<p>midatlmom,
With regard to your most recent comment, I am encouraged by your statement of,</p>
<p>“There are literally hundreds of schools these days that are filled with top-notch teachers, wonderful facilities and interesting academic programs.”</p>
<p>That has been my message all along and I am trying to show this broad quality through a variety of comparisons. People come to these discussions with inherent prejudices, most often the result of their environment and/or a lack of information or too much of a certain media perspective. My reading is that many on CC will immediately accept the historical powers as deserving of their reputations, but this level of regard is rarely extended to colleges that have historically not had the same level of prestige or (fawning) media coverage. </p>
<p>I’m sorry that you don’t like my frequent presentations of data, but I learned long ago that expressing a viewpoint without supporting evidence is not very effective. I have an opinion and I hope that I also have relevant, objective and verifiable supporting data to back up that opinion. My opinion/conclusions are driven by the data and the reality is they often fly in the face of conventional academic wisdom. But my view is that by providing and exchanging data, we can root out the historical prejudices and update the reader’s perspective to the current day. </p>
<p>Some of the exchanges that have occurred as a result of the data presentations have led to new discoveries for me and others and hopefully people are understanding new truths, eg, that ND isn’t a regional school or that USC has greatly improved and is now a realistic competitor to UC Berkeley/UCLA (not to mention a school like Cornell) in a way that it never has been before. And that that top student who heretofore was focused on only a small subset of elite colleges now has a materially wider circle of colleges to consider. And in assisting them, I ask you which is more useful-getting a current view of what a college is today or trying to defend an outdated, nearly monolithic status quo? </p>
<p>If you truly agree with your post above about the great quality of colleges around the country, then I hope you will join me in helping others to appreciate the true value and appeal of all colleges and not just that narrow swath of historical powers.</p>
<p>Great teaching can be found anywhere. It is just that there is just not that much of it to go around. I tell my kids if they get one or two awesome teachers a year they are lucky; and all students will be lucky to get that once in a life time phenomenal teacher that absolutely, completely knocks you over. I do not believe they are concentrated at any one school and I do believe they can be found just as easily at a cc as Harvard.</p>
<p>I attended both a 4th tier private and U of Notre Dame and can honestly say that the teaching at both schools was on even ground.</p>
<p>Hawkette--I see no need to join you in this crusade you have to raise the status of schools such as Emory, USC and Rice that are, quite frankly, very well known and doing enormously well, especially since you seem to insist on raising one school by denigrating others (maybe I have more respect for them than you do, because I've always thought they were excellent schools).</p>
<p>I see no need to join you in what I consider to be useless reworking and illogical use of data to come up with new rankings based on factors you consider important (such as minute scrutiny of SAT scores or intense parsing of 12 year old data).</p>
<p>I am somewhat offended when you lump everyone who doesn't agree with you and your constant lists as defending "an outdated, nearly monolithic status quo". I am very fond of Princeton--the school I went to--but I have never made a claim that any school is the best or that the ivies are better than other schools. Like everyone else, I have some favorite schools and some biases, but in general, I try to keep them to myself. </p>
<p>I think that there are many amazing schools out there (overall, the quality is so much better than when I went to school), that kids can be happy at more than one school and that hopefully, parents and students will cast a wide net in this era of competitive college admissions.</p>
<p>midatlmom,
Sorry that you feel offended. I have no problem with you or anyone else having a contrary view especially if it is supported by current facts rather than historical precedent. </p>
<p>As for Emory, USC, Rice, etc, I wish they were as well known as you think; I doubt it and certainly the pages of CC would lead one to a different conclusion. Even more so, I wish that the academics gave them greater respect vis-a-vis the historical powers. These really are very special universities, many of which can offer a superior undergraduate experience and I hope that my efforts will spur more top high school students to consider them in addition to the usual suspects. </p>
<p>Re Princeton, I love the place and have posted as much many times over. Good luck to you and to the Tigers.</p>
<p>Hawkette- fight the power, girl! There is a huge difference in undergrad experiences and research powerhouses. The people who buy US News are not 22 yr olds looking at grad school. They are highs school kids and parents who dont realize how misleading PA is for their needs. Keep getting the word out about Rice, Tufts et al. </p>
<p>Even if you help only one kid, it will be worth it.</p>
<p>The National Survey of Student Engagement contains some items related to teaching and faculty but nothing that asks directly about the quality of lectures, which is the most important aspect of teaching. Problem is the response rate to NSSE runs about 20%. Good students probably give higher ratings than bad students. Survey sample can be manipulated. Students are probably rating based on a comparison of the worst professors versus the best professors they have had at their school, so it all is relative to expectations which may differ between top-tier schools and second-tier schools.</p>
<p>Emory was listed in the US News best teaching schools in 1996 but their NSSE ratings for "relationships with faculty" are about the same as second and third tier schools like U Alabama and East Tennessee State, U of Hartford.</p>
<p>Middlebury was on the list for best teaching colleges but their NSSE "relationships with faculty" rating is about the same as Judson Coll, Millikin U., Wittenberg, Wofford.</p>
<p>Generally, the LACS seem to beat universities in "discussions with faculty outside of class" but only by 5-10%. I don't see any difference between LACs and universities in "relationships with faculty".</p>
<p>There doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to the student NSSE ratings that have to do with faculty.</p>
<p>So, I think the US News best teaching ratings lack validity. I don't think it is possible to compare schools based on quality of teaching. There just isn't any valid data.</p>
<p>collegehelp,
I like the NSSE surveys as they actually ask the consumer what he/she is seeing in the classroom. However, I concede that its application across colleges is difficult as there is no standard being provided and students are only familiar with their own locations. Nonetheless, some of the graduate school rankings have used these student evaluations as part of their rankings. If nothing else, they can ask the students questions that can help differentiate the classroom experience from the research reputation or other unspecified factors that may influence PA scors. </p>
<p>Also, as mini points out, there are studies done by the COHE that measures the results for similar colleges (there were 31 in the most recent student assessment of faculty quality). My impression is that the differences among this group of schools was not insignificant. Maybe mini can expand on this and comment on if this approach has value for general college comparisons. In this context, where you are measuring schools with similar student profiles and generally similar institutional missions, the cross comparisons might have a little more validity.</p>