<p>Ray192: How do you figure that Harvard hands out honors to 90% of the graduating class? I don't think you understand what is meant by honors at Harvard.</p>
<p>collegehelp:</p>
<p>Your evaluation of their "value added" sheds no light into its significance or plausibility. Casper's evaluation, I find, seemed more logical. Also, US News's methods have been analyzed by many statisticians, etc. and many find them at fault. So really, your view of it isn't any more informed that the president of Stanford University. =)</p>
<p>"Caltech has the smartest student body in the world."</p>
<p>I started discounting your opinion at this point.* How much can you generalize and still hold your views on high? Come on.</p>
<p>"They dropped out because the quality of undergraduate education at Caltech sucked."</p>
<p>That further pushed me away from your ideas. Not to mention the diction reveals a bit.</p>
<p>"US News detected this."</p>
<p>I bet they did.</p>
<p>"One reason is that US News improves its formulas."</p>
<p>That's not good enough. If one year, they disseminate the wrong ideas about colleges--by ranking them one way and the parents, etc. take them seriously--and the next year, their rankings are considerably different, it's like saying, "Oops, we were wrong! Sorry to make you think College X was worth it!" (in multiple ways).</p>
<p>"Another reason is that schools change the way they do their calculations to make themselves look better."</p>
<p>You can't blame them, either. People use rankings too much as their yard stick for college, and because of that, universities that are really excellent have to appeal to US News, etc. in order to make a higher ranking and get better applicants, in order to improve the quality of the university. Thus US News is the worst thing to happen to the education industry.</p>
<p>"Perhaps US News shoould be more specific about how to do the calculations. "</p>
<p>Perhaps US News should just stop trying to quantify the different qualities of America's universities.</p>
<p>"The changes in rankings from year to year do not diminish the overall accuracy and value of the rankings."</p>
<p>You can speak for yourself on that one. For me, it does diminish the accuracy and value. Many hold a similar position, because it's too "weasely" for US News to publish a ranking one year and then publish one another year that says "last year's weren't quite right" -- making everyone question whether <em>this</em> year's is right, either.</p>
<p>"Yes, there is a difference between #1 and #2."</p>
<p>No.</p>
<p>"Fine distinctions can be made mathematically."</p>
<p>Nope. Thing is, to use math, you need numbers. To get numbers, you have to have a way to measure things. And there's no way to measure the universities accurately these days. Anyone who says there are perhaps should be a little less ambitious and a little more realistic: universities are too different.</p>
<p>"The Ivies offer uniformly excellent faculty, fellow students, a great culture and climate, exciting intellectual atmosphere, a high level of instruction and discussion, and so on."</p>
<p>This is opinionated to an unbelievable degree. Try Berkeley: it has all of those--it's well known for its faculty, its alumni, its great culture (its right by SF and Oakland, come on), its climate (Bay area, hello), intellectual atmosphere (people are so opinionated it's disturbing), etc. And it's not an Ivy.</p>
<p>Perhaps when you're president of a top university, you might appreciate how other universities compare. =)</p>
<ul>
<li>Technically, it was when you said, "This is a statement of fact, not opinion," but I thought you were joking then.</li>
</ul>
<p>US News changes up the rankings every few years or so mostly because it keeps people buying their books and rankings. If the order of best colleges didn't change in 10 years, how many people would buy the new edition?</p>
<p>Come on, do you really believe that Princeton is so much better than Harvard or Yale? They're all on the same level; it just wouldn't be as exciting to see five or six colleges ranked #1.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The Ivies offer uniformly excellent faculty...
[/quote]
How does one judge faculty? From a 2001 Atlantic Monthly article:
[quote]
The perception of what constitutes an "elite" school often has little to do with academic excellence. After all, one important measure of a university's quality is how many of its faculty members belong to the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The ultra-selective Brown counts among its faculty sixteen who are members. Duke, the object of many a prep school student's swoon, has thirty-five. But the University of Washington has seventy-one, Wisconsin sixty-four, Michigan fifty-eight, Texas fifty-four, and Illinois fifty-three.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>^^^ yeah but how many of those award winning faculty members spend any significant time with undergrads vs. grad students (or vs. their own research)?</p>
<p>Undergraduate focused schools such as Princeton, Dartmouth and Brown require every professor to teach an undergraduate class. No such luck at those larger research oriented schools. Publish or perish!</p>
<p>
[quote]
So, I want your opinion. How different to you are, say, Stanford and Harvard, in terms of quality? Or Cornell and UCLA? Berkeley and Yale? Ignore the rankings you've read. Go by what you've seen yourself.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>All 6 of those schools are amazing.</p>
<p>I personally think Syracuse University is just as good as Princeton, and if anyone has a problem with that...well, that would be kinda silly to get in a debate over which is a better school, now wouldn't it?</p>
<p>To collegehelp re your comment,</p>
<p>"The Ivies are superior to non-Ivies in ways that can make a real difference. It is a matter of degree, of course. The Ivies offer uniformly excellent faculty, fellow students, a great culture and climate, exciting intellectual atmosphere, a high level of instruction and discussion, and so on. The prestige factor in the Ivies is based on underlying quality."</p>
<p>When I read this comment the first time I could not believe someone actually had the guts (stupidity?) to put this out there. The arrogance of the statement amazes me. Do you really think that the Ivies are the only place that one can find excellent faculty, fellow students, a great culture and climate, exciting intellectual atmosphere, a high level of instruction and discussion, and so on? I cant help but wonder if you have ever visited some of these inferior universities, eg, Stanford, Duke, Chicago, WashU, Northwestern, Rice, Emory, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Johns Hopkins. These schools have all that you mention and then some as they each have unique and highly attractive environments and cultures. As your comment so obviously demonstrates, wisdom does not begin and end with the Ivy League.</p>
<p>Re your comment on the publics having an inferior culture to the Ivies because of their spectator sports, this ranks as one of the dumbest comments that I have ever read on CC. What makes you conclude that good athletic precludes excellent academics? I doubt that you even know what YOU are missing by not attending one of these publics and getting the opportunity to attend one of these games as a fan. Have you ever been to a Big Ten football game at Michigans Big House? An ACC basketball game at UNCs Dean Smith Center? A Pac 10 football game at UCBs Memorial Stadium? Do you even know what the Big Ten, ACC, or Pac 10 are??? These schools offer terrific academics and the college experience is so much broader than what you will find in the Ivy League. Perhaps the average public school student is not as academically qualified, but I suspect that average students at these non-Ivy schools have the common sense not to insult everyone who did not attend an Ivy League school.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Going by what I've seen, I would tier the top schools into 4 groups:</p>
<p>Tier 1: Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Yale, Princeton
Tier 2: Columbia, Caltech, Cornell, Chicago
Tier 3: Penn, Duke, Brown, Northwestern, Dartmouth
Tier 4: Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, Rice</p>
<p>That's just my opinion though...
[/quote]
</p>
<p>And in my opinion, it's outrageous to say that you're guaranteed to get a better educational experience at Yale than at Rice just because one is in the fictional Tier 1, another in Tier 4. </p>
<p>Top colleges are full of intangibles, go where you can and where you're comfortable and try to get the best education you can.</p>
<p>Kudos, hawkette . . . kudos.</p>
<p>kyledavid80-
The part of my post that was fact, not opinion, was that Garhard Casper didn't understand the US News methods nor the principles behind them. That's true. </p>
<p>US News does a great job of capturing the differences among colleges. They provide a valuable service. Their rankings and data are not perfect nor are they indisputable but their information is very helpful. It is much better than making choices based on reputations, hearsay, vague impressions, and advertising alone. I prefer knowledge to ignorance, even when the knowledge is imperfect. Evaluating universities and colleges is a complex undertaking. I would be surprised and disappointed if US News didn't constantly look for ways to improve.</p>
<p>I think that it is possible to make fine distinctions among schools. You have to make decisions about which factors to consider and how much weight to give them but, once to decide on the formula, the calculation simply has to be accurate. The formula is debateable.</p>
<p>Schools differ in ways that elude quantification. But, I think you should make such decisions with your head as well as your heart. Your head should inform your heart. Otherwise you risk being victimized by emotional and biased marketing appeals. The question is: How different do schools have to be before you start to feel the difference?</p>
<p>There are a lot of great schools. But it is wrong to think that the Ivies' reputation is undeserved. </p>
<p>hawkette-
There really is something special about the Ivies. It is hard to describe and analyze. But, I know there are excellent non-Ivies. Prospective students should not be mislead into think that Berkeley=Yale. No, I have not visited all of the top universities. </p>
<p>Watching a football game certainly isn't the worst thing you could do with your time. The emphasis on intercollegiate athletics at some universities is detracts from the fundamental mission of the university. It confuses prospective students because they associate great spectator sports with great academics. Spectator sports hold too much sway at universities that market themselves via the athletics program. Such schools compromise their principles. The Ivies have a better perspective on sports. Personal fitness is more important. Our society places too much emphasis on spectator sports. It is a sickness: a waste of time, energy, and money. People would be better off spending their energies on activities that benefit them rather than living vicariously by watching other people have fun and have exciting careers and make lots of money. Get a life. Spectator sports are a sort of perceptual addiction.</p>
<p>Finding the school that fits you best is the key. The more you know, the better you can find the best fit. The way you feel about the school is important, too, but your feelings should be informed by the facts.</p>
<p>So are you saying that Stanford and MIT are worse than Brown because they are not ivies?</p>
<p>The problem with USNews is that the formula each year is arbitrary. They provide no justification for the factors they include, or the ones they leave out. It is easy to think of other metrics that could be useful indicators of the level of students and education that USNews ignores. </p>
<p>How about mean scores on MCAT, LSAT, GRE? </p>
<p>How about percent of students getting advanced degrees? </p>
<p>How about percent of students winning prestigious awards? Publishing original work? </p>
<p>All would reflect a combination of student ability and academic opportunities. All ignored. </p>
<p>Further, there is no justification of the weights placed on each factor. USNews reports what percent of the overall rank is based on each, but do not (because they cannot) give a reason for why. </p>
<p>Why not give much more weight, or much less, to percent of faculty who are full time? No reason, they just pull the number out of the air. </p>
<p>Why assume that all factors contribute independently and linearly? Why no interaction terms? Why no power or log relationships?</p>
<p>Why are some metrics based on rank, and others on the absolute figures?</p>
<p>On Caltech's graduation rate: It is useful to applicants to know that it was quite low, given the resources of the students. Why it has increased (if that is more than noise in the data) remains unclear. It could be more support to struggling students, it could be more careful admissions on the part of the college, to weed out those not sufficiently committed to the narrow range of options available at Caltech, or it could be better self selection by students who are really sure they want what Caltech offers. There is no "right" number for how many people graduate, so it is silly to rank one place higher than another on that basis.</p>
<p>Collegehelp,</p>
<p>Omigod…I just don’t know where to begin to respond to your post # 30. For starters, let me inform you that my spouse has a graduate degree from one of your precious Ivy institutions. I spent two years in an Ivy environment and have visited seven of the eight Ivy schools. I count among my friends and acquaintances, personal and professionals, literally dozens of Ivy graduates. Having said all that, I have thankfully never encountered such a superior attitude from any of them. IMO, your posts, at least in this thread, could be the poster displays of how to turn people off from the Ivy League and quintessentially reflect the elitist attitudes that so many of the hoi polloi detest and resent. </p>
<p>As for your comments about sports, I don’t think you words could display greater detachment from American society (not to mention a great disdain for people who like sports). The AI may set a standard above which Ivy athletes must academically achieve, but have you ever done the math that you need in order to reach that exalted 181 level? These guys and gals ain’t Einsteins. Anybody with even a passing knowledge of Ivy sports knows and sees that nearly every school in the Ivy League is littered with scores of athletic recruits from “spectator sports” like football and basketball to others like squash, fencing, crew, lacrosse, field hockey, etc. I think you are living in a dream world if you think the Ivy League is somehow exempt from what goes on in college athletics.</p>
<p>Re the role that sports plays in a school and its place in society, you clearly don’t understand the social and entertainment role that athletics play in everyday life in our society, including at our colleges. Do you really mean to impugn all those who go to a college football game (it could even be a Harvard-Yale game!!) and tailgate before and after the games and by doing so, demonstrate that they have no life (in your opinion)? And as for personal fitness, there have been numerous rankings published about the fittest schools. I don’t remember seeing any of the Ivies anywhere in these rankings. </p>
<p>In conclusion, I concur with your final suggestion that “fit” is most important, but, my friend, I must also add that I believe it is you who is lacking the facts and the perspective of knowing much about how the world lives (and excels) outside of the Ivy League.</p>
<p>"And in my opinion, it's outrageous to say that you're guaranteed to get a better educational experience at Yale than at Rice just because one is in the fictional Tier 1, another in Tier 4."
I didn't say that you are guaranteed a better education at Yale than Rice. I said that I believe, overall, Yale is better than Rice. Obviously, there are some things which Rice is better than Yale at (ie nanotechnology), but OVERALL, Yale is a better school.</p>
<p>"The part of my post that was fact, not opinion, was that Garhard Casper didn't understand the US News methods nor the principles behind them."</p>
<p>You aren't in a position to make such a judgment, methinks.</p>
<p>"It is much better than making choices based on reputations, hearsay, vague impressions, and advertising alone. I prefer knowledge to ignorance, even when the knowledge is imperfect."</p>
<p>I don't remember refuting such.</p>
<p>"The formula is debateable."</p>
<p>If "debateable" is synonymous with "nonexistent," then yes, I quite agree.</p>
<p>"Otherwise you risk being victimized by emotional and biased marketing appeals."</p>
<p>If you were under the impression that my ideas on this subject were th result of "emotional and biased marketing appeals," then I'd have to dismantle that misapprehension and illuminate to you how very incorrect your assumptions are. At present, I'm going to pretend I didn't see that. =)</p>
<p>"There are a lot of great schools. But it is wrong to think that the Ivies' reputation is undeserved."</p>
<p>I don't remember having said that it was undeserved. The Ivies are excellent schools. But I think many non-Ivies deserve a similar reputation.</p>
<p>"Prospective students should not be mislead into think that Berkeley=Yale."</p>
<p>Of course not. They shouldn't be mislead to think that Berkeley=Yale, any more than to think Stanford=Princeton or Yale=Harvard or Dartmouth=UMich. This is precisely what I am saying. No two universities are the same, and all have too many different qualities to be ranked.</p>
<p>To quantify a university--to assign it a variety of useless numbers--is to undermine exactly what a university is. If anyone finds that objectifying a place of higher education is appropriate--or better yet, plausible-- then he or she is searching for value in the wrong way.</p>
<p>"Finding the school that fits you best is the key."</p>
<p>I'm glad you've caught on.</p>
<p>"The more you know, the better you can find the best fit."</p>
<p>Indeed, which is why researching each university and comparing them--not ranking them--is best.</p>
<p>"The way you feel about the school is important, too, but your feelings should be informed by the facts."</p>
<p>I most heartily agree. =) And one would find that the facts are both quantities and qualities. Further, one would find that the latter is more important. But above all, one would find that the two can't and won't coalesce.</p>
<p>hawkette-
My comments don't stem from a superior, elitist attitude. I harbor no such attitude. </p>
<p>My comments about the excellence of the Ivy League schools is merely an attempt to tell prospective students about the generally superior qualities of Ivy League education (including factors like prestige, tradition, history, and culture as well as academic excellence) so they can make an informed decision. There a few non-Ivies that almost have the same, complete package that the Ivies offer (e.g. Stanford) but it is irresponsible to mislead prospective students into thinking that the top 25 or 50 schools are equivalent. </p>
<p>My audience consists of students who have not yet made a decision. My intention is not to demean anybody's school. There are lots of great schools that would be a privilege to attend. But, if you aspire to an Ivy League education you should not be disuaded by the homogeneity arguments. </p>
<p>Regarding athletics...people invest way too much energy and resources on spectator sports. Universities should emphasize participation in athletics and personal fitness. They shouldn't encourage their students to be passive bystanders in life. An emphasis on spectator sports is great publicity and makes money but it is not in the best interests of students.</p>
<p>kyledavid80-
The rankings are a way to help consumers make comparisons among colleges. When you study colleges in depth and develop a list of reaches, safeties, matches, first choice, second choice, third choice, etc you are creating a personal ranking. US News has created a ranking based on it's expert examination of the facts. Prospective students can use it as they create their personal ranking.</p>
<p>I am in a position to judge Gerhard Casper's letter. I can read.</p>
<p>I think we are more in agreement than you seem to realize.</p>
<p>Collegehelp, the problem that I and many others have with your statements is that although you claim to not have an elitist attitude, it appears in your writing that you believe that all Ivy league schools are superior to non Ivys and that a school in the top 25 is not equal in any manner to an Ivy league school.</p>
<p>My first problem is the simple classification of "The Ivy League Schools" THe Ivy League is an thletic conference, and the schools that compromise are extremely different. For example, the academic standards to get into say Harvard or Princeton are much more stringent then to get into Cornell. The schools each have their own individual strengths and weaknesses, for example I believe Harvard's undergraduate engineering is not close to a program such as MIT's. Secondly, your opinion on athletics is simply ridiculous. Why do students look for schools that have great sports? Because people enjoy being part of a great program. Having a great athletic team instills school pride and will have more people go to the school not for academics true, but college should not simply be all about which school has the best academic programs. Thirdly, addressing the US News rankings. While there are differences in schools, they're negligible in the context of the programs, and should not be equated with a numerical ranking. Ratings of colleges should be used to give a general idea of how the programs are, not a number. The data that is used can be twisted any way to change the rankings, I recall seeing a ranking where Harvard was ranked out of the top 10. You're entitled to your opinion, but I would ask that you adress some of these arguments.</p>
<p>"The rankings are a way to help consumers make comparisons among colleges."</p>
<p>I'm aware.</p>
<p>"When you study colleges in depth and develop a list of reaches, safeties, matches, first choice, second choice, third choice, etc you are creating a personal ranking."</p>
<p>Not the same kind of ranking. When you rank colleges by order of choice, you're going by what fits you. For example: Harvard and all Ivies are quite low on my choice list, simply because they're too far away (3000+ miles). The climate at, say, Harvard, isn't favorable to me, either. The price is another thing. That's why I'm not even considering the Ivies (since there are, to me, better if not equal schools in California: Berkeley or Stanford).</p>
<p>"US News has created a ranking based on it's expert examination of the facts."</p>
<p>To you, it's "expert." To me, it isn't. Thing is, US News relies on proxies, nothing but statistical proxies, to make their rankings. Their "added value" and "student:faculty ratio" factors may or may not indicate the quality of education at these schools. Again, I'll assert as Casper did: US News is far from discovering "The Formula."</p>
<p>"I am in a position to judge Gerhard Casper's letter. I can read."</p>
<p>If you say so. But that tempts me to say that, as a fact, not opinion, you have no idea what you're talking about. (I can read, as can others. I also read "it's" as "it is.")</p>
<p>"I think we are more in agreement than you seem to realize."</p>
<p>No. You come off as an elitist, uninformed person who has too much faith in math, statistics, and measurement. As such, your ideas follow the same pattern. Consequently, I prefer to distance my own ideas from yours.</p>
<p>Collegehelp,</p>
<p>While you may not believe that you have a superior, elitist view I encourage you to review your posts within this threads. IMO (as well as several other readers), your words belie an imperial perspective that holds all of the Ivy League schools as better than virtually every other university in the land. While I (and others) concur that there is great student and faculty talent at all of the Ivy League schools, I/we know also that there is great talent at many other excellent colleges across our great country. I am guessing from your prior posts that you are an academic in the scientific fields and that you are associated with Cornell. If I am correct, then perhaps you are psychologically obstructed by the group think of the Northeast (that considers the Ivies to be the masters of the universe) and that you are geographically impeded from having an informed and accurate understanding of the non-Ivy Top 25 schools. </p>
<p>While the eastern educational establishment remains preeminent, college educational strength in this country is now fortunately dispersed and there is no longer an Ivy monopoly. IMO, your statements reflect someone who is marching backward into the future, using the rear view mirror as your guide. I can’t encourage you strongly enough to learn more about the schools that you have previously dismissed and the unique environments that they offer and which you believe are inferior to those of the Ivy League. Specifically, I am suggesting that you consider anew your perceptions of Top 25 non-Ivy, non-Northeastern schools such as Duke of Durham, Rice of Houston, Northwestern and UChicago of Chicago, WashU of St. Louis, Emory of Atlanta, Vanderbilt of Nashville, Notre Dame of South Bend, Carnegie Mellon of Pittsburgh, Georgetown of Washingon DC, and the major public universities of UC-Berkeley, Virginia, Michigan, and UC-Los Angeles. For those of us in the rest of the country (and without an Ivy axe to grind), these schools are considered the equivalent or better than many (or even most) in the Ivy League, particularly Cornell. </p>
<p>Finally, I suggest that you modify your perceptions of the role that non-academic factors play in one’s college education and experience. Classroom learning is obviously the original and central purpose of a university, but student lessons also come from many non-academic experiences (varsity and club athletics, various clubs offered at a school, social outlets like fraternities and sororities or eating clubs, non-traditional learning opportunities such as Study Abroad or internships, etc.). These factors have considerable influence on the culture of a college campus and quite often serve as the deciding elements as a high schooler evaluates a college for “fit.” For many students (including many in the Ivy League) and for many prospective employers, such non-academic activities, and how the student developed in these activities, have considerably more value and importance than how one scored in a Physics class.</p>
<p>I'm not sure why anyone would think the Ivies as a whole are a group of the best schools...when you look at how strong students at each school actually are, you can see not all Ivies are created equal.</p>
<p>Harvard 1400 - 1580
Yale 1400 - 1580
Cal Tech 1470 - 1580 *
MIT 1430 - 1570 *
Princeton 1380 - 1560
Stanford 1370 - 1550 *
Dartmouth 1350 - 1550
Duke 1360 - 1540 *
Chicago 1360 - 1530 *
Brown 1330 - 1530
Columbia 1330 - 1530
Penn 1340 - 1520
Northwestern 1320 - 1500 *
Cornell 1290 - 1480</p>
<p>A list of schools that are considered the best in the country, with their SAT score percentiles next to them (I think its for the Class of 2010). Non-Ivies have a * next to them. Looks like Cal Tech, MIT, Stanford, Duke, Chicago, and Northwestern can keep up with the rest of them. Being an Ivy doesn't make the school stronger neccesarily - a true statement would be 'every Ivy is a great school,' not 'every Ivy is a better school'</p>
<p>^^^ thoughtprocess, this is an interesting list.</p>
<p>i think its a very compelling counter against those who argue that the Ivies are "the only elite schools" in the country.</p>
<p>but for those who have acknowledged that there are indeed many great schools alongside the Ivies - still - i actually think this list also serves as a very compelling list demonstrating the overall strength of the Ivies - in other words, it seems that every Ivy (save perhaps Cornell) is right there in the thick of it: 7 Ivies claiming a spot in the top 12 - that seems solid to me.</p>