarity with USC and the other California schools probably prevents you from believing what the numbers are saying about USC and how it now compares to many schools that have forever been seen as stronger and more prestigious. Normal and maybe more right than my listing. As for the nuance of the groups, I left myself an out with the 0.1-0.2 margin of error. </p>
<p>You're right about the preference for undergraduate-friendly colleges. However, should undergraduate AND graduate school reputations come into play (which is how I perceive most reputation-based rankings performed by academics), then clearly UC Berkeley and the other publics would jump several groups.</p>
<p>Hawkette, </p>
<p>I know you like Tufts. I had a floormate in my dorm at Berkeley that transferred from Tufts. She said it was a good school but wanted the Berkeley pedigree.</p>
<p>I know you also like Duke...A Duke player transferred this season to play for the Cal Bears...seems like he made a wise decision. ;)</p>