<p>
I don't think this is correct. Kids at the other 5 Ivies do very well--and are heavily recruited--by major employers all over the country in places like Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, LA, San Francisco, etc. (think, e.g., Wharton). To the extent that they may concentrate more in the Northeast (and especially NYC), it's only because more corporate headquarters, investment banking firms, consulting firms, etc. are located there.</p>
<p>hawkette, everything you say above is true, but it still doesn't explain your problem with PA. What exactly do you think the US News rankings are supposed to be measuring? If it is the desirability of graduates from the perspective of an employer, then, as our discussion of regional issues explores, it is simply impossible to have a national ranking. If it is quality of education, then I would venture to say that most components of the ranking have little correlation with what they purport to measure. Essentially, US News simply includes a potpourri of elements that they have decided their readers will think important. These are then arbitrarily weighted, and finally the ranking is adjusted as necessary to ensure that the "right" schools turn out on top. PA reflects prestige (albeit prestige from the perspective of academia), which is just as important to most users of US News as anything else the ranking includes.</p>
<p>gabriellah and svalbardlutefisk,
My objection to the PA number is that it does NOT reflect “the overall quality of the education that I will be paying for.” The fact is that we don’t know what it reflects, we don’t know who is doing the reflecting, we don’t know the level of knowledge being drawn in making those reflections, we don’t know what standards or what values are being applied in making this judgment……I could go on and on, but we have all heard the arguments dozens of times. It’s a Rorschach Patch result that is completely opaque and means different things to different people, including the people filling out the surveys. And even some of the responders have publicly acknowledged an inability to competently judge other schools.</p>
<p>Re comments on recruitment at high-powered employers, we may know different people, but my opinion is that employers like high quality students and can find them at many schools, but mostly they draw from schools in their regions with strong student bodies and also where there is some in-company recruiting relationship, ie, some graduates already work there. The quality of the faculty is not driving this equation. Faculty may be more of a force in the recruiting process at the graduate school level, but not at the undergraduate level. </p>
<p>afan,
Your comments are well-taken, but the irony is that the things you are asking me to provide for the PA comparisons-“the content of academic programs, proportions of students who receive advanced degrees, proportions of students who win national fellowships or awards, LSAT scores, MCAT scores, etc.”-are exactly what is missing in the PA score. There is no defined evidence driving these opinions but rather a very arbitrary process that we have no way of ever understanding. </p>
<p>Oh, and I do care about the opinions of the academics and believe that they have a legitimate role, but I’d also like to know who actually is responding and I’d also like to hear from other stakeholders who also have experienced and know the faculty. </p>
<p>45 percenter,
Wharton (undergrad) graduates less than 700 students a year and a large number of them go to NYC where they have a huge established network. I’m not knocking Wharton undergrads, but I think you underrate the quality of what they are competing with. For those Wharton students looking for work elsewhere, I stand by my earlier comments about their relative attractiveness in other locations. They are desirable. So are the students from the more prominent colleges in that region. A Wharton undergrad going to Chicago is not going to have much advantage (if any) over a student coming out of Notre Dame (which also has a considerable number of undergraduates coming out with business/finance/marketing degrees). Both will get a chance to interview. From there it is up to the individual. And the advantage probably goes to the ND student because of his/her (likely higher) familiarity with the mores of the Midwest and the fact that many ND graduates may already be in place at the company that he/she is interviewing with.</p>
<p>hawkette, I think you underestimate both the national prominence of the 5 "other" Ivies, as well as the national diversity of their undergraduate student bodies. For example, look at the map at the bottom of this page for the geographical distribution of Penn's Class of 2010:</p>
<p>Of the 2400 students in that class, only 1200--or 1/2--were from the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic region (Maine to DC).</p>
<p>Many of these kids came from other parts of the country, and many of them will return there. Additionally, lots of employers (albeit larger corporations, consulting firms, etc.) from these other parts of the country interview/recruit on-campus at Penn (and I'm sure at several of the other Ivies).</p>
<p>Regarding the alumni networks, Penn, for one, has an extensive and well-organized alumni network all over the country, and the world:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.alumni.upenn.edu/club/index.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.alumni.upenn.edu/club/index.html</a></p>
<p>Just to take a few specific examples:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The Penn Club of Los Angeles (serving 8,000 alumni): <a href="http://www.pennclubla.com/%5B/url%5D">http://www.pennclubla.com/</a></p></li>
<li><p>The Penn Club of Northern California (serving 9,000 alumni): <a href="http://www.ncpennclub.com/%5B/url%5D">http://www.ncpennclub.com/</a></p></li>
<li><p>The Penn Club of Chicago: <a href="http://www.pennclubchicago.com/%5B/url%5D">http://www.pennclubchicago.com/</a></p></li>
<li><p>The Penn Club of Atlanta: <a href="http://www.alumni.upenn.edu/club/atlanta.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.alumni.upenn.edu/club/atlanta.html</a></p></li>
</ol>
<p>Additionally, there are separate Wharton clubs in many locations across the U.S. and around the world:</p>
<p>My point is that, while maybe not quite as prestigious as HYP, Penn and the other Ivies enjoy substantial spheres of influence far beyond the Northeast, and are respected by major employers in those other regions almost as much as HYP.</p>
<p>But you are absolutely correct about one thing: having gone to one of these schools may get some doors opened, but whether one gets to walk through any of those doors and--more importantly--gets to stay, depends entirely on the performance of the individual.</p>
<p>45percenter,
Thanks for all of those links. I have a pretty good familiarity with U Penn and think that the university has done a marvelous job of leveraging the Wharton brand name. Thirty years ago, U Penn was not nearly so prestigious as today and many saw it as the worst school in the Ivies...by a lot. Today, it is incredibly difficult to gain admission and the students who attend are excellent. </p>
<p>I have a high regard for the so-called lower Ivies and don't underrate them and their students at all. However, with the demographic changes of population shifts over the last few decades and, more recently, the great increase in high quality high school students, these students can't all go to the Ivy League colleges As a result, matriculation of great students has broadened and this has benefitted many schools around the country. These schools frequently aren't on the radar screen for top students in the Northeast, but after a little due diligence, one comes to understand their quality and their attraction. The locals have known about this all along and the graduates of these schools are often business leaders in these communities and the new graduates are held in high regard, even in comparison with students from the more nationally prestigious universities.</p>
<p>If possible, could we go back to the original topic of this thread? My hope was a discussion that would answer the question of faculty differences among top colleges. Is the quality of the faculty and the quality of the classroom education that they provide really that different for highly ranked schools, eg, Top 30?</p>
<p>45 percenter,</p>
<p>A class size of 19 vs. 20 is not a big difference education-wise, but is a huge difference in how US News measures faculty resources. Any university with an eye on the rankings would be smart to alert their registrar to this issue. </p>
<p>Penn has the largest budget in the ivys because it includes the University Hospital in the budget which represents half the budget. No other ivy does this. Philadelphia's low cost of living compared to Boston and New York gives it a huge boost in adjusted faculty salary.</p>
<p>The main issue goes back to Hawkette's question about how we can accurately assess education quality. A measurement that uses arbitrary cutoffs (ie. classes with < 20 students) is probably not as good as one that uses average class size. Knowing the percentage of classes that are taught by professors as opposed to TA's would also be useful.</p>
<p>One could try to evaluate the quality of education by looking at the difference in academic accomplishments of entering vs graduating students. For example, look at LSAT, MCAT, GRE, GMAT scores controlled for entering SAT scores. For the top colleges, the SAT is truncated, so the control will be relatively weak, but it would be a start. At the top colleges most students go on to advanced degrees, so most students take at least one of these graduate entry tests.</p>
<p>A very crude attempt at this was done on CC when someone (?collegehelp) compared the USNEWs and WSJ rankings. I then looked at the correlation between these rankings and SAT scores. Although these are part of the USNEWS ranking, they are not part of the WSJ. the results showed that WSJ is highly correlated with SAT median. This means that to tease out educational quality for the effects of enrolling talented students one would need to control for SAT. The numbers were small and the outcome measure was so suspect (due to limits on the WSJ methods) that we could not go much farther.</p>
<p>The NSSE tries to assess characteristics that are associated with learning, rather than learning itself, but again a starting point.</p>
<p>One could also look at the proportion of students who go on to advanced degrees, again controlled by entrance academic criteria.</p>
<p>I have not seen any data on any of these measures published for a collected group of schools. </p>
<p>One could look up percent who get PhD's and then paste into the spreadsheet the median SAT scores, for a start. Look for places that turn out a large proportion of Phd's for the entering SAT scores. This of course ignores those who go to professional school, or thrive in intellectual pursuits without advanced degrees. </p>
<p>At that point, one would have some data to work with.</p>
<p>The revealed preferences survey did attempt to identify regional variations in college enrollment choices among students. As I recall, the colleges at the top of the national list tended to remain at the top of the regional lists. A few places did move up strongly when looking only in their regions (ND may have been one of these), but for the most part, the top of the list looked the same. So the students did not see a big regional variation in the appeal of the places at the top of the list, which included most or all of the Ivies.</p>
<p>For how employers view the colleges- as an indicator of employment prospects, NOT an indicator of educational quality- a survey would be interesting. The business schools have been rated for years in part on starting salaries of graduates. </p>
<p>There is some starting salary data for colleges, but not collected as far as I know. It would be tricky, since one would have to account for wide ranges in major distribution (a place that turns out lots of engineers will have higher starting salaries), and grad/professional school entrance. Also have to control for entering the military, Peace Corps, etc.</p>
<p>Hawkette, I share the puzzlement at your focus on this one, of many, peculiarities of the USNEWs report. You complain that they do not tell us who, specifically, answers the survey, but then you do not tell us who you are. They do tell us that the respondents are presidents, provosts and admissions deans, which is more information about them than you give us about you. They tell us that a couple thousand respond. </p>
<p>Has it occurred to you that, in evaluating the relative strengths of colleges, perhaps you are the outlier, rather than a large number of people at colleges across the country?</p>
<p>Elsijfdl, you are aware that there's more to the world than wall street recruiters? And that even in the most tippy top of the companies your wall street guys wet themselves over, you'll find people who got there not because they attended X number of football games or greek parties. They got there because they didn't follow the crowd, they actually colored a bit outside the lines, and frankly were probably not seen as 'well balanced' in school. (Ever wonder why big companies have 'coaches' for their top people?) And hate to break it to you, most bigwigs have to be as keen to attend opera as football. Well balanced has a totally different definition than you think once you reach a certain level.</p>
<p>I'm not disagreeing that Notre Dame is a great school. That would be ridiculous. And yes, they've got great connections. But without the PA the school ranking rises into top 10 while schools like Chicago, JHU and Caltech slide quite a bit. Now if the real world was only wall street recruiting firms, no one would blink. But seeing as the world is about a whole lot more...and yes, as long as those pesky unbalanced nerds at these schools keep doing big science, big politics, big entertainment, big literature, big med and big law, Notre Dame being ten points above Chicago and JHU will seem wrong to most. Check out the alumni list from both schools, I dare you to assert that 'unbalanced' Chicago students haven't had a bigger impact across many more areas. (As well as being recruited by wall street firms) </p>
<p>Hawkette, I certainly do not see the PA as stating school A is 8/10's better than school B. It's not about numbers but opinions. Try seeing it as asking a chef where's a good place to eat. Sometimes people in the biz know things that are helpful. Asking for opinions never hurt....which is simply what the PA is there for...an opinion.</p>
<p>Now back to you question regarding faculty quality and access in the top 30.....I ask again why you think the academic experience would be the same when the various schools have various different mission statements? Do you think a student has the same experience in a school where little discussion takes place out of the classroom as a student at a school where the discussion spills out and continues heartily in a pub? How about a school where the freshmen take huge lectures as opposed to one where the frosh is in a small intimate discussion group where the prof expects input? How about schools where kids are encouraged to be super competitive as opposed to schools where kids help each other out? Do you think that a preprofessional school educates it students in the same manner as a school where the process is about learning to think across the spectrum of liberal arts?</p>
<p>You seem to want people to agree that there's no difference in education at the top schools so that you can further push that certain schools are better over all. I think you need to see that your opinion on 'well balanced' schools is simply your opinion. And that academics generally don't base their opinion on the various schools using your criteria because they don't see the educational experience in the same way......in the end you need to realize that your issue with PA is merely a difference in opinion.</p>
<p>I mean, in the top 30 you have schools of all flavors and sizes, schools where fit really matters. The schools do not deliver the same one size fits all education and it's a damn good thing they don't.(Just try and imagine Elsijfdl at Chicago:) )</p>
<p>Regarding your comment that "...We don't know what PA reflects..." : PA reflects the opinion of those in academia who are charged with making this assessment. I do not need to know the specific questions they are asked, nor how they are responding to assess the value of their opinions. I simply know that the professionals' opinions about the quality of the educations at colleges and universities are more valuable than the naysayers who want to denigrate those opinions. Generally, those naysayers have absolutely no knowledge and no credibility to debunk those professionals. We are all entitled to an opinion, but when attempting to influence something as important as college selection, I would say that the experts have a substantial leg up, in terms of credibility of opinion. Attempting to make students and parents believe that academics know less than a lay person, is, I believe, quite irresponsible.
The purpose of your new "game" is simply to attempt to bolster the opinion that PA is bunk. It looks like an "if-then" game, attemtping to lead people to the conclusion you believe should be drawn.</p>
<p>Haha, people who think Peer Assessment is a good indicator of student strength probably go to schools where empirical data hurts them.</p>
<p>There is no way PA should be used. It is basically a way to keep the schools that were good 15 years ago ranked high today.</p>
<p>Gabriellah,
Your position as a college professor makes your defensiveness understandable, but you bring no greater understanding to what PA measures. There is no “game” being played here (unless you count the game being played by those favoring PA and its perpetuation of a college pecking order that reinforces their interests). </p>
<p>If you’d like to play a game, well, then let’s. </p>
<p>You are a grader of Peer Assessment. You’ve been given the task of evaluating the faculty and the quality of the academic programs at the following five universities-Rice, U Chicago, Georgetown, U Penn, and UCLA. I’m limiting it to five to make it easy. Of course, there are hundreds of colleges that these academics rank. </p>
<p>Please be prepared to explain how the various departments compare at these schools, eg, Engineering, Social Sciences, History, English, Biology, Business, Math, Psychology, Physical Sciences, Foreign Languages, Interdisciplinary Studies, Ethnic Studies and Visual & Performing Arts. Also, please explain the relative importance of each program to each school and to the undergraduate student, how this program is regarded within the college vis-</p>
<p>"There is no way PA should be used. It is basically a way to keep the schools that were good 15 years ago ranked high today"</p>
<p>Thethoughtprocess you can't possibly believe this. In fact, this kind of reasoning only supports those of us who think the anti PA contingent is merely stamping their feet and arguing against the PA because they say so. Please name a high PA school that doesn't deserve their score and pleeease tell us why. And please, please tell us why ever would USNews want to keep schools afloat on their 15 year old reputation?</p>
<p>What I find interesting is that a lot of the people against PA also seem to have a bias against academics and academia. To them, people in the field of academia can't be trusted to have an opinion/they can't be like every other business and know what's up in their field. They can't network. They can't gossip amongst peers. They can't take the measure of students, papers, visiting speakers. A dean at a lower school must be an idiot who cannot have an opinion of value. And of course, students who choose academic schools are social misfits destined to either become profs or losers.</p>
<p>I can't help but wonder if the Princeton prof who complained that some of his students were bright but not the quality(scholars) that should be there wasn't referring to kids who were attending school for the networking and learning be damned. PA perhaps isn't a good indicator of student strength, but I would bet if you asked any prof at any of the top schools they would tell you high stats does not a scholar make. Wall street connections does not an elite school make. It's something about the process and until we get better ways to analyze it, opinions from the field should be respected if taken with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>ramses, i'm not really sure what to make of your post. i don't know exactly what you're arguing for. you didn't necessarily provide a rebuttal to my claim except in some various forms of anecdotal opinion.</p>
<p>you asked whether someone could support the proposition that notre dame is better than university of chicago as it relates to the argument that a well balanced school is better than an academic powerhouse. </p>
<p>i provided solid evidence that, at least in one part of the world (a strongly meritocratic part of it) notre dame grads are seen at least as equals to chicago grads, </p>
<p>but your response didn't directly confront that other than to offer disparaging remarks about "wall street." it's ok if you don't like wall street, that was made clear by your initial post championing pure academics, but that doesn't provide anything constructive in your response.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The PA seems a pretty good way to cut through all the well balanced, great experience, great looking girls, team spirit arguments to the very bottom line of a university. What kind of thinker is the kid after 4 years....how has the school itself performed in the process.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>and please explain how exactly it does that. how does a provost at a college "cut trhough good looking girls, team spirit" and assess, by himself, what kind of "thinker" a student graduating from there is going to be after four years...</p>
<p>also explain where "good looking girls" and "team spirit" factor into usnews rankings?</p>
<p>Hawkette, if anyone is transparent in this thread it's you.</p>
<p>How about you doing exactly what you asked Gabriellah to do with those 5 schools. Stop the pussyfooting around your point(that everyone gets) and make it. The fact that you refuse to actually own what you're trying to say makes it clear that you know that most people aren't going to buy that Vanderbilt, Notre Dame and Wake Forest are not the peers of Yale, Columbia and others.</p>
<p>ramses 2,
Re your highly accurate question,</p>
<p>“How about you doing exactly what you asked Gabriellah to do with those 5 schools?”</p>
<p>I can't and that is the point. It can't be done and yet 25% of a school's ranking is determined by this undeterminable number. </p>
<p>IMO, faculty quality does not differ that greatly among the top 30 undergraduate colleges in America. But it’s not that I’m trying to pull the highly ranked schools down. Most of the schools with high PA scores are terrific schools with high quality students and faculty, eg, gabriellah’s Johns Hopkins (4.7 PA score). But so also are schools like USC (3.9) and W&M (3.8) and Wake Forest (3.5) and Notre Dame (3.9) and Boston College (3.6) and Tufts (3.7) which all get shafted by this current methodology. If you’ve ever been to any of these schools and met the students and/or recruited at any of these schools, you know right away the quality of the product coming out of there (and perhaps even to some extent you can see what influence the faculty might have had in developing an individual). IMO the differences in the faculty and the undergraduate learning experience at these schools is close (or equal to or even better than) to that at Johns Hopkins or any of the other much more highly PA-rated schools. </p>
<p>I'm not trying to say that the top schools don't deserve their high marks. I'm trying to say that many schools outside of the educational establishment deserve similar or better marks.</p>
<p>Elsijfdl, I noted Hawkette's rankings without PA that had ND at number 9 or 10 while chicago was at maybe 20? I asked her/him since they are so against PA to justify the ranking. YOU took it upon yourself to answer by citing a thread discussing wall street recruiting.</p>
<p>I'm sorry if you don't understand how useless that citing is in a discussion on quality of education, but I'll say it again as someone who worked on the Institutional side of PruB in Boston....the world is bigger than the street. All you proved with citing that thread is that the 'nerds' you loathe at Chicago get recruited same as students at schools you value. You in no way answered my very simple question to Hawkette to explain how a ranking that shows ND ten points or more above Chicago(a school whose various departments across the board seems to land in top ten lists everywhere) is justified.</p>
<p>And elsijfdl, opinion, all opinion is anecdotal. But my opinion is based on experience. Until you've spent a whole bunch of time with people who've started companies, or head up research for a major drug company, or scuttled their own companies just because, don't assume that the most successful people are 'well balanced'.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I'm sorry if you don't understand how useless that citing is in a discussion on quality of education
[/quote]
</p>
<p>we weren't discussing quality of education, you challenged someone to justify the idea that notre dame was a "better school than chicago"</p>
<p>I merely showed that consulting firms, who are well-known for pursuing the most capable graduates, seem to think that it is an equal school to chicago.</p>
<p>
[quote]
And elsijfdl, opinion, all opinion is anecdotal
[/quote]
but you're using opinion to dispute data...</p>
<p>you seem very argumentative, defensive, and eager to jump into a dispute, i'm not trying to go head to head with you, i'm merely shedding light on a situation you seem to discount. </p>
<p>your dismissal of schools with more to offer than pure academics are unjustified and unfair, and i was merely providing reasons why.</p>
<p>weren't discussing quality of education"</p>
<p>Points to thread title.</p>
<p>"you challenged someone to justify the idea that notre dame was a "better school than chicago"</p>
<p>Actually, I was discussing Hawkette's PAless rankings where ND is ranked 10 points or more higher than Chicago. I asked for someone to explain how this seemed viable. You used wall street recruitment firms as proof that....err, you do realize that all you 'proved' was that ND is recruited same as Chicago. That certainly did nothing but disprove your much repeated argument that academic schools don't serve their students well. It however did not prove ND was a better school.</p>
<p>I'm still waiting for someone to prove why ND deserves to be ranked so much higher than Chicago.</p>
<p>"but you're using opinion to dispute data..."</p>
<p>And what data would that be? What data did you use to show your point that 'well balanced' schools produce more viable graduates? I simply gave my opinion based on real life evidence that there are more opportunities out there in the real world than wall street recruiters. Hey if you want to argue that I'll just stand here and snicker.</p>
<p>"i'm not trying to go head to head with you, i'm merely shedding light on a situation you seem to discount."</p>
<p>What light is that exactly? What is it that I'm discounting? I never said that 'schools that offer more' were less, in fact this thread seems intent on saying the opposite...academic schools are less, that high PA are suspect, that all educational experiences are the same so lets judge on the well balance parts. Don't kick me for just disagreeing. And if you haven't noticed most posters on this thread aren't buying the argument either.</p>
<p>"your dismissal of schools with more to offer than pure academics are unjustified and unfair"</p>
<p>You know, I just love when people who start an argument all arrogant go all 'stop picking on me' whiny when they realize the other person isn't going to be bullied. Isn't this your cue to start raving about how Chicago cheats and make it a Northwestern vs Chicago debacle?</p>