<p>Hi everyone, I have a few questions about College Search and Selection.
I hope you guys can help me.
1) First, what does the term "Faculty resources rank" on US News ranking mean? Does it consider the number of professors or the quality of the faculty? Does the "faculty" here include TA (Teaching Assistant)? I wonder why a school with faculty rank 40 like Wesleyan can be ranked 10th on US News? What criteria reflect the quality of education in school?
2)The same question about financial resource rank?</p>
<p>The faculty resource rank is one example of why people complain that USNews is a bit of a scam when it comes to offering so-called objective data. All they do is take faculty salaries as revealed on each college's ipeds and then divide it by the number of faculty (they throw in some other things like faculty:student ratio and % who hold Ph.Ds -- but, they're fairly minor considerations.) They don't account for new faculty hires which tend to tip the salary range toward the low end. Or, conversely, that a faulty that is full of dead wood is apt to be at the high end, salary-wise. And, it definitely doesn't measure what goes on inside the classroom.</p>
<p>Same thing for financial resources. They take total expenditures and divide by the number of students. A tiny research university, like Wesleyan, can receive millions of dollars a year from the National Science Foundation and never have it reflected in the poll's calculations; in fact, it would be a negative factor since for every dollar received from outside sources, it's one less dollar "spent" by the university. Also, not everything a college reports as an expenditure is necessarily an <em>academic</em> expense. Williams, to give just one example, spends about three times as much as Wesleyan on salaries and costs associated with the Phys Ed department. Should that be considered a financial resource? Perhaps. But, wouldn't you want to know that before making a decision based on a raw number? Definitely.</p>
<p>kindhearded,
Here is the full list of factors measured by USNWR and their relative weights:</p>
<p>25% Peer Assessment (measures the schools reputation according to other academics)</p>
<p>20% Retention (two factors comprise this ranking)
6-year gradutation rate (80%)
Freshman retention rate (20%)</p>
<p>20% Faculty Resources (six factors comprise this score)
% of classes with fewer than 20 students (30%)
% of classes with more than 50 students (10%)
Faculty Salary (35%)
% of profs with highest degree in their fields (15%)
Student-faculty ratio (5%)
% of faculty that are full-time (5%)</p>
<p>15% Student Selectivity (three factors comprise this score)
SAT/ACT Test Scores of Enrolled Students (50%)
% of enrolled students who graduated HS in top 10% and top 25% (40%)
Total Admittance rate (10%)</p>
<p>10% Financial Resources (measures average spending per student at the school)</p>
<p>5% Graduation Rate Performance (measures diff in 6-yr graduation rate and the predicted rate)</p>
<p>5% Alumni Giving Rate</p>