<p>Hawkette, I don’t think students are qualified to rate instruction since they have no basis for comparison. This rating is irrelavant in my opinion…completely meaningless.</p>
<p>*mom2,
I’m sorry, but my data collection ends at # 75 as there is a limit to how much time and energy I have. *</p>
<p>UC Riverside is ranked #96 by USNWR…so what’s it doing on your list?</p>
<p>Rank
96 University of California–Riverside </p>
<p>[National</a> Universities Rankings - Best Colleges - Education - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/national-universities-rankings/page+4]National”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/national-universities-rankings/page+4)</p>
<p>
If the students don’t have a basis for comparison, who does? I didn’t bump into a Penn State administrator in any of my Greek courses, unless my memory is quite a bit worse than I think it is, so I don’t think PA is the answer. </p>
<p>That said, I do agree that such surveys are generally useless. The Princeton Review rankings are garbage of the same ilk.</p>
<p>al,
Re your statement,</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>while students may not be able to directly compare the instruction in an individual class at ABC College with the instruction offered for the same class at XYZ University, I most definitely believe that the students at a Top 75 College have the intelligence and capacity to judge whether material is being effectively presented, whether the professor has knowledge and can communicate it, whether the professor is accessible and genuinely interested in their development, etc. </p>
<p>Whether one wants to believe CP’s grades or not probably all comes down to what is considered important in the college search. Is the classroom environment important to you, including what you’ll get directly from the professor or is the overall prestige of the school important to you, even if that high or low mark for prestige has little to nothing to do with your undergraduate existence? </p>
<p>The best schools can do both and I think that CP’s grades get this right. Quibble if you like about the lower grades, but what school does not belong in the A category?</p>
<p>GRADE OF A+</p>
<p>Caltech
Dartmouth
MIT
Princeton
Stanford
U Chicago</p>
<p>GRADE OF A</p>
<p>Brown
Carnegie Mellon
Columbia
Duke
Emory
Harvard
Northwestern
Rice
Tufts
U Penn
U Rochester
Vanderbilt
Yale</p>
<p>GRADE OF A-</p>
<p>Brandeis
Cornell
Georgetown
Georgia Tech
Johns Hopkins
Lehigh
McGill
Notre Dame
Tulane
U Virginia
UC Berkeley
UCLA
USC
W&M
Wash U</p>
<p>These 34 schools are all pretty darn good in the area of ACADEMICS and, as CP confirms, their students think so as well. </p>
<p>As for your characterization of their work as “completely meaningless,” have you ever read any of CP’s published material? I would suggest that you not dismiss their work so quickly as they’re getting their information straight from the horse’s (students’) mouth. It’s pretty good and often insightful and there is no bias and no axe to grind or reputation to protect or defend. Neither of us would agree with everything that they print, but when I read about colleges that I know a lot about, I am impressed with how often they get the story and the flavor right. </p>
<p>ucb,</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Of the six colleges that graded at A+, I like Stanford the best. </p>
<p>But you’ll notice that my other faves graded highly as well (Duke, Northwestern, Rice and Vanderbilt at A and Notre Dame at A-). I’ll take an A of any type in academics and if I can put that together with an A in social life and an A in athletic life, then I’ve found nirvana. :)</p>
<p>mom2,
The UC Riverside inclusion was inadvertent—with all of this data collecting and organizing, I do make mistakes—so sorry about that.</p>
<p>Alexandre said: “Emory and Tufts on par with Harvard and Yale?”</p>
<p>Here are the criteria; notice that they don’t include “prestige”, “acceptances into grad schools” and the like; just teaching:</p>
<ul>
<li>professors are knowledgable, accessible and geniunely interested in their students’ welfare. </li>
<li>class size</li>
<li>how well professors communicate</li>
<li>whether or not classes are engaging.</li>
</ul>
<p>Not at all a stretch to believe that the classroom experience at Emory is as good as the classroom experience at Yale.</p>
<p>Said another way, perhaps being taught by professors in small discussion classes gives one a better classroom experience than being taught in larger classes by profs who lecture and graduate student TAs that lead discussion sections.</p>
<p>Kei</p>
<p>I’d’ve expected IU and Fordham to be ranked higher.</p>