<p>Who knows... Every ranking system seems to be inherently flawed...</p>
<p>I don't understand some of these grades. Harvard gets an F for campus housing when the residence House system is one of the really great things about Harvard according to many of the students who go there.</p>
<p>And when a school gets a high grade for the "Drug Scene" does that mean that the school is littered with drug addicts? Seems like a lot of drugs about should get you a low grade.</p>
<p>And where are the UCs?</p>
<p>michigan isnt on here
nor are the california schools</p>
<p>very comprehensive</p>
<p>university of chicago is there.. what is everyone talking about?? it got an 'A' also.</p>
<p>and harvard got an 'A' for on campus housing. the 'F' was for off-campus housing</p>
<p>yeah, these are the college pr0wlerr rankings exactly, which are worthless and gererally based on student input meaning modest students=low ranking.</p>
<p>that's hogwash! There is nothing more accurate than the opinion of those who are the actual consumers. I'd much rather put my faith in the collective opinion of thousands of attendees, rather than the opinion of one who never even attended the school.</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>There is nothing more accurate than the opinion of those who are the actual consumers.<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>Perhaps, but it depends a lot on how the opinions were gathered. If they went to the school and selected a scientific sample designed to properly mirror the whole school population and then solicited their participation and collected their answers, then it might be pretty good. But if they just mindlessly took the word of whomever bothered to log on to their site and post, then the data are no doubt riddled with a lot of error.</p>
<p>a lot of drugs does equal a lower grade. Their is a point to be made for student rankings, but it is also worth mentioning that these students have nothing real to compare their school against, considering the vast majority of students have only attended one school. Avant-garde had a good point, you only have to look at the rankings to be quite positive that they're trash. Student ratings are useful, but if you ever look at ratings that are entirely student done like these you see that they only work in conjunction with external ratings. Also, dude, who says hogwash? really...</p>
<p>there, not their in the beginning. My bad.</p>
<p>Nobody knows a product better than the person who has been using it. And when you have thousands of users reporting on the quality of a product, you can bet that you've got something you can rely on. Also, the survey clearly reveals that students approached it honestly. Every school received a variety of grades. The results are also accurate enough to be supported by outside sources.
Given the numerous criteria, this may be one of the most accurate rankings out there, second only perhaps, to US News. Congrats to CC for making it available.</p>
<p>These "rankings" are worthless as "rankings" of anything. Read this thread, from when CC first put them up back in November to understand why: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=261984%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=261984</a></p>
<p>Be very, very careful when you see the word "ranking" on ANY website. Always look for the methodology and hidden agendas. There is already enough mis-information floating around. Choose your information sources wisely and carefully, and make sure you know where the information came from, and whether it is being conveyed in the correct format.</p>
<p>Thanks for that link, Carolyn. I had totally missed the entire discussion. And thank you also for standing up and keeping to your guns about this. It really is beneath the quality I expect from CC, and it was sad to read RD's extremely weak "defense" of it, when he obviously knows it's hogwash.</p>
<p>EDIT: I misunderstood the methodology. This is the group that sells books about each campus.</p>
<p>I still think putting any value on that list is silly.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I really don't see why Parking should be an issue unless it is a large campus.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You haven't read Clark Kerr's famous remark about the role of a college president or chancellor. (Kerr was president of the University of California system a few decades ago, and earlier the first chancellor of the Berkeley campus.) "The chancellor's job had come to be defined as providing parking for the faculty, sex for the students, and athletics for the alumni."</p>
<p>"Be very, very careful when you see the word "ranking" on ANY website. Always look for the methodology and hidden agendas."</p>
<p>Amen to that ... as long as it relates to the CONCLUSIONS aka the purported scientific ranking. However, when discarding the obviously flawed "ranking" one might discover value in the opinions shared. For instance, is the "Cadillac" of the ranking game --USNEws-- really that trustworthy? The answer is no, but people would disagree about WHY they are just a step above polling the readers of People or the National Enquirer for a definitive ranking of colleges. In the end, some swear by the value of the so-called peer assessment and others --me included-- see this part of the entire exercise as a beauty contest prone to the most abject manipulation. This said, there is TREMENDOUS value in the underlying information, be it in the forms of detailed numbers in the USNews, direct quotations by students at Pr0wler or Princeton Review, ultra-biased reviews in ISI's or Pope's books, and the list goes on. </p>
<p>Yes, the methodology of Pr0wler is utter garbage, but still less than Princeton Review's survey where one can vote as a bona fide Kennedy democrat, which is early and often, and probably not worse than USNEws subjective inclusion of manipulated "data points."</p>
<p>Ask yourself this question: If interested in traveling to Cancun or Montreal, would you check the recent accounts at a site such as Travel Advisor or trust the web site of the hotel you plan to stay at? Would the hotel in Cancun REALLY share that their beach has never been rebuild after the last storm? Not more than the college will talk honestly about their food service, the ghost faculty at most large "Research U," the "congenial" 300-400 headcount classes where people sit in the alleys, the lack of decent dorms, or a number of issues only known by ... current students. </p>
<p>The "stupidity" of all those rankings is that they really cater to the ... demands of the public at large. Americans are fascinated by rankings and contests. When looking at rankings, people have a few choices: take it as the new gospel, pick and select the items that speak highly of their favorite schools --which is what most do-- or scratch the surface and identify the limitations of those so-called objective reports. </p>
<p>In the meantime, despite all the limitations and misrepresentations, the alternative of LESS information is still a whole lot worse!</p>
<p>The main flaw being that almost no one doing the ranking attends more than one of the schools, giving them absolutely no basis for the grades given.</p>
<p>Bandit, this is true for questions that are comparative in nature. While your daughter might not be able to compare a class at MIT or BU to a similar one at Harvard, wouldn't she be able to comment on how effective her advisors are or how good the food is? If a pollster ask you about YOUR experience driving a Lexus, there is no need to compare it to taking the metro or driving a Prius.</p>
<p>That is why one has to segregate the flawed questions from the meaningful ones.</p>
<p>If you have only driven Mercedes and BMWs a Lexus will seem average. If you come from a Ford Taurus--it's a revelation.</p>
<p>Yes, but a student moving into a dorm at Yale might have a different opinion if he previously lived in a mansion in Rye, an inner-city project in Detroit, or an igloo in the Far North. The fact that he never spend any time in a dorm at Harvard or Michigan does not invalidate his opinion about the dorm he was offered. A school may have 99.99% of dorms "like palaces" but if yours happens to be in a windowless basement (ask Simba) or a quad in a converted lounge, chances are that your opinion will be different from the typical one and that you'd be one really willing to share it with the world. </p>
<p>It is the statistical aberration that make the anecdotal information important.</p>
<p>And what of schools where most students live off campus? The point being, most people a. have only attended one UG college, b. like the place they are going, c. have a vast range of frame of reference that may differ significantly from school to school.
So how are you to compare across schools that are different in many ways?</p>