<p>BB, I do not think we address the same issue. I am not surprised by the high percentage of highly selective school that report a low percentage of schools that rank. For instance, in Texas it is a well known fact that the VERY best high schools do not report ranks, and thus preclude their students to participate in the top 10% automatic admission program at the flagship schools in Austin and College Station. In turn, the very best of the same top percent do not really care as they are the same who apply to the most selective schools in the country. </p>
<p>My point is that the a program that relies on the top ten percent of its own state does not compare favorably with a program that recruits from the top percent on a nationwide basis. For instance, nobody would confuse the student body at the University of Texas (a program that could come to close to fill up with only top ten percenters) and the student body at the Ivy League. The reason is simple. While there are exceptional students attending UT there are also plenty of students who were automatically accepted from one the countless Bubba schools in Texas or from the absolutely awful schools along the border with Mexico. As such, that top ten percent statistics means close to nothing when reported by UT-Austing or Texas A&M. You could have students with a perfect SAT (I know some who attend UT) but also plenty who could not crack a 500 on any of the SAT sections. </p>
<p>If you report more 98% of your entering class as being among the top 10%, your 25% SAT and ACT percentiles tell you all you need to know about the selectivity of that 10%.</p>
<p>Really? I’d say that the USNews DOES make a considerable and DELIBERATE effort to pick it up. It even assigns 25% of its scores to that special category that allows to recognize “intangibles” and other nebulous elements. </p>
<p>If those intangible have a clear benefit for undergraduates remains in the eye of the beholder.</p>
<p>Hawkette, I must not be trying hard enough then…lol… ;)</p>
<p>Here is a statement that we surely must disagree on…</p>
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<p>First, you’re ranking Umich. I thought you wanted to not rank public vs. private.</p>
<p>Second, if they must be ranked, it seems very wrong to rank Michigan out of the top 30. If they must be ranked, I’d put Michigan undergrad very close to its PA rating which is between 10 and 20. Your rank of Michigan is based on the criteria which I disagree with. Perhaps based on your criteria, Michigan undergrad would be out of the top 30, but I would never ever recommend your criteria to any high school student debating which college to attend…this is coming from a LAC alum. The main place where a find major fault in your criteria is the opportunities available to the students upon graduation. From everything I’ve seen Michigan Engineering and Business/Econ/etc opportunities are superb. They get jobs, and they get solid research opportunities. I’m sure Michigan LSA is similar, but it is somewhat off my radar. I’m sure Berkeley is similar. In terms of getting jobs, there are going to by very few national universities and even fewer LACS that can compete…I’ve said the same thing on Carleton’s forum(My undergrad), and it ticks people off, but it is my honest belief.</p>
<p>“Peer assessment (weighting: 25 percent). The U.S. News ranking formula gives greatest weight to the opinions of those in a position to judge a school’s undergraduate academic excellence.”</p>
<p>Research money brought is something else and not PA as far as I’m concerned</p>
<p>Jack, in answer to your “not picking up” I wrote that the PA does account for what Morse calls intangibles. If you want to spend some time reading about the methodology of the PA, you’ll have no problems finding it on their website, and reading about the intangibles. </p>
<p>Now, that is the definition of the USNews according to their self-interested and romantic view of that amazing instrument they created. The Peer Survey is an instrument that is either ignored, filled incompletely, filled by different persons that the ones who sign it, or filled by manipulators. </p>
<p>Here’s the reality that is inescapable: </p>
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<p>Yep, that is the world of the PA. A shameful world totally void of ethics and integrity.</p>
<p>bluebayou, according to UC policy, this will potentially cause a rescision of the admittance to the UC school.</p>
<p>In fact for UC Berkeley and UCLA it is something like at least a 3.0 UWGPA for each semester Senior year and no grade lower than a “C” in order not to get rescinded. For the other UC schools it is 3.0 WGPA for the overall Senior year.</p>
<p>Jack,
Re the ranking matter you raise in # 123, I’m merely following convention when I refer to rank and so I’m applying my criteria and responding to that. Left up to me, I would recommend that privates and publics be ranked separately and that their rank be presented in tiers.</p>
<p>On the issue of U Michigan, I really struggle with you people. You act like you’re the only school that’s any good or does a good job at placing grads. :rolleyes: Memo to jack-lots of colleges do a good job with this in the USA’s $14 trillion economy, including plenty that are ranked well below U Michigan.</p>
<p>Posting that I would place the school outside the USA’s top 30 for UNDERGRAD is not an insult to U Michigan. It is a statement that, IMO and based on the criteria that are most relevant to undergrads, there are lots of excellent places around the USA. U Michigan isn’t bad for undergrad, but many others are just simply…better</p>
<p>“Yep, that is the world of the PA. A shameful world totally void of ethics and integrity.” </p>
<p>Yep. Sort of like those “objective” numbers that were exagerrated by the USC for the amount of NAE members in it’s school of engineering. No less shameful I might add.</p>
<p>May I refer you to page 6 of the CDS that you posted: Cal clearly checks off the box that ‘Class Rank’ is ‘Not Considered.’ You’ll find the exact same with the other UC’s…</p>
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<p>Why would you think that a 3.8 mean gpa is “BS”? Where is your data source/logic?</p>
<p>fwiw: Earning an A or B in a College Prep course in the average California HS just ain’t very hard. Indeed, a B is pretty easy to attain for anyone doing a modicum of homework. If Cal was reporting weighted grades, uncapped bonus points, it would report a ~4.2+. </p>
<p>If you check the attached link, you’ll see that Cal’s actual mean gpa of matriculants is 3.83 UNweighted. It is 4.11, weighted, but capped at 8 bonus points.</p>
<p>This is old data, and probably has been debated on CC, but it shows that Berkeley easily loses top students to Ivies probably based on “perceptions” of prestige:</p>
<p>Bluebayou - I thought you meant any college at all, my mistake. You were just referring to UC’s. I see that now. For GPA, I meant the range of people they say scored 3.75 or higher. That is clearly weighted, since it would be miraculous to have “only” a 3.83 average GPA with that many students being at 3.75+. Actually thanks to your link (which is a really cool tool, I must say), I just found that for Fall 2008 entering freshmen, which is the latest they have for this stat, 59.2% have unweighted GPA of 3.8-4.0. That supports that the 94% they report as 3.75+ is weighted GPA.</p>
<p>Finally, I doubt Tulane “REFUSES” to publish its CDS in the way you are implying by the caps, it simply chooses not to bother with unrequired paperwork I imagine. They publish all the stats regarding average GPA (unweighted I might add), % in top 10% of class, SAT scores, etc. Seems like enough to me, I am not sure what else I would learn if they put it on that form. But clearly they are not “hiding” anything. Anyway, we were talking about Cal so bringing up Tulane seems rather useless to the discussion.</p>
<p>Ok, no one should chew me, but I think average scores in LSAT, MCAT, GMAT, and to a lesser extent GRE could be used to determine how well an undergrad student was taught. Though this will all boil down to the academic ability of the student</p>
<p>It is pretty simple. It is either posted somewhere or it is NOT. If it is not, the school is REFUSING to post it. </p>
<p>Publishing the CDS form is an extremely simple matter. All that is needed is a very small part of a website. Most schools have no problems to post them and keep a clear history. </p>
<p>Actually, it seems more difficult to present data in a different format. While there are NO excuses for not posting a copy of the original of the CDS, it’s quite easy to speculate about the reasons a number fo schools are reluctant to do so, and those reasons cannot be positive nor be for the benefit of the students! </p>
<p>Transparency is a VERY clear concept – no pun intended! Why that remains unclear to this group is puzzling. </p>
<p>You can make whatever inferences you want xiggi, but there is a difference between choosing and refusing, especially when the word “refusing” was put into caps which gives a certain connotation to it. Words mean something. Besides, if they haven’t done one, they cannot be refusing to post it. Is it actually required by someone that they fill it out? Who oversees them, anyway? Oh, it seems that it is a voluntary initiative. Yes, let’s castigate all the schools that choose not to participate in a voluntary exercise.</p>
<p>In any case, good to see Tulane is in decent company in their decision. Feel free to put whatever dark, conspiratorial implications on schools deciding not to fill out the CDS that you want. Obviously you know something the presidents of these universities don’t</p>
<p>Maybe, just maybe, they see that the point of the initiative was to standardize the data reporting so that schools are always being compared apples to apples, and yet as is shown by the incorrect reporting of the GPA data (supposed to be unweighted but many like Miami report weighted average GPA, and Cal reported weighted for % above 3.75, etc. as demonstrated above). Maybe they have other reasons that have nothing to do with “hiding” anything. But I guess you know something for a fact most of us don’t. By all means, please share.</p>
<p>Wow. I had no idea UCLA and Berkeley were that low. It’s hard for me to respect something as a “great national university” when it’s so drastically skewed to its own state. And yes, I get that it’s their mandate, and supported by CA taxpayers, but that’s just truly to the extreme. No wonder Berkeley isn’t as well known elsewhere as its supporters seem to think. If you spend all your time in California, of course you’ll think everyone around the country is bowing down to it.</p>
<p>This has been debated on CC nonstop, and high school seniors are not the appropriate audience to determine what’s “good” or “prestigious.” If they all chose the University of Hawaii over any of these schools because of the beaches and the hot guys and gals, that wouldn’t make U Hawaii academically stronger or more prestigious. Just chosen more often.</p>
<p>Fallen, with all due respect, I do not think that you understand this issue very well. </p>
<p>If you believe that Tulane and other schools that do not accept to make it public (how is that for rephrasing the offensive word refusing) do actually NOT complete the Common Data Set, so be it! I would, however, encourage you to read about the initiative, and perhaps ask yourself what is the common element in the three informational links I post below: </p>
<p>Xiggi - I have no idea what your point is. Don’t be coy, I have no idea what “common element” you are talking about. It seems there is plenty of data out there. I have no idea why they don’t want to fill out yet another form, maybe there is a fee or something. My point is I don’t know and, with all due respect, neither do you. I suspect you know nothing about the issue other than your speculation when it comes to why these schools don’t fill out the form. In any case, as I said the CDS apparently does not get to its goal of standardized data. But you have zero, no let me rephrase that, ZERO evidence that there is something that these schools are trying to hide, only innuendo. Unless you have evidence, but for some reason don’t want to share it. It may seem obvious to you, but I suggest you are not on the inside and there may be many reasons that have not occured to you. Here is a suggestion, call and ask them.</p>
<p>Please, don’t dance around the issue, what is it you think they want to hide? Because as far as I can tell from what the CDS reports, Tulane benefits from straight, accurate data where things like PA play no role as compared to some of the schools ahead of it in the USNWR rankings.</p>