<p>This is exactly why peer assessment score may not offer any more legitimate ranking than the revealed pref. ranking. Whether who think which is better, of course, depends on the eye of the beholder. All I can say is that peer assessment methodology (at least the one used by USNEWS) is far from flawless.</p>
<p>It's actually not a preference.</p>
<p>If you truly believe that overall students with all their local/state/regional/personal biases are better at ranking colleges than esteemed professors, then that is your choice but allow me to say this:</p>
<p>I don't know your background but let me tell you, there are some serious biases in the nation and a lot of students who are CLUELESS. How many times have you told someone in your school you applied to a school like Washington U. in St Louis and they go "Where's that?" or "Oh I love George Washington University!". More anecdotes include kids thinking U.Penn = Penn state. I don't know the proportions but I'm pretty sure these misunderstandings and degrees of naivette is not as apparent in professors than in students.</p>
<p>I have told people I am doing business and some kids go "That school has a business major?" or "I thought they only offered computer science." </p>
<p>I know you want only the responses of "top" students but the ranking is obviously NOT getting all its information from "top" students. Therefore, the peer assessment is CONSIDERABLY better than these overall and general students picking colleges. You said the top 1% of students should pick colleges. Well this preferred ranking compromises of 99% of the students who you say SHOULDN'T be given an opinion. It doesn't take a statistics major to understand that you shouldn't have a ranking based on results you only want from 1% of the population.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Finally, I do believe the peer assessment is NOT perfect but it is way better than letting all the students decide on what colleges are the best. </p>
<p>Not to mention there is a way higher correlation between peer assessment and top recruiting opportunities than student preferences and top recruiting opportunities. </p>
<p>Just look at this site and see how many biases there are (UCLA people who hate USC and vice versa).</p>
<p>
[quote]
I know you want only the responses of "top" students but the ranking is obviously NOT getting all its information from "top" students. Therefore, the peer assessment is CONSIDERABLY better than these overall and general students picking colleges[\quote]</p>
<p>Frankly speaking, do you think the researchers who published that data are as clueless as the average students you claimed before? Based on the researchers' profiles and the fact that it's posted on Harvard site, I find it hard to simply discard the publication as clueless, baseless, or not reliable at all. When they gathered the data, it seems that they canvassed the preferences of students who may not be as clueless as you claimed or otherwise, as someone has pointed out, Amherst and other LACs may be missing from the list.</p>
<p>Your contention is that, faculty are likely to give better ranking since they are more knowledgeable and less biased than students. Now I am arguing that they are too very biased and less attentive to what we call as standard measure for college ranking.
Faculty tend to rank the school based on:
1. Number of their colleagues
2. Number of their idols
3. Whether it's their almamater
4. Whether the school is strong in their respective fields</p>
<p>and unlikely to measure:
1. Student's quality
2. Curriculum
3. Facility access for students</p>
<p>Basically, peer assessment score unlikely to measure the "students' aspect" of a college. When this typical views are aggregated, you'll may end up with a very biased and deviated result. This bias as a group is perhaps comparable to the bias introduced by slight randomness in the perception of 'good' students.</p>
<ol>
<li>The researchers are not clueless. Unfortunately, many students are.</li>
<li>I disagree with your assessment of faculty but I guess we can agree to disagree on that </li>
<li>I think you were originally right. The majority of students (99%) are not capable of ranking colleges correctly.</li>
</ol>
<p>
[quote]
The researchers are not clueless. Unfortunately, many students are.</p>
<p>I think you were originally right. The majority of students (99%) are not capable of ranking colleges correctly
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I agree with you, it's just that I could hardly believe that the researchers are so blunt to include mostly clueless students as their subjects.</p>
<p>rtkysg, where'd your breakdown come from? I think it might be accurate, at least somewhat, but is it just your hunch, or was statistical analysis done?</p>
<p>How can woman on second page say that graduation rate is one of the two biggest measures of learning? What if a school school won't flunk its students out. Does that mean that they're learning? What about intense schools like MIT or Caltech that flunk many students out, who are likely very smart and studious? I think that there are also many reasons why her's is poor judgement.</p>
<p>I think people everywhere have a problem with understanding what the word "bias" means. What human is capable of partial judgement? What person isn't prejudiced, but the one who knows nothing about the thing in question? Maybe dogmatic would be a better word, or arbitrary, or somethign. To me, biased doesn't make sense here.</p>
<p>I'd go with academics over students, but I don't see why some sort of combination could be reached, preferably with college counselors who keep up with happnenings in education and colleges, who I would imagine being good people's opinions to include in assesment rankings. Guess what, though- they'd be "biased," too! I do think that they would be less arbitrary.</p>
<p>
[quote]
rtkysg, where'd your breakdown come from? I think it might be accurate, at least somewhat, but is it just your hunch, or was statistical analysis done?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It is all my opinion. If you ask me why I would come up with such hunch, it is because I've worked pretty closely with a number of 'top' professors and greatly felt the typical, biased views shared among them. If you work closely for a while with your profs at Berkeley, you might be able to see the trend.</p>
<p>
[quote]
How many times have you told someone in your school you applied to a school like Washington U. in St Louis and they go "Where's that?" or "Oh I love George Washington University!".
[/quote]
While I agree this is true I do not see how it is relevant ... the methodolgy will only explictly consider Washington U by looking at the decisions of students who were accepted at Washington U and other schools ... and I would expect students accepted at Washington U would be accepting or declining Washington U's offer with a fair amount of knowledge of the schools to which they have been accepted. So the kid going to the local CC who has never heard of Washington U is irrelevant to Washington U's ranking. </p>
<p>All ranking systems come with serious flaws, I'd bet profs at other schoold know a lot more about the research opportunities and and maybe even teaching and student access at top schools than most applicants ... but I bet a bunch of the applicants (not all students but the applicants to the school) know more about availability of housing, ability to get into courses and finish a major in 4 years, if the student union/rec facilities are any good, etc.</p>
<p>Each of the ranking provides some useful info even with it's warts. I actually like the releaved preference approach because it doesn't have any subjective waiting factors ... it is just a crunching of objective data; the accept/decline decisions of tons of students ... one can take the results however they want but the data is pretty clear about what it is.</p>
<p>If anything, I think this should be integrated into the existing ranking system--by now means should it replace it.</p>
<p>James
<a href="http://www.collegechat.info%5B/url%5D">http://www.collegechat.info</a></p>