2008 vs 1999: What’s changed in the USNWR data? Who’s hot and who’s not?

College Search & Selection
381

<p>UCB, throwing a word like "silly" in this discussion is my way of keeping a modicum of humor in this discussion.</p>

<p>The reality is that we all know that the PA will not change much from year to year, and that its objective has been well documented by Morse of USNews. I also think we all know that it is hardly what people pretend it to be. There are sufficient accounts of its shortcomings --mostly at the level of the interpretation on how to fill the survey and integrity/knowledge of the surveyees. In turn, we are trying to reengineer or deconstruct a measurement that is utterly resistant to logic and hard data when individual schools are placed under the microscope. </p>

<p>IMHO, there are no good ways to explain the differences in PA between Cal, and UCLA, just as a VALID explanation for the PA of Smith versus Harvey Mudd is impossible. </p>

<p>In the end, nobody denies that all the schools discussed here are amazing institutions. All our debates merely reflect the fact that there are NO mechanism that can --or should-- measure the quality of education. Any of us can focus on minute items and defeat the arguments of others. </p>

<p>Fwiw, I'll repeat that I believe that the PA should be an important metric. Actually, I believe it should be expanded and broken down in sub-categories, and I believe that one metric should underscore the importance of a world-known faculty at the graduate level. I do think, however, that USNews does muddy the waters by mixing the PA with the remaining data. For this reason, I would love to see two sets of rankings on separate pages. </p>

<p>This way, all of us would be happy as we focus on what is important in our individual eyes.</p>

382

<p>CollegeHelp, thank you for the reply, and thank you for continuing to post additional elements to the statistics.</p>

<p>I understand that the differences are not that large between the PA and your index.
As you wrote, we have:</p>

<p>9 Cal—Berk 4.5 4.8 : faculty quality somewhat exceeds student quality
11 Cal—Los 4.4 4.2 : this is pretty close-don't see a substantial difference here</p>

<p>What is striking is that the the differences are exacerbated because they go in opposite directions, namely from a 4.4/4.5 to a 4.8 for Berkeley and a 4.2 for UCLA. A 0.1 difference in your index becomes a 0.6 in the PA. </p>

<p>That is what puzzles me.</p>

383

<p>Xiggi, normally I am lighthearted and not try to take things too seriously. I like defending my school. Your suggestion of an expanded PA is intriguing, and I think it would go a long way to give more clarity to the one number.</p>

<p>Hawkette, I say it's different strokes for different folks. Some people on here are prestige whores that want only the top programs. Some want a more personal, intimate learning environment.</p>

<p>The PA serves as a factor for those that like a renowned institution. Berkeley has a high PA score, because it is most respected for top engineering, business, science and social science departments. Not many other schools have the academic quality/prestige breadth in as wide range of disciplines as Cal does. </p>

<p>If you want to see where the PA score is sourced, look at the list I posted of number of "distinguished" programs from the NRC. This is what the PA score is measuring, not common data set statistics.</p>

384

<p>collegehelp--some news articles at the time it was released did the computations--NY Times had a huge article. </p>

<p>The raw excel tables can be found here and manipulated</p>

<p><a href="http://books.nap.edu/html/researchdoc/appendix_h.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://books.nap.edu/html/researchdoc/appendix_h.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

385

<p>Maybe relatively fewer high SAT kids from southern Cal go to UCB because they don't like the weather or the campus or any other bunch or reasons you can think of. Last time I checked there is far more population in SoCal than in the north. I think attributing much of a significant difference between a 4.8 and 4.2 PA score is cutting things mighty fine for undergrads.</p>

386

<p>
[quote]
What is striking is that the the differences are exacerbated because they go in opposite directions, namely from a 4.4/4.5 to a 4.8 for Berkeley and a 4.2 for UCLA. A 0.1 difference in your index becomes a 0.6 in the PA. </p>

<p>That is what puzzles me.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Because in relation to collegehelp's regression line, Berkeley's data point falls above the line (over ranked) and UCLA's data point falls below the line (under ranked).</p>

387

<p>UCB, I just cannot conceive how something like UChicago or Berkely (god that school is a monster in size) could rank above Duke, Columbia, Cornell, Brown and Dartmouth. Alumni donation rate should alone prove my point: it's 39% for Brown, 60% for Duke, 34% for Columbie, 52% for Dartmouth, and guess what, a meager 9% for Berkeley. And UMichigan at #13, way above Georgetown? You cannot possibly be serious.</p>

388

<p>
[quote]
12 Notre Da 4.4 3.9
perhaps underrated in public perception due to historical sports dominance

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I don't think it's historical sports dominance (and for ND, it's only been for FB), since afterall, Harvard, Yale and Army were FB powers back in the day and no school has dominated a major revenue sport like UCLA did back in the Wooden days.</p>

<p>It's probably more the fact that ND isn't much known as a research university.</p>

389

<p>Berkeley has just as many weak students as UCLA, but it has more truly top students, the 1600, 4.0 types, especially in science and engineering (for example, 10 undergrad Nobel Prize winners to 4). It also has a more distinguished faculty and much better grad students who contribute to the quality of teaching and research.</p>

390

<p>Until recently state schools hardly bothered with alumni donations. Their money came from the state. It is the life's blood of private schools and they start working people for donations before they even graduate.</p>

391

<p>
[quote]
Until recently state schools hardly bothered with alumni donations. Their money came from the state.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I think the first part of the quoted statement is true. But I think both your state university alma mater and mine began soliciting big donations (not necessarily from alumni) with a professional Office of Development in the 1970s. Or at least I know mine did, and I know yours has an unusually large endowment for a state university.</p>

392

<p>cherokeejew,
You are accurate with your statement about the higher absolute numbers of 1500 scorers at UC Berkeley vs UCLA, but it's not like they are scarce at UCLA either. According to some work done by another poster (collegehelp?), the top schools for 1500 scorers were as follows:</p>

<pre><code> # of 1500 scorers , % of student body , College
</code></pre>

<p>1 3668 , 16% , UC Berkeley
2 3333 , 50% , Harvard
3 3110 , 32% , U Penn
4 2805 , 21% , Cornell
5 2791 , 11% , UCLA
6 2516 , 7% , U Texas Austin
7 2513 , 46% , Yale
8 2435 , 37% , Stanford
9 2282 , 35% , Duke
10 2198 , 30% , Columbia
11 2013 , 7% , U Illinois UC
12 2007 , 49% , MIT
13 1998 , 32% , Brown
14 1998 , 25% , Northwestern
15 1977 , 12% , USC
16 1953 , 40% , Princeton
17 1891 , 9% , NYU
18 1882 , 25% , Wash U
19 1723 , 12% , U Virginia
20 1645 , 6% , U Michigan
21 1639 , 5% , U Florida
22 1505 , 18% , U Notre Dame
23 1501 , 32% , U Chicago
24 1486 , 36% , Dartmouth
25 1478 , 22% , Georgetown
26 1470 , 12% , Georgia Tech
27 1349 , 7% , UC San Diego
28 1278 , 23% , Johns Hopkins
29 1148 , 18% , Emory
30 1115 , 22% , Tufts
31 1030 , 32% , Rice
32 1026 , 16% , Vanderbilt
33 981 , 17% , Carnegie Mellon
34 893 , 10% , Boston College
35 892 , 5% , UNC Chapel Hill
36 844 , 3% , U Washington
37 721 , 3% , UC Davis
38 711 , 13% , W&M
39 708 , 4% , UC Santa Barbara
40 687 , 2% , Penn State
41 567 , 62% , Caltech
42 561 , 2% , U Wisconsin
43 543 , 11% , RPI
44 535 , 7% , Tulane
45 514 , 13% , Case Western
46 470 , 2% , UC Irvine
47 414 , 9% , U Rochester
48 399 , 12% , Brandeis
49 291 , 6% , Lehigh
50 278 , 7% , Wake Forest </p>

<p>Ranked by % of student body</p>

<p>1 62% Caltech
2 50% Harvard
3 49% MIT
4 46% Yale
5 40% Princeton
6 37% Stanford
7 36% Dartmouth
8 35% Duke
9 32% U Chicago
9 32% U Penn
9 32% Rice
9 32% Brown
13 30% Columbia
14 25% Northwestern
14 25% Wash U
16 23% Johns Hopkins
17 22% Tufts
17 22% Georgetown
19 21% Cornell
20 18% Emory
20 18% Notre Dame
22 17% Carnegie Mellon
23 16% Vanderbilt
23 16% UC Berkeley
25 13% W & M
25 13% Case Western
27 12% Brandeis
27 12% U Virginia
27 12% Georgia Tech
27 12% USC
31 11% UCLA
31 11% RPI
33 10% BC
34 9% U Rochester
34 9% NYU
36 7% U Texas
36 7% Wake Forest
36 7% U Illinois
36 7% UC San Diego
36 7% Tulane
41 6% Lehigh
41 6% U Michigan
43 5% U North Carolina
43 5% U Florida
45 4% UC Santa Barbara
46 3% U Washington
46 3% UC Davis
48 2% Penn State
48 2% U Wisconsin
48 2% UC Irvine</p>

393

<p>You could argue that your list by % of student body should be the rankings. </p>

<p>Do you have this list for LACs too?</p>

394

<p>I don't have the numbers for the LACs and I should also note that these are the projections that were done for the class entering Fall, 2005. Perhaps collegehelp (or anyone) can be persuaded to update his numbers and maybe add the LACs as well.</p>

395

<p>
[quote]
UCB, I just cannot conceive how something like UChicago or Berkely (god that school is a monster in size) could rank above Duke, Columbia, Cornell, Brown and Dartmouth. Alumni donation rate should alone prove my point: it's 39% for Brown, 60% for Duke, 34% for Columbie, 52% for Dartmouth, and guess what, a meager 9% for Berkeley. And UMichigan at #13, way above Georgetown? You cannot possibly be serious.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I am serious. I have different criteria. I don't think alumni donation rates are as important. Berkeley has lower donation rates because it is a public institution...as an alum, I donate to my alma mater...hopefully, Berkeley can improve in this area.</p>

<p>I put Berkeley higher than all the schools you have listed for the following reasons:
1. Berkeley has more top programs (engineering/business/sciences/humanities)
2. Berkeley has a more distinguished faculty on average.</p>

<p>As for your comments about why I put Michigan at #13, ahead of other schools...it's for the same reasons. The depth of distinguished programs at Michigan exceed others, IMO.</p>

<p>These are my reasons...feel free to disagree.</p>

396

<p>
[quote]
Until recently state schools hardly bothered with alumni donations. Their money came from the state. It is the life's blood of private schools and they start working people for donations before they even graduate.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>How many times has Alexandre posted about the endowment at Michigan?</p>

<p>Here's a link to the latest NACUBO Endowment study:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.nacubo.org/documents/research/2006NES_Listing.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nacubo.org/documents/research/2006NES_Listing.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>1 Harvard University MA 28,915,706 25,473,721 13.5%
2 Yale University CT 18,030,600 15,224,900 18.4%
3 Stanford University CA 14,084,676 12,205,000 15.4%
4 University of Texas System TX 13,234,848 11,610,997 14.0%
5 Princeton University NJ 13,044,900 11,206,500 16.4%
6 Massachusetts Institute of Technology MA 8,368,066 6,712,436 24.7%
7 Columbia University NY 5,937,814 5,190,564 14.4%
8 University of California CA 5,733,621 5,221,916 9.8%
*9 University of Michigan MI 5,652,262 4,931,338 14.6%
10 The Texas A&M University System and Foundations TX 5,642,978 4,963,879 13.7%
*</p>

<p>Of course, the per capita amount available to "students" is an entirely different story.</p>

397

<p>Take a look at UM's endowment in the early 80's. Well below a $billion. In 1987 the UW Foundation (excluding WARF which is a special case and does not fundraise but invests patent income) had less than $200 Million. Now it's over $2 Billion. The first major fundraiser was held in the late 80's.</p>

398

<p>barrons,
The U Michigan increase is nice and it is important to fill in some of the financial vacuum caused by the decline in state funding. But the stock market is up over tenfold since the early 80s. Going from about a billion then to 6 now is not that groundbreaking. I would say that U Wisconsin has more than matched that record. And I think you are correct about the fundraising history of publics vs privates. The universities seemed to have caught on, but I'm not sure that the public at large understands the importance of their donations (over and above their tax contributions). If publics want to stay competitive with the top privates in the quality and the quantity of the services that they provide, I think we agree that this will be an increasingly important issue in the years ahead.</p>

399

<p>Which is the chase that is more profitable? The endowment or the almighty research dollar? Why focus on single dollars when millions are available?</p>

400

<p>They work both ends very aggressively these days. It takes $Billion endowment to provide $50 Million spendable cash a year. It takes about $125 Million in outside research $$$ to get that same amount. The fundraisers have nicer offices. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.uwfoundation.wisc.edu/home/aboutus/aboutus.aspx%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.uwfoundation.wisc.edu/home/aboutus/aboutus.aspx&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>