<p>Based on the data provided by these schools, we rank the schools on a combination of factors including student retention, faculty salary, and student / faculty ratio.</p>
<p>How are StateUniversity.com's rankings different? The primary difference between StateUniversity.com college rankings and other popular ranking systems is the absence of peer evaluation and peer surveys. Some other popular ranking systems rely heavily on peer evaluations - colleges' evaluations of other colleges - in determining the "best" schools. In recent years, peer evaluations have come under fire by college ranking critics, who assert that the peer surveys introduce bias and inaccuracy into the process. And increasingly, fewer schools are participating in peer surveys, which could make for an uneven ranking across the board.</p>
<p>And, here are the rankings to top 50:</p>
<p>Rank School Name Overall School Score
1 Stanford University 100.0
2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 99.6
3 Princeton University 99.4
4 Cornell University 99.2
5 California Institute of Technology 99.2
6 United States Military Academy 99.2
7 Amherst College 99.1
8 Rice University 99.0
9 Williams College 98.9
10 Brown University 98.9
11 Johns Hopkins University 98.9
12 Duke University 98.8
13 Vassar College 98.8
14 Carleton College 98.6
15 Swarthmore College 98.6
16 University of Notre Dame 98.6
17 Wesleyan University 98.6
18 Middlebury College 98.6
19 Haverford College 98.4
20 Dartmouth College 98.4
21 Washington and Lee University 98.3
22 Northwestern University 98.3
23 Yale University 98.2
24 Harvard University 98.2
25 Wellesley College 98.2
26 United States Naval Academy 98.0
27 University of Chicago 98.0
28 Carnegie Mellon University 97.9
29 Davidson College 97.9
30 Bowdoin College 97.9
31 Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering 97.9
32 College of William and Mary 97.9
33 Furman University 97.5
34 Oberlin College 97.4
35 Claremont McKenna College 97.3
36 Grinnell College 97.3
37 Lehigh University 97.3
38 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 97.3
39 Harvey Mudd College 97.3
40 Colorado College 97.3
41 Vanderbilt University 97.1
42 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 97.1
43 Georgetown University 97.1
44 Brandeis University 97.1
45 Santa Clara University 97.0
46 University of Virginia-Main Campus 97.0
47 Barnard College 96.9
48 Washington University in St Louis 96.8
49 Colby College 96.8
50 University of Rochester 96.7
51 Skidmore College 96.7</p>
<p>This ranking has been around for a while. I’ve been citing it fairly regularly for over a year. Many CC people will have a hard time accepting any ranking that places Harvard at 24 or UC Berkeley at over 100. People develop a mental model of about where certain schools ought to be. If a ranking deviates too much from that, then they will look for flaws in the methodology.</p>
<p>So this ranking illustrates why US News needs PA scores to sell its magazines. The PA scores maintain a “halo effect” that ensures the outcomes won’t be too wildly out of line with public expectations.</p>
<p>“And another problems is that schools such as Amherst and Williams are included–schools that are not Universities.”</p>
<p>There are many LACs on the list. How is that a problem? It’s a college ranking system. I’m sure you could easily divide it into LACs and universities if you’d like, and then you’d call it a university ranking system.</p>
<p>“There are many LACs on the list. How is that a problem? It’s a college ranking system. I’m sure you could easily divide it into LACs and universities if you’d like, and then you’d call it a university ranking system.”</p>
<p>Dude, it’s a problem because illegitimate to some people simply because it still wouldn’t be clear where Universities stack up or who would’ve been tied with whom.</p>
<p>Faculty salalry can vary greatly with location, benefits outside salary, and a host of other factors that can attract faculty besides pay including access to research funding and facilities, level of grad student support and quality, and quality of other faculty in the department.</p>
<p>“Dude, it’s a problem because illegitimate to some people simply because it still wouldn’t be clear where Universities stack up or who would’ve been tied with whom.”</p>
<p>Can you elaborate on what you mean. How does removing LACs from the ranking change the university rankings in any way? The universities would still be in the same order, their scores would be the same relative to one another, and there would be no difference from simply removing the LACs and renumbering the list.</p>
<p>Rank School Name Overall School Score
1 Stanford University 100.0
2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 99.6
3 Princeton University 99.4
4 Cornell University 99.2
5 California Institute of Technology 99.2
6 United States Military Academy 99.2
7 Rice University 99.0
8 Brown University 98.9
9 Johns Hopkins University 98.9
10 Duke University 98.8
11 University of Notre Dame 98.6
12 Wesleyan University 98.6
13 Middlebury College 98.6
14 Washington and Lee University 98.3
15 Northwestern University 98.3
16 Yale University 98.2
17 Harvard University 98.2
18 United States Naval Academy 98.0
19 University of Chicago 98.0
20 Carnegie Mellon University 97.9
21 Furman University 97.5
22 Lehigh University 97.3
23 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 97.3
24 Vanderbilt University 97.1
25 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 97.1
26 Georgetown University 97.1
27 Brandeis University 97.1
28 Santa Clara University 97.0
29 University of Virginia-Main Campus 97.0
30 Washington University in St Louis 96.8
31 University of Rochester 96.7</p>
<p>I removed all the colleges (I think) and there’s your list. You can look at the number on the right to determine ties if you like, if that’s what you’re talking about.</p>
<p>You forgot several LACs, including Wesleyan, Middlebury, Washington and Lee, etc. Just because something is called a “university” doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s classified that way. Dartmouth College is classified as a university, and Wesleyan University is classified as a liberal arts college. Go figure!</p>
<p>Without peer-assessment, rankings would not be balanced. Peer assessment should be only a part of the equation, otherwise it would be more of a popularity contest.</p>
<p>“You forgot several LACs, including Wesleyan, Middlebury, Washington and Lee, etc. Just because something is called a “university” doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s classified that way. Dartmouth College is classified as a university, and Wesleyan University is classified as a liberal arts college. Go figure!”</p>
<p>That was my criteria considering my limited knowledge and I figured it wouldn’t be perfect. Oh well, I was merely trying to understand what House of London’s point was.</p>
<p>“Without peer-assessment, rankings would not be balanced.”</p>
<p>This has no meaning unless you explain what ‘balanced’ is and how peer-assessment affects it. Rankings are inherently based upon the criteria used to produce them, so I’m not sure how any sort of ‘balance’ would come into play.</p>
<p>Are peer assessments that big of a deal? Someone found that if you removed peer assessments from rankings, the only thing happened was that the top publics (UNC, Wisconsin, Michigan, etc) were lower.</p>