<p>I wouldn’t be so stupid as to care about minute differences in USNWR in making such a decision. If my choices were Penn, Duke and Berkeley, the deciding factor (leaving aside any financial differences) would be personal preference and fit, not some nonsense about how one of those three is demonstrably better than the other. If I were choosing between any of the top 20 universities or liberal arts colleges, there’s no bad decision to be made, and there’s really nothing other than personal preference and fit that would need to be taken into account.</p>
<p>Pretty sure I remember reading something on Chronicle a while back saying that even some of administrators who participate in PA don’t take it seriously. I think some administrator rated the whole UC system as distinguished, and rated the Ivies as merely strong or something like that. Pretty sure other administrators did this too. Sure, that’s not probably not accurate of most of the people doing PA, but enough of these people might influence a .1 difference on the rankings from one year to the next.</p>
<p>You put WAY too much stock in what this survey means and the distinctions between a tenth of a point or two in any given year. Did you know that at various points over the last decade or so, Penn has had a Peer Assessment of 4.5, higher than Duke and tied with Columbia? Do you not get that these surveys are filled out–usually in a matter of minutes or seconds–by lots of folks who are just shooting from the hip based on what they’ve kind of heard over the years, including many admissions deans at small regional colleges and universities who have absolutely NOTHING to do with the academics, research, etc. at the top schools? Have you not read over the years the news coverage of scandals involving this very survey, including officials who have ranked down every school but their own, and others who have given the form to their SECRETARIES to complete? You really need to stop viewing this thing as some sort of holy grail, or as any kind of reasoned, informed, comprehensive, data-driven academic study completed by true experts in their fields. It’s intended by US News to be a ROUGH approximation of relative undergraduate academic reputation on an annual basis, and nothing more.</p>
<p>But if you want to consult rankings that TRULY represent the academic reputations of schools, check out the graduate program rankings of US News, the National Research Council, etc. At least those survey actual academic experts in their respective fields who truly DO know the academic reputations of schools in their fields.</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t be so stupid as to care about minute differences in USNWR in making such a decision.”</p>
<p>pizzagirl, personal jabs not only are unwarranted but they make you look petty. I clearly said for purely academic reasons one wouldn’t choose Penn and Duke over Berkeley since Berkeley is demonstrably more academic than the two.</p>
<p>USNWR PA score literally just reflects facts through numbers. Berkeley, for example, isn’t better because USNWR says so. To me, the publication is just relating the message.</p>
<p>It’s to time to wake up, pizzagirl, and quit being immature.</p>
<p>“Do you not get that these surveys are filled out–usually in a matter of minutes or seconds–by lots of folks who are just shooting from the hip based on what they’ve kind of heard over the years, including many admissions deans at small regional colleges and universities who have absolutely NOTHING to do with the academics, research, etc. at the top schools?”</p>
<p>What proof do you have that the process is this shallow? Also, Did you forget that it’s called “peer assessment” for a reason. In other words, Boston College officials aren’t going to be rating Stanford and vice versa and UMiami officials aren’t going to be rating Dartmouth.</p>
<p>As far as I’m concerned you’re just making baseless statements.</p>
<p>Why must I check out USNWR’s ranking of graduate programs when the same argument against the PA scores could be made for the grad programs? I’d venture to even say that the PA scores of most colleges is influenced heavily by the prestige of the grad programs – especially those that are distinguished in the STEM fields.</p>
<p>And let me clarify, I don’t think the PA score rankings is the holy grail. I think one should choose a school based on fit and that entails many different things from setting to cost to post-grad opportunities. But you cant deny that there are some people looking for colleges based purely on academic reasons and that is exactly what USNWR tries to capture with the PA rankings.</p>
<p>Hey, that’s Mort Zuckerman, the owner of US News, and his only Penn degree is an MBA from Wharton. He also has an LL.M. from Harvard, so it should at least share in the blame. :p</p>
<p>And by the way–the mythology to the contrary notwithstanding–Robert Morse, the guy who actually runs the US News college ranking, is NOT a Penn alum. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>JWest, I’m not the immature one. I didn’t tout Duke over Penn over a 0.1 difference on a survey that most of these presidents hand to their secretaries to fill out anyway. And I’m old enough to be your mother.</p>
<p>Here you go! No one is spending time rating 260 colleges / universities. They are straightlining the data, marking based on impressions versus reality, and upgrading their own institutions and downgrading others just to game the system. It’s silly. It’s by far the weakest link in USNWR. At least some of the other info in USNWR is based on fairly-quantifiable objective truth.</p>
And your conclusion is that such people should conclude that Duke is “academically better” than Penn, Dartmouth, Northwestern, Brown, and Michigan, based solely on a 0.1 point difference in this particular year’s unsupervised survey by a for-profit on-line magazine of 400-plus college “officials” from schools that vary widely in size, quality, and geographic location?</p>
<p>pizzagirl, I think you have things VERY backwards, Those in the know already know HYPSM + Berkeley, Caltech have the very best academics. To those that matter, USNWR does little to change this. They’re only relating the message. It doesn’t matter what petty things the handful of school officials do, the schools that are truly on top are on top for a reason.</p>
<p>"And your conclusion is that such people should conclude that Duke is “academically better” than Penn, Dartmouth, Northwestern, Brown, and Michigan, based solely on a 0.1 point difference in this particular year’s unsupervised survey by a for-profit on-line magazine of 400-plus college “officials” from schools that vary widely in size, quality, and geographic location?</p>
<p>Seriously??? "</p>
<p>Yes. Why not? Academic quality counts as a certain type of “fit” right? There’s also a ranking of best undergraduate teaching, which is also helpful in what type of an academic experience you’re looking for. This is why I said PA score rankings are largely influenced by graduate program prestige. It’s most influential if you’re looking for things such as high research funding.</p>
<p>I think Berkeley is clearly #1 in the ranking of “what university will invariably come up on a thread devoted to the merits of two other universities?” Way to go, Berkeley!! You did beat Michigan this time!</p>
<p>You’re seriously conflating here. Yes, academics, departmental reputations, research funding, etc. are valid parameters to examine in determining the relative academic excellence, reputation, etc. of schools. But a 0.1 difference in a particular year’s US News Peer Assessment survey is NOT a rational basis for determining differences in those parameters. At least not for anyone with any true analytical ability or common sense.</p>
<p>Again–and hopefully for the last time–NOBODY with any real knowledge on the subject is going to conclude that Duke is academically better than Penn, Dartmouth, Northwestern, Brown, or Michigan simply because Duke’s average US News PA score in a particular year is 0.1 point higher than that of those other schools. And if you want to maintain even a modicum of credibility on CC, I’d strongly suggest that you stop trying to make that argument. ;)</p>
<p>Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here ;)</p>
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<p>Yet you did make sweeping generalizations about Duke’s student body based on ‘observations’ of some Duke posters; and you simultaneously failed to acknowledge, or ‘observe,’ other highly respected Duke posters on CC who lack the attributes of the former.</p>
<p>Based on the most recent comments, however, I think it’s time to take another quote from our friend Mark Twain: “Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”</p>
<p>Stop with the double talk. if theres no difference from year to year then why would the rankings parse such differences. in fact, why would there be such rankings in the first place. </p>
<p>I love how you use double talk to back up any ounce of argument you have.</p>
<p>And Please, I have a life outside of CC. I dont need the respect or credit from people like you or pizzagirl with thousands of posts.</p>