They would be number 1 if they didš
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So the conclusion is this survey lacks total credibility? Why discuss any furtherā¦ LOL
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@eyemgh Yeah, as I read your reply, I realized that you are probably right. Thereās not much point in telling people where everyone chooses to attend because, as you pointed out, everything is tainted by the āspeciousā rankings.
Well, all we can do is try to put better rankings out there. What we are doing is, I think, a step in the right direction.
In terms of the engineering rank of Claremont McKenna, it is a common problem we face because a lot of great engineers come out of schools like Claremont McKenna, which donāt offer engineering. My own university didnāt offer engineering until a few years ago, but many of our graduates (especially from my department) attended great Ph.D. programs in engineering.
I will see if my colleagues at AcademicInfluence(dot-com) can do something to flag Claremont McKenna, U. Chicago, and the similar issues that you and other people in this thread mentioned.
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Thank you, @Catcherinthetoast, for posting this link. Iām so new to CollegeConfidential that I donāt know how to bypass the error I get when I try to post a link. Thanks for stepping in!
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Your algorithm should credit the school the engineering degree came from, not institutions that came before. CM and Chicago do not offer engineeringā¦period. They should not be ranked for engineering.
Harvard, #2, really?!? Ahead of MIT?!? Thatās not a cause for concern? Harvard is at best a second tier ecengineering institution and probably third. There are MANY state schools not widely considered as prestigious that Iād recommend way ahead of Harvard. Iowa State and Utah are but two.
@observer33, not to be too underwhelming, but isnāt the fact that the same top 10 schools come up somewhat interesting? Considering that we used a TOTALLY different method of ranking, compared to USNWR, Niche, etc., isnāt it a tiny bit surprising that the same top schools are still the top schools? Maybe the take-home message is that thereās really no way around it if you want to get into one of the most prestigious, influential, known-for-research, (fill in the blank) schools.
Thankfully, the tool still works well if you have concluded that you donāt have a hook to get into a top 10 school. Itās a lot harder to rank schools 50-100 than 1-50, particularly if you are trying to rank their strengths in certain areas. But I think our tool does pretty well with that task. What do you think from what you see?
@eyemgh, once again, I tend to agree with you, especially when you put it like that. I will definitely discuss this with my colleagues. At this point, thereās perhaps not much we can do about it, other than issue warnings such as āKeep in mind that, due to our methodology, you are seeing the rankings of undergraduate institutes that have graduated people who go on to do well in these fieldsā.
By the way, I am a big fan of engineering at state schools. It probably doesnāt hurt that my dad, Chris Macosko, spent his entire career at the U. of MN in the chemical engineering and material science department.
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@Sweetgum, one thing that we really have to make clearer on our website is that we made the algorithm to down weight top athletes. It is pretty annoying when you see a list of top UNC people that doesnāt include Dean Smith and Michael Jordan. Iām really sorry about that! Our idea was to try to put the āacademicā into AcademicInfluence(dot-com). But sometimes doing that makes for annoying lists.
@Eeyore123, if you paste /custom-college-rankings?state=OH#search-results after AcademicInfluence(dot-com) you will get tOSU #1 since, as you wanted, it ranks by total influence and not scaled by student body size.
[maybe someone can explain to me how to post the actual link, which would obviously be a bit more convenient]
It doesnāt make any kind of sense. I could name any number of notable figures who graduated from Duke and UNC who are NOT athletes. I canāt figure out how you even came up with the super obscure Tommy Kearns from the 1950s. Why did you even list an athlete at all if itās supposed to be about academics, and why someone from the 1950s? Wouldnāt students and parents want to know about alums from this century or at least the past 50 years?
When you have bad info like that on your site it makes me think the whole thing is bad. Time to go back to the drawing board and start over.
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@Sweetgum, my apologies! I thought that, of the influential basketball players, you were seeing a few key people missing. Now I see that you were noticing a huge bug in the code that chooses which influential people to display. I think that the bug is being fixed right now. In the meantime, if you want you can email me at macoskjc@wfu.edu and I will alert you when the new version goes live. Thank you so much for pointing out this bug to us!
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But, thatās not too far removed from knowing the baccalaureate origins of PhD recipients. That was all the rage before the bottom fell out of the university teaching field.
Again, we canāt seem to get away from conventional wisdom and the way it influences how we feel about rankings. If, everyone could put together their own college ranking and defend it over the space of 100 CC replies, we might be on to something. But, donāt count on me to pay it much attention - I can barely make it all the way through this thread.
Youād get 100 different rankings, because the methodology would matter to each individual making them. Thatās why ALL generic ranking systems of undergraduate programs are bogus. In reality, theyāre bogus for graduate programs too, because whatās important at that level is the individual one works for as a candidate, not the institution theyāre at. Itās all garbage and itās ruined the college search process.
I searched the name of the infamous dad in this story on the Academic Influence site and his name wasnāt recognized.
Thank you for weighing in! Iām wondering if you could comment on how negative media mentions are weighed, e.g. CatcherintheToastās example of the cult scandal at Sarah Lawrence. Would that boost or lower the schoolās ranking?
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